Feeling slightly debilitated, I decided to give the incessant perambulator in me a break, also heeding my cardiologist’s advice: ‘No more 3-km daily walk!’ The more frequent angina-like occurrences imposed further restrictions on my walking exercise, confining me to the veranda around the central courtyard. When going up and down the three steps there during my 45-minute walk became too strenuous I started avoiding climbing the steps altogether.
My two-and-a-half year old little mischief who used to engage me in the 50-metre dash along this track where I would regularly let him beat me in the race, noticed the recent reluctance on my part, he demanded an explanation.
“I can’t climb the steps,” I said.
“I’ll teach you how to. See how I walk,” he demonstrated it for me.
“Hey, not so fast. I don’t want to trip and fall,” I pleaded.
“Okay, okay. Observe carefully, and follow me.… Now, hold my hand. Slowly lift your right foot up, on to the next step. Now the other one. See, you can! I told you so. … Now take a round. When you come to climbing the steps wait for me. I will help you go up the steps.”
Three rounds, all with his helping hand. “Now no more holding hands. Watch me carefully and do exactly as I do. Next time do it on your own; I won’t come to support you if you fall.”
He must have picked up the remonstrating tone from his ever-watchful maternal grandmother. Then he sat at the far diagonal corner of the courtyard and shouted from there, “So be careful!”
I took one more round and successfully completed the assignment. “Good boy!” he encouraged me. “I told you, you can! … Tomorrow you’ll do it by yourself,” announced an exultant voice in jubilation.
Learning how to walk while on the wrong side of seventy! My second childhood. Child is surely the father of man.
We had a couple of pet rabbits. Once, the doe gave birth to three kits. When our grandchildren came visiting us we let all the five of them loose in the open central courtyard. They ran helter-skelter playing hide-and-seek among the unusually tall aloe vera bush right in the middle of the courtyard. Our enfant terrible chased them around. “Be careful not to hurt them,” came the warning from all around. “I will only run my fingers on their furry back,” he assured us.
Poor bunnies, how will they know that! Just a touch, and the bunnies would hop-step-and-jump. The kid got worked up, and finally managed to grab one of them by its ears. Shrieking piercingly, he ran towards his elder sister, swinging the kitten like a thurible, threatening to throw it at her. The more she ran to escape, the faster became the swing, and finally, quite inexplicably, he thrashed the bunny on the ground with a thud. A hush fell on all of us. “How could you? Why did you do that?”
Though the agony and remorse were visible in the child’s face, would he ever accept the guilt? Shifting the blame to the victim, he vehemently defended his action, saying “It didn’t allow me to pet it.” So, that’s was what made him do that. “See, now it won’t come anywhere near you.” “But I didn’t want to hurt it… I’m sorry.” Simply put, innocence at its worst!
itty_varghese@hotmail.com
