Pesum Porchithiramae ! - #5

Maanasi is known for her improv songs and tunes. On one such occasion when the little "maestro" was on a roll, my wife wanted me to bring the cellphone to take a video but wanted to make sure the little one does not get self conscious and stops singing. So, my wife conveyed the message in Hindi and ended her message with "Q-U-I-E-T". The 5yr old's mind was sharp enough to figure out that her mom is talking about her in Hindi. She got the end part of it and questioned "did you tell appa I am "CUTE" ..but realizing that cute starts with a C and not Q, she doubted "but you started with a Q and not a C". After a moment's pause, the little genius figured it all out - with a contented smile remarked "Oh, in Hindi, CUTE starts with a Q - right ?".  For you cutie, of course it will !!

The other day when it was "bring-your-kids-to-work" at my office, we were walking along the hallways and the little one had noticed that office rooms had the names of the people near the door.  We crossed a lab facility and an employee in lab coat opened the door to enter, she noticed that and asked me "so, that person's name is "Lab"?"

In our mother tongue Tamil, typically "di" is a suffix used for feminine gender and "da" for masculine. But then there are also words ending with "di" which have no gender reference. Once such term is "milagapudi" which means chilli powder. milaga=chilli, pudi/podi=powder, our kids' favorite side dish for Dosa/idli. On one dosa dinner evening, she was musing over the term milagapudi and asked, "why is it milagapudi and not milagapuDA ? is milagapudi a girl or what ?". Even before my wife and I could start laughing, the etymologist in her 10yr old brother confirmed, "Of course, girls annoy and hurt people, so milagapudi IS a girl". Biggest grammatical mystery of our ancient language solved. By the way, she also categorized Sunflower to be of masculine gender. Her explanation is - Sunflower in Tamil is "Suriya-kanthi" and Suriya is a boy's name. So there you go. Tamil feels blessed.

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #26

The red honeysuckle flowers in our backyard regularly attract hummingbirds regularly and the scene of the birds feeding on the flowers never fail to provide visual feast every time. During one such sighting, my son - 10yr old - was trying to explain to his grandma the details. He mentioned the one feeding then was a "boy" bird as they are the ones that sport a colorful plume and that "girl" humming birds are dull gray. I pitched in to explain  and then realized he is only 10yrs old and hence corrected myself saying that he is right and that I will explain him the reason for the color scheme once he is in middle school. Without missing a beat, he replied - "that is so because the male uses its color to attracts the female". While every one else couldn't stop laughing, I was speechless but at the same time, determined not to prolong the discussion on "those" lines at least for now.  

Today, it was "bring-your-kids-to-work" at my office. My employer had made good arrangements for their entertainment and learning. It started with name tag, which on their reverse, sported the name of one of the job descriptions at my workplace. It also mentioned the hourly/yearly wage and expected growth in demand etc. I noticed my son had got a card that talked about a "Financial Analyst" position. It mentioned $38/hr pay. I commented it is a good job and that his mom, who did her CPA, could be a candidate for that and that he can aspire to become one when he grows up. My son was not impressed. His reason was, it was still less pay compared what I earned and that he has to earn at least one cent an hour more than me. Never before have I felt so happy (and proud!!) upon hearing someone wanting to beat me at the race.