Ball games and Birthdays

It’s 9PM but my two busy beavers seem far away from sleepy mood. Doma and ema have never been good combination for our tummy. My poor tummy is growling and grumbling about this odd combination that I have made a continuous supply of in the last few days, I sit beside the bukhari hoping the heat to do me a big favor by pleasing my upset tummy.
The restless duo, who have been playing cricket (the bat never touching the ball and the ball bouncing off all over the place save the rims of the bat) pops in and out of the kitchen to fetch their runaway ball. On one such ordeal, my little one comes singing, ’Happy B’day to you,’ joyously. I am all ears all though I pretend to be deeply engrossed in my book fearing they might drag me in that silly ballgame.
My elder one asks, whose B’day it is and before the li’l one can answer she quickly realizes that her li’l sister’s birthday is just two months away. “What do you want for you B’day?” My elder one asks religiously.
“Cake!” pat comes the reply.
“Arrgh! Cake is always there on Birthdays! That’s for all to eat,” my grumpy elder screams with her nose crinkled.
“Everyone gonna eat my cake? I don’t get my cake?” The li’l one is almost ready to shed her tears.
“No,Tatu, mama will get the cake, what do you want ana to get for you?” she asks exasperated but adds,” A gift?” with a practiced patience.
Their conversation has made me swerve my attention fully out of my book where a 34 years old man is back to his old hometown and reclaiming his life. I see my two kids, one dressed in black and the other in red, standing near the kitchen door, their task of retrieving their ball all forgotten and now deep into serious Bday conversation.
“Tell ana, what do you want?” she coos to her li’l sister. I see the change in the tone and as expected I see her patting her li’l sister’s head which reaches her waist. My elder daughter has this peculiar style of patting her sister’s head, which translates into her role of a big sister.
“Momo,” my li’l one replies with no time lost. Knowing full well that her almost three years old sister can never conjure up a perfect wish list for her B’day, she comes with her own suggestion,” Do you want a teddy bear?”
“ong,ong,” the little one replies with no attachment whatsoever and is seen bending near the bukhari to pick up the ball. And the next instance they are back to their ball game. Birthdays all forgotten!

Memories are made of these!

A dash of HOPE
seasoned with something you desperately covet
turns into WISHES!

These silent Wishes
baked with mixture
of prayers and longings
turns into DREAMS!

DREAMS lived in reality
no matter how short-lived
registers as MOMENTS!

Many such moments
entwined in wishes
and fulfilled dreams
lives to become MEMORIES!

Quarrels and Names

I try to think of names that my mom called me as a kid and I think of all kind of weird names. I mean if you take the names literally, one would feel that the moms those days didn’t love their kids. Just come to think of it, who would call one’s own kid ‘yongmin’ or ‘yongba’? There are countless names like tsumpi, pentang, kapchi, kaptong, etc.
I grew up in a household filled with cousins of all ages and both genders. A house full of kids is never free of funny incidents. But back in those days, it would have been serious business of hurting eachother’s sentiments. Kids can never cease to be kids I guess. In my household we had this whole system of name calling things whenever we had quarrels. I remember a particular incident that happened between my cousins, a male and a female.
My male cousin (in foul grunts) to my other cousin(female): Towmo
They were fighting over the Tv remote control and my female cousin retorted: Tow po
Male cousin: Girmo
Female cousin: Girchung
M.C: Tirmo
F.C: Tirpo
(by then both were fuming in anger and were totally into name calling. Can’t list all the names they christened eachother with but the ending had us all rolling on the floor).
M.C: kokti (sorry for using this term….literally translated it doesn’t sound good. But I guess they were too angry to notice that their foul mood was hampering their language too. But just listen to my female cousin’s answer to this. Having been born and raised in the southern part of the country her sharchokp was poor, so I guess she took this heavy bulky word as lightly as any other female names that she was being showered with, so here is her answer:
F.C( in full retaliation mood): Kokta!
I was the mute spectator to their name calling quarrel till this. My ears couldn’t help it, I roared with laughter. Both of them gave me dirty looks for having brought an end to their dirty quarrel but amidst laughter when I explained to my female cousin what set me into that bouts of laughter she also joined and we all had a hearty laugh.
Well, for someone like me, as my friends say, ‘One who is trapped in a particular time zone’, I can’t help but think of incidents such as this from my childhood days and still laugh like it’s a brand new incident.