Bedtime Stories

Bed time at our home is a mixed bag; what with us parents trying to get Appu to go to sleep and him trying to put off falling asleep till the very last minute.

Bed time is also the time that Appu’s reflections on life and philosophy come to the fore. And we poor flummoxed parents are left scrambling to find answers to questions that are more profound than, “What is life?”

Sample this:
A discussion on grammar: “Accha, is there a word called “broke?”? “Why does Chinnu (his bosom buddy) say, broke”? Accha, grabbing at the chance to ram some grammar down sonny’s throat says, of course there is a word called “broke”. “It’s the past tense of the word “break”. "For example, I could say, “Appu, did you break the window?” “How would you respond to that?”
Pat came the reply from Appu, “ I’d say, yes Accha I did break the window.” “I am sorry, and you can beat(punish) me if you like.” !!! The utter silence from Accha’s side of the bed was broken by muffled giggles from my end of the bed. However, I did walk around the next morning checking all the windows, just to be sure…..

Here’s another: This time on metaphysical matters-“Accha, Chinnu says, when we die we all come back, is that true?” And Accha says, “Yes, we Hindus believe that we come back, maybe as humans or maybe as some other living thing once we die.” There was silence from Appu for about 5 seconds, and then came the zinger, “So if I came back as something else, would I still be able to ride my cycle?”