Words

It happens with me when I'm stuck on a thought and then I find many references around it. Like I am thinking about importance of words, giving name to something etc. Sometimes ago when a friend was worried about her daughter's  study...I felt learning subject is not tough for children, they understand things but difficult part with school is they have to write what they understood and that becomes tough part for most of the children.

Language is an important tool man has invented for expressions. But is there any language for understanding things? Is there any measure how much one has understood the point?  For understanding something language power  is must?

After sports we three return home on my activa...it's routine. From I pick up Ashna from gymnastics class about 6 km away  to home it is our jolly ride. Both sings many of their favorite songs loudly, laughs and have endless talks. Nowadays they love Jodha Akbar's 'Jashne Bahara...' and remembers whole song. Once I asked do they know meaning of Urdu words used in that song? They don't. I tried to explain but they stopped me telling they loves this song as it is, no need of meaning!. They didn't want to dissect this lovely song. Okey....music generated by those words is more important than their meanings?


Found Harivanshray Bachchan's lovely poem on FB. Are our words capable to describe that beauty, that music, that love, that power?

 
While doing Arvind Gupta toys  I never try to 'teach' science behind any toy...not to my children and not to children in other workshop/summer camp. I just like amazing feeling on children's face and don't want to spoil it making it subject of any teaching. But teachers and some parents says what is the meaning of making and playing with toys if we don't teach them science behind them?! What I feel is...when a child makes a toy, even a simple toy... he has to try different skills he already possess and in order to make it working he learns things by trial & error and that is enough.....but more than learning by heart or feeling teachers/parents like to connect it with scientific terms and when they try so I can see science & even toys becomes boring.

Yes...science seems hard field to many. Science is so much around us but still it's difficult subject! It reminds me Richard Feynman's childhood story and famous quote "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."

 I think  J. Krishnamurti said, when a child ask why the leaf is green then giving him answer 'it's because of chlorophyll' seems meaningless. But today how many of us explains function and importance of food to our children without using protein and calcium? Do we think, does it make sense to children or not?

Life is simple and language is great tool...then why  make life complex using difficult language/terminology? 

 


 

Clay work

Clay is probably first play thing of human kind...and we all still love to play with it. It's still fascinating.

Megh loves to play with clay since long but he made his first recognizable shape recently of Shivling!  'Oh my God's dialogue  "use kala patthar nahi Shivling kahete he" made Megh suddenly interested in Shivling and made one...took my help making Nandi. Colored and worshiped too! I have made some beads and earrings.

We all had different plan. Me and Megh happy with our single day clay work and Ashna made one red mask attached with key chain ring. She made,break and again made some artifacts but somehow she was not happy with her work. She left it for some days. But one day she amazed me by her creation.

As a little girl she was used to set her barbie dolls in gymnastics position and now making sculpture in dancing position! Nobody taught her but that's why it's beautiful work.

 

Dream is dream either small or big

Two days back Megh learned typing Gujarati on Gujarati typepad and y'day he wrote 'My dream came true. I have build my small hotel and served food. I'm very happy. I earned 8 Rs. in a day.'


Megh made delicious Tuver-ringan (pigeon peas+brinjal) sabzi with green garlic and garnished it with coriander...th he don't like coriander leaves taste. Then when he asked 'why i liked it so much?'...i explained him in detail how aroma and garnishing along with taste makes dishes mouthwatering. Then he asked 'how do we know person liked our recipe or not?' i said 'from the speed he finish it !' Then suddenly i remembered Vithal Kamath's incidence of tasting food out of dish his customer left to check why he left it and told him abt Kamath's book 'Idli,Orchid and me'.....then he became so eager to read it. It is my fav. book but found it's missing from my bookshelf! I brought one from library and Megh has read some chapters. He always love to prepare and serve food...so he is liking Kamat's story. That day he started selling Mamra, made his own cone with logo and charged 2Rs. per cone. Then started taking orders of different recipes he can cook and so does his dream came true!!! 'Dream came true' probably learned from 'Idli,Orchid and me'!

For us this is play but for child you can't differentiates it from learning. Selling mamra or taking food order  everything happening with sincerity. Also learning different recipes himself from you tube. He charged & gathered money to buy supplies for next orders!And from his note come to know that he earned money too!!!

