Rohāmrta has his daily pick. One toy, one piece of stuff – can be anything from a spoon to his car. This thing then becomes his obsession of the day, so much so that he carries it to his diaper station, his food table, he even sleeps with it in his hand.
And he so easily forgets it and goes to the next ‘big thing’ the next day…
I had written this around a year back, when he was just starting to recognize what was ‘his’. While he is a little more cognizant of his (which is everything he points to) and not his (nothing falls in this category really), he still has the same choices – unlikely, simple and unexpected. And I love to see what he picks next…something that he holds close to his heart and then smiles at me.
Oh how I wish I was that toy:)
See you tomorrow!
Came across something today.
Those from the 90s and before will surely recognize this.
Called “orange mittai”, these sugar candies were (and still are) the tastiest among the simple candy options that we had when we were growing up.
One could get these for a ridiculously low amount of money (I guess they were 5 paisa each?) and munch them through the day.
I had more than one case of stomach ache from eating too many of these, when I was little.
No packaging, no branding, stored in glass jars for little connoisseurs to ogle at, and then packed in cut newspaper when demanded and paid for. Lightly flavored, but mostly just sugar:))
I put this on my WhatsApp stories today and the response was tremendous. I guess I jogged too many memories…including mine.
Humans don’t change fundamentally. The simple pleasures that we derived then can now be seen in our infants.
We bought him many “well-researched” toys, claiming to aide brain development and muscular co-ordination, but our pal doesn’t care for them one bit. He is more than happy rattling an empty box of yoghurt or a cardboard box with little monetary, utility or aesthetic value.
Every morning he wakes, crawls over to his playpen, and carefully takes out the German toys before reaching the yoghurt container, and waves it around with a triumphant look on his face. His most prized-possession. Who would have thought that Almarai doesn’t just make dairy products, but an infant’s day too?
It’s only when we grow up that it becomes difficult to satisfy us, and so we set out on this long and fruitless rat race in the urge to fulfill our material desires, foregoing the simple things in life than brought us joy once upon a time.
To think that maturity and education would add up to this, seems a bit paradoxical, don’t you think?
See you tomorrow!