Katya is spending some quality time with her grandparents. Grandma is teaching her nursery rhymes that are either oh-so-20th century, or failed to cross the Atlantic, or have not yet reached Katya for some other reason.
[As narrated by Katya's Grandma]
Grandma: “One Two Three Four Five Once I caught a fish alive!”
Katya: “Did you really catch a fish, Grandma?!”
Grandma (playing along): “Yes I did.”
Katya: “Was grandpa helping you?”
Grandma (applies boolean logic): “No.”
Katya: “Where was he when you caught the fish?”
Grandma (to use a chess term … pinned, but escapes the check): “He had gone to the temple.”
[a little later, as observed by Grandma]
Katya (in a singsong voice with action): “One Two Three Four Five Six Seven … Once I caught a Swan!”
The local library hosted five-time Olympian Dara Torres, and obviously, I had to go listen. Too bad Baab is not here right now; he would have loved to be there. Anyway, I got to record most of her motivational* talk (I hope there is no copyright on that; at least, the audience was not told not to record). Here is the first segment (all five segments are on YT):
Apologies for the relatively poor video; the emphasis, of course, is on the audio.
The audience loved her speech and, when I left, there was a really long line of kids queued up for autographs, book signing and photos.
* = Not that I am searching for motivation – my mother started her teaching career after she was 40, in the India of the 20th Century
As part of normal co-curricular activities in Baab’s school, an intra-house quiz competition was underway. Participants were from Class IV through Class VII, and the audio-visual round was on. An actor’s photo was displayed on the screen – participants had to identify him. No one from Team 1 could figure out who the actor was. All the other teams passed as well. The question now goes to the audience. Baab has his hand raised high… and, when asked, answers the question correctly!!
No prizes to my readers if they guess the actor without audio or visual clues! Suffice it to say that to a kid who I rocked on my lap to songs such as ‘सुन लो सुनाता हूँ तुमको कहानी‘, ‘चक्के में चक्का‘ and ‘अकेले अकेले कहाँ जा रहे हो‘ (audio and/or video) when he was a toddler, it was child’s play
Baab’s grandfather was heard commenting that Team 1 would have easily answered the question had it been Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan. My response was that Baab would need to spend a few days at his uncle’s place to get to know those gentlemen (on the tube, not in real life).
A related thought: When I was in school (and probably even today), old songs were dubbed a ‘दादाजी के ज़माने का गाना’ (grandfather’s song). In this particular instance though, that term is pretty accurate given that I learned – and learned to appreciate – these very songs by listening to my father hum/sing them when I was a kid!
* – to those born in the 21st century … or later(!!) (if you are reading this post), the answer to the quizmaster’s question is/was Shammi Kapoor!
Long long ago, when Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger were the new kids (literally) on the block Tennis court, one of the players at the time – I believe it was either Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova – had made the comment I used as the title of this post.
Guess what? The tigresses are getting tinier and tinier, but they still are as ferocious. Last weekend, I went to the local Tennis joint to check out a local tournament (the first time that I have been to one); I believe it was at the intra-state level.
This tiny girl was pretty competitive from the very beginning (at least, from the point at which I started watching) of this later-round match, which I later learned that she lost. With every one of either her well played point or her opponents error, she would egg herself on with a “Come ON!” and it was funny to watch her question line calls – there were three different points of inflection that she used (for the same question, repeated thrice) when questioning a line call that her opponent made – “Are you sure?” Here she is (as you can see, she is probably barely taller than her racket):
Then there was Noah in the under-14s – I could not (and still cannot) believe that was U-14! They could not have been more than 12 (maybe they were not and were just playing at the higher level). But boy, were they whacking the ball around. Their normal rallies were longer than probably the longest I have ever rallied with my Tennis buddies. Here is a sample:
It was fun watching the kids so I could do a reality check as to where I would rank. I am glad to say that I believe I can still probably beat out the under-10 boys and give a tough fight to the under-12 girls in Tennis! Watching these kids was a revelation, to say the least. I mean, the under-10 girls were probably serving better than I ever did – definitely in terms of the first serve percentage and maybe just about my serving speed.
I guess it is time for me to get to the drawing board, and figure out the geometrics of my serve and see how and why it is that I have such a difficult time placing the ball in the right rectangle!
There is a proverb about apples not falling far from their trees. Here is some more proof (while you read it, Mrs. and Mr. Porcupyn are having a discussion as to who is the apple tree referred to above):
Grandfather was trying to fix Katya’s broken toy. After a few minutes, he gave up and declared, “Hmmm … (a) spring is missing”. Immediately, Baab piped up: “Amma, that means we will be short a whole season!!”