This is still an easy dream but another one is there since long...making own boat! We have floating boat but he want his own boat. Not toy boat or not just raft...want to make boat on which he can go for sailing!  Difficult and frustrating! I tried to divert him by making toy boat, he made and enjoyed but not satisfied. He ask for our help but we can't help making wooden 'Real' boat. He made his ship himself out of this frustration as shown in earlier post of Child's creations. but nothing brought peace to him.

 Sometime back he started making his wooden boat himself without anyone's help. Done all the carpentry work he can do, sanded and painted too. Have seen many videos and websites...th he is not fluent english reader he keeps gathering information from pictures and diagrams mostly. Once during morning walk he explained what is V-hull and why it should be of V shape. Front V-hull cuts water and gives direction and speed ! Name of boat given from his fav. word 'swimming'! Now he want to try it in river. After that he realized fevicol and putty will not stay in water, need stronger structure , need more wood...but still  hasn't give up. We could not help but he followed Rabindranath's poem "Ekla chalo re..."

I probably couldn't express his wish, dream or frustration here in words but if you have any idea which can help me to help him please share with me.

The Healer

Being normal human  I too get tired, irritate, frustrate, go mad sometimes...but then it's life. Most of the time you just needs a caring hand. I'm grateful I have one.

Since his early age Megh loves to use acupressure jimmy...he has seen Nikhil giving me treatment using jimmy and he just imitated. Though with little hands he can not press hard or find proper point but it is always healing and relaxing experience for me. He used to make potion using Tulsi, Ginger, Lemon grass, Cardamom or what ever herbs he finds for stomach pain or headache. Once he just added cinnamon and clove powder to water and it became very good mouth freshener!  He don't know what to use or how it helps but just he wish to help.

It was very busy day, many task on hand since morning, climbing stairs up and down, frustrated due to some reason and badly needed some rest but couldn't find it. Megh came to me "Mummy, what do you like most ?, I want to give that to you" I said "Right now I just need a hug from you" He hugged and said "Peace, I want to give you Peace in gift!!!" Then he went to a room, closed curtains, arranged pillows to make comfortable seating, hold my hand and took me to that room. Requested Ashna "don't disturb" and closed the door. He told me to close eyes, then he sat besides me holding and caressing my hand gently. Hardly five minutes and all my stress gone away , I was relaxed,  happy with my son's gift of Peace!

Last week I had headache and some stomach  problem...he brought a Phudin Hara pill and water along with acupressure treatment so I relax fast. Then with my surprise he came with drum and before he start playing I stopped him "Pl. don't play drum right now" ...i was in trouble and he was hurt by my tone started crying! "I want to play drum in a manner to soothe your pain" !!! Oh God, how many times I will do mistake to know the child.

Life is beautiful even if with pain, with such a healing hand.

DIY - wall painting!

Since about a month we are doing really hard work...Walls of our home full of children's art work by crayon,pencil & water color!, really in worst condition after some re-baring of ceiling, water proofing problem  and other repair works and we painted them about 10 years ago. So painting walls is badly needed task at home.

   
    It was looking like a tough task...we were hesitating to take it on hand. But one fine morning we just started and children too enthusiastically joined us.

     The first task is preparing wall for paint is the toughest of all........ scrubbing and sanding requires quite a hard work. Tried and learned many tricks to remove crayon work, found tooth paste best in it!

     
     Facing many wall preparing challenges & learning many tricks for them, listening radio, discussions on  flaws & fixes  and selection of colors, getting completely dirty while working hard, making mistakes and learning from them...finally we have completed painting two rooms. We are going slowly and still have lot of work pending but now our team is confident.


          From scrubbing, sanding, filling putty, applying primer and finally painting walls with brush & roller.....so many skills needed to finish wall painting. Children participated according to their energy, mood and will but both have involved themselves in almost everything. Rather reaching professional perfection we have tried to do our best.

 

Kid's creations.

