Satire: Lessons from kindergarten

Katta seemed to have developed a mental block against the very idea of becoming Father of the Nation

November 06, 2021 04:22 pm | Updated 04:22 pm IST

Pequeño astronauta sentado en un planeta con fondo estrellado

Pequeño astronauta sentado en un planeta con fondo estrellado

“Dear Parent,” began the message from Kattabomman’s class teacher, “On Monday, there will be intra-class role play where your child will enact a historical or mythological character. Use of costumes and props is not compulsory but is encouraged, as studies show that they substantially improve the chances of your child winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Historical or Mythological Role 25 years from now.”

Alright, I made up the last bit about the Academy award but the rest of it is verbatim. And even if I tried I couldn’t make up the deadly seriousness of the mothers in the ‘KG Moms’ WhatsApp group. They all seemed to have a lavish production budget, with generous provisions for hiring props, costumes, costume designer, script writer and cinematographer.

Due to my extreme allergy to online classes, I reflexively put off everything to do with it. So it wasn’t until Sunday night that we woke up to this role play business — after Wife noticed some unusual activity in the ‘KG Moms’ group. So we held an emergency meeting to decide what character Katta would perform.

“Let’s go with what the rest of the class is doing,” I said.

“They’ve all chosen freedom fighters,” Wife said. “Nationalism is in, as you may have heard.”

“Every year the same old freedom fighters,” I said. “It’s so boring.”

“You can’t have a new bunch of freedom fighters every year, can you?”

“You haven’t been reading the papers,” I said.

“I don’t want to be freedom fighter,” Katta said.

“Smart thinking,” I said. “What do you want to be?”

“Neptune,” he said.

“What!”

I was taken aback but shouldn’t have been. For more than a month, Katta has been obsessed with the solar system — the effect of some TV show he’d seen somewhere. Every morning, the first thing he wants to know is how long it will take to fly to this or that planet. Last week he wanted all of us to move to Mars.

Cold truth

I had a tough time making him understand it wasn’t possible.

“Why not,” he wanted to know.

“Because no one will give us a visa,” I said.

“What about Jupiter?”

“The atmosphere on Jupiter doesn’t support Netflix,” I said. “That means you won’t be able to watch Peppa Pig.”

His face fell, but not for long. He would again start interrogating me to figure out if any of the other planets were less hostile to immigrants. I know it’s a cruel thing to do to a child but I told him the cold, hard truth — that he’s trapped on earth for the rest of his life.

“Let him be Neptune if that’s what he wants,” Wife said.

“That’s a planet, not a character,” I said.

“Neptune is also a mythological character,” she said. “He is the Roman god of fresh water.”

Our efforts to transform Katta into a freshwater god using Bisleri bottles and Aquaguard pipes did not, shall we say, hold water. Katta was simply not interested in being Neptune, the Roman god. He wanted to be Neptune, the planet — dress up in all-blue, wear multiple rings, and blow soap bubbles (Neptune’s moons). So we gave in.

But on Monday morning, his teacher shot it down. “Only historical or mythological characters,” she said. “I thought I’d made that clear.”

“But Neptune IS a mythological character,” I said, hoping to obfuscate my way out. But she wasn’t buying it.

She moved Katta’s performance slot to the afternoon to give us some time to convince him that he should give up being a planet and fight for India’s independence instead.

“Let’s make him Gandhiji,” Wife said. “He’s the simplest.”

I quickly jotted down a few lines for him: “Hello everyone. My name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. I was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar. I fought for India’s independence. I believe in non-violence. Thank you.” Not exactly Pulitzer material, I know, but should suffice for kindergarten. It would have, except Katta seemed to have developed a mental block against the very idea of becoming Father of the Nation. He had no trouble remembering Gandhiji’s full name, birth date and city of birth. But he kept forgetting the last line on non-violence.

With five minutes left for his turn, I made him chant ‘I believe in non-violence’ 20 times. Then I made him rehearse his ‘script’ one last time, this time with glasses and a walking stick. Again, he got stuck at “I believe…”

I lost my temper. “You either focus,” I said, my voice rising, “Or I’ll do something to make sure you never forget ‘non-violence’ for the rest of your life!” Poor thing burst into tears.

“Enough!” Wife said. “Go now. I’ll take it from here.”

Evicted from the room, I didn’t get to watch his role play of Gandhiji. But later on I heard from Wife that everyone appreciated Katta’s last line on Gandhiji’s message to the world: “Non-violence begins at home.”

sampath.g@thehindu.co.in

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