988. Strict parents become lenient grandparents

Parents have different yardsticks for their children and grandchildren. This is what I do not like in parents. Suddenly they change the rule of the game.

When a referee who is  known for issuing red cards at will, suddenly starts distributing boxes of laddoos to players when ever they committed a foul, wouldn't you be confused? Won't you feel that something is wrong with the referee?

I go through the same feeling when I see my parents deal with my daughter. I can go on quoting many examples for the same.

1) Giving chocolates and snacks

Once in three months, my dad would buy a bar of dairy-milk. A strip of dairy-milk chocolate bar will have 8 small square chocolate pieces in it. My sister and I would get one piece each from this bar on Friday night after dinner. The remaining 6 pieces would be neatly wrapped in the golden foil and the bar will be kept inside the fridge. We would eat like this for 4 weeks. And after that we have to wait for three months.

But now, Anya eats bars and bars of chocolates and I don't even have to mention who the main culprits are. You know them.

2) Choice of breakfast

What ever was there on my plate, I was supposed to eat. I hated idlis and chutney. But if my mom told me that I need to finish all 4 idlis, I had no other choice. I used to throw them out of the window when she was not watching me. But one day she found that too and made me eat the sand laden idli.

Now Anya gets a choice for her breakfast. If she feels that the chutney is spicy, she gets to eat idlis with sugar or honey or even jam. If she does not feel like eating all three, she gets her corn flakes bowl. She is lucky indeed.

3) Play time

I used to come back from school at 4 pm. And I could play outside between 5 and 6 pm. If I come even a minute after 6 pm, I would have to kneel down for half an hour. My daughter gets to cycle around even at 10 pm. She gets to throw the ball and play at 9 pm

Wish I could become a child again and tell my parents to treat me the way they treat my daughter Anya. For that to happen, I should go to Kalyan Jewellers where an amma becomes a child and a child becomes an amma.

Jokes apart, grand parents are usually never strict with grandchildren because it is the job of the parents to raise their children right. This gives lot of room for grand parents to spoil grandchildren.

-Chronicwriter

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987. Rajinikanth's Political entry

Rajini's political stunts has made him look like a joker these days. Every big actor who tried to enter politics have always been seen as jokers. Jayalalitha and MGR have been the exceptional cases in this matter.

Sivaji Ganesan who stands tall as one of the finest actors Tamil cinema has produced, was a total failure when he attempted to make his entry into politics. Other people who have flopped big time with their political avatar are Karunas, Ramarajan, Vijayakanth. All these three have won their seats in elections; but all three have been at the receiving end of becoming central figures in memes.

Rajini's political entry reminds me of his car Lakshmi that would not start when he makes a wrong decision in the movie Padikathavan. Apparently that car is having starting problems even now. Hope he learns his lesson and concentrates only on movies,

One man who has done the exact opposite is Nanjil Sampath. This man who is known for his Tamil skills was almost treated as a comedian and has been at the receiving end of many memes in the past. His famous dialogue "Amma varuvaanganu kaathutu irukurom" was the best dialogue of that year and it shattered all meme records. He has now plunged from the political field into the movie industry. He will definitely make it big in the movie industry.

As I touched a little bit of Sivaji in this post, I am just wondering how would it be, if Sivaji had lived today as an actor. He would definitely have been at the receiving end and would have been the poster boy for meme-creators. His over acting would surely have been the talk of the town. 

Check this video here where two of his over acting skills are evident

Scene 1: His over acting after knowing that his wife had died

Scene 2: His bravery of killing his son after being shot in his heart

I was supposed to write about Rajini and his involvement in Politics. But I ended up writing about Sivaji Ganesan. This is what would happen if Rajini enters politics

-Chronicwriter

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986. Sitting next to a girl in the class room

It was tough being in love in school days, especially when the girl you love is extremely beautiful. Renu was a drop dead gorgeous girl. I fell in love with her during my Kindergarten days. All the guys were crazy about her. Shabir was my nemesis.

Those who know about my Renu story would know all this. What I am about to write here is a secret that only Renu and I share. I am letting this secret after almost 30 years.

I still remember the incident as though it just happened yesterday. It was September 1990. I was preparing for my 4th standard quarterly exams. I was deeply in love with Renu and she was as usualy confused between saying yes to me and Shabir.