I love drawing but i always need an object in front of me to draw the image on paper, whether it is flower, leaf, photograph, picture, situation, landscape, person anything. I can hardly draw something directly from my imagination or i need to try really hard. To draw a train or ship i need picture of it in front of me....i'm dependent, i feel helpless. No doubt i enjoy creating such drawings and it brings delight to my children. I have never been trained for art of drawing...just drawing periods of school time, but i feel to draw more than technical aspects i'm lacking something fundamentally. Is it lack of keen observation? lack of practice to draw different curves? poor imagination? absence of creativity?....don't know but i always feel i can't express myself completely with drawing.

But with kids I have always felt they don't have to think before creating something whether it is drawing, craft or anything.....it's spontaneous action.

Planning was of making Ganesh from paper-mache but due to Kathak program and gymnastics competition couldn't have time and when realized that we are too late Ashna made Ganesh from cardboard within 10 minutes and decorated with color LED from a broken toy!

A quick drawing from Megh..........Turtle mummy brought tiny kids to play on this 'learning while playing' ride...built of stone, wood and cement! 

Another quick craft from Megh!

Megh's ship!... front wooden pieces is 'mast' ; thermocole is 'yard' of his ship by moving it can change direction of ship and wires is air pump removed from aquarium ... he used it for oxygen need while diving!

Love all these creative energy.....

Expecting perfection from a child

I remember whenever we have to weave paat ( cloth strips ) on charpai my father couldn't control his anger cause being perfectionist he not like slight difference in distance between any two strips. Though he is perfectionist he never forced me to be but slowly by observing him i too took his path and believed to do everything perfectly. My books were up to date, uniform always ironed, clean shoes, perfect preparation before exam and try hard to keep every corner of my study table and home neat and clean. I used to spend my lot of energy behind perfection. But after being mother everything changed. Then freedom became much more important than perfection. I left perfection far behind.

Children have to draw perfect circle and must have to fill color under the boundary is the first thing that made me think about development of creativity at school. It's an art, how can you force a nursery kid to draw in a particular way?! Teacher praises kid's perfection in drawing, craft, writing etc. and then starts 'pleasing the teacher game' instead child's own expression th art. Children coming from obedient culture at home adapt it easily but not all. 'Practice makes a man perfect' and teacher gives homework of writing same spelling 10 times or 25 times!!!...utter wastage of precious childhood :(

When parents try to impose good habits, manners, etiquette etc. they uses 'that's like a good girl'...isn't it a tool to mold child in perfect person? Before a child could understand meaning of 'sorry' and 'thank you' they have to use it as parent tell them to say it. Perfection towards socially excepted behavior by pleasing others. Have seen many parents hitting kids for making cloths dirty...another kind of perfection push.

 'Perfection' is not a bad word in itself....in fact that's our ultimate goal. Nothing wrong in providing yourself as 'perfection' model but imposing it might damage something irreversibly. For parents child's perfection in academic, sports, behavior, art, smartness etc. is the measure of good parenting, child perform good and parents feel proud but child's failure makes them feel bad. Today's child-oriented parenting making it tough for the children to flourish with this rush for perfection.

As toddler Ashna wanted to attend marriage reception wearing slipper, and she did !. Megh always says "what's need of cloth inside home?" he's happy with his Mogli style, it's ok...but if there is guest he knows now not wearing cloth is not freedom  (This is for parents who wrongly takes word 'freedom'). They might not look fashionable smart kids but they are free...not rushing to behave like an adult.

 Ashna was drawing and filled whole page with black crayon lines , our friend shocked and said oh, she wasted whole page! Her jr. KG teacher rejected Ashna from annual cultural program saying she don't have perfect steps! Megh was 2 yr old and we planned making Ganesh idol with friends, we were talking and before we start Megh came with his Ganesh. He tried to make head, hands, legs and round stomach, not joined them but just put them together. That was very quick and instead appreciating his efforts they found it funny, they laughed comparing it with ideal Ganesh idol!

Today Ashna is 10 and Megh 7...they love to make different things...sometimes makes with help sometimes without any help. Most of the time perfection is missing but sometimes they do really nice work. For me every creation by my children is precious because I know how much thinking process, passion, hard work, efforts they have added to it....and whatever coming is their own original work and not copied from somewhere. It's the same force of creation by which this whole world exists...when inner energy (Shakti) combines with the work (Purusharth) , new creation emerges.

“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” – Salvador Dali