Three students will be sitting in one bench in the class rooms. It would always be three boys in one bench or three girls in one bench. In some benches 2 boys and 1 girl or 2 girls and 1 boy will be seated; but care would be taken to make sure that the lone girl or boy is not in the middle.

We had a notorious craft teacher called Miss Sophie who loved to punish the students by beating them with a wooden ruler. I have already written about her here [link] In addition to being a witch (which she really was), she would also make us run errands for her.

Shabir got into her good books  by helping her with grocery shopping. Miss Sophie had a notorious way of punishing us with a wooden ruler. When a group of parents complained to the school management about her rowdyism, she decided to change her punishment tactics.

Her new way of giving punishment was to make the wrong doer sit between students of the opposite gender. She thought by making a boy sit between two girls, the boy would be ashamed of his mistake and stop committing mistakes. She was wrong because I loved this punishment. I started committing crimes and often ended sitting between Renu and Minu.

I would sit next to Renu and admire her in class. Renu would be looking at the black board listening to the teacher. I would be looking at Renu with some jollu running down my face. Shabir soon understood that I was being naughty on purpose only to sit next to Renu. So, he too copied this trick of mine and started sitting between girls.

Miss Sophie did not have brains to match up with her brawny nature and hence did not know that Shabir and I were competing in an Olympic of sorts, just to sit next to Renu. But Renu figured it out and complained to Miss Sophie. I still do not know why Renu behaved that way. She would talk well with me, but still complained to the teacher. It was difficult to analyse what goes in a girl's mind.

So Miss Sophie changed her punishment style. The next time I was naughty in class, she made me to go and stand outside the class. Now this was actual fun for me because I was able to watch the other kids play in the playground. But that also meant that Shabir was able to spend more time inside the class and foster his relationship with Renu.

Only when Renu started laughing and giggling at his lousy jokes did I realize that he was winning the battle against me in our quest to win her heart. But was my realization too late? Stay tuned

-Chronicwriter

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985. The wall climbers

A 6 year old little girl and an 8 month old baby was seen sitting on a wall and having a good time. This is no ordinary wall. This wall has a legacy behind it. If you are wondering how come an 8 month old baby is sitting in the wall, you should realise that kids these days can do anything.

This wall has seen it all. This wall compounds the backyard of our house in my native town. Beyond the wall is nothing but fruit bearing trees. I spent my childhood among these trees. There was a cashewnut tree  near that coconut tree in the background. That was cut 20 years ago. I remember climbing the tree, plucking fruits, removing the nuts & eating the fruits and finally burning the nuts in coconut shells to get the cashew nuts.

Then there was this mango tree there. We also had two mango trees at our house. But I always used to climb that tree for the mangoes because stolen mangoes taste better.

When my mom used to chase me with a stick, I would climb this wall and disappear into the woods only to return after a few hours. But she had the knack of getting angry and thrashing me even after a few hours.

Finally that is a picture of me holding 8 month old Neya ( My niece) with my daughter Anya standing close and listening to my childhood stories with a smile on her face. The Jackfruit tree was a recent addition. But these jackfruits taste yummy.

- Chronicwriter

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984. Chaos during Train journey

Train journeys would bring lot of wonderful memories for us. I remember my first train journey. It was a long train journey from Nagercoil to Tambaram. I was a 3 year old kid then. It was a second class sleeper compartment. My dad was literally behind me throughout the journey as I was climbing up and down the ladder throughout the journey.

Yesterday I travelled from Tambaram to Nagercoil with my wife and daughter. My daughter's actions in the compartment took me back to those memories.

We got the side berths for ourselves and Anya turned the compartment upside down. After climbing up and down the ladder, she got tired and sat down between us.

My wife Joan was on the phone talking to my parents and Anya was bored. She asked me for a story book. I had Champak with me and handed it to her. She then started reading the story so loud that the ticket collector in the next compartment also started listening to her.

Soon she got tired of reading and asked my wife to give her the mobile phone to play games. (Now all of you who are gonna advice me not to give mobile phones to children can please shut their mouth[s]) She climbed up the side berth, sat there comfortably and started playing games. The game-sound gave everyone in the bogey an indication that she was playing the game. My wife and I sat down on the lower berth and started chatting. 

Suddenly the game-sound stopped. I waited for a minute and when there was no sound even after a minute, I slowely peeped up and saw her sleeping. 

I am pretty sure that she will read this blog sometime in the future. This will take her back down memory lane

-Chronicwriter

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