Katta seems to have developed a mental barrier against the idea of becoming the Father of the Nation
“Dear parents,” began the message from Kattabomman’s class teacher, “on Monday, there will be intra-class role play where your child will be acting as a historical or mythological character. The use of costumes and props is not mandatory, but Encouraged, as studies show they significantly improve your child’s chances of winning an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Historical or Mythical Role 25 years from now.
OK, I talked about the Academy Awards last but everything else is verbatim. And even if I tried, I couldn’t make out the deadly seriousness of moms in the ‘KG Moms’ WhatsApp group. They all seemed to have a lavish production budget, with generous provisions for hiring props, costumes, costume designers, scriptwriters, and cinematographers.
Due to my extreme allergies to online classes, I apparently put off everything to do with it. So it wasn’t until Sunday night that we woke up to this role-playing business – when the Wife noticed some unusual activity in the ‘KG Moms’ group. So we had an emergency meeting to decide which character Katta would perform.
“Let’s go with what the rest of the class is doing,” I said.
“He has chosen all the freedom fighters,” the wife said. “Nationalism is inside, as you may have heard.”
“Same old freedom fighter every year,” I said. “it’s so boring.”
“You can’t have a new group of freedom fighters every year, can you?”
“You’re not reading the newspaper,” I said.
“I don’t want to be a freedom fighter,” said Katta.
“Smart thinking,” I said. “What do you want to be?”
“Neptune,” he said.
“What!”
I was surprised but it shouldn’t have happened. For more than a month, Katta has been obsessed with the solar system—the effect of a TV show he watched somewhere. Every morning, the first thing he wants to know is how long it will take him to fly to this or that planet. Last week he wanted us all to go to Mars.
cold truth
I had a hard time convincing him that it was not possible.
“Why not,” he wanted to know.
“Because nobody will give us visas,” I said.
“What about Jupiter?”
“The environment on Jupiter doesn’t support Netflix,” I said. “That means you won’t be able to see Peppa Pig.”
His face fell, but not for long. He would again start questioning me to find out if another planet was less hostile to immigrants. I know it’s a cruel thing to do to a child, but I told him the cold, harsh truth – that he’s stuck on Earth for the rest of his life.
“Let him be Neptune if that’s what he wants,” said the wife.
“It’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 attempts to turn Katta into a god of freshwater using Bisleri bottles and Aquaguard pipes were, shall we say, no water. Catta was not interested in being the Roman god Neptune. He wanted to be Neptune, the planet – dress in all blue, wear many rings, and blow soap bubbles (Neptune’s moons). So we gave.
But on Monday morning his teacher shot him. “Only historical or mythological characters,” she said. “I thought I made it clear.”
“But Neptune is a mythical character,” I said, hoping to block my path. But she was not buying it.
He shifted Katta’s performance slot to noon 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,” said the wife. “He’s the simplest.”
I quickly wrote a few lines to him: “Hello everyone. My name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. I was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar. I fought for the independence of India. I believe in non-violence. Thank you.” Not exactly Pulitzer material, I know, but kindergarten should suffice. It seemed, except Katta would have developed a mental barrier against the idea of becoming the father of the nation. Gandhiji’s full name, date of birth and birth date He had no trouble remembering the city, but he kept forgetting the last line of non-violence.
With five minutes left for his turn, I chanted ‘I believe in non-violence’ 20 times to him. Then I made him practice his ‘script’ one last time, this time with glasses and a stick. Again, he stuck to “I believe in…”.
I lost my temper. “You either concentrate,” I said, raising my voice, “or I will do something to make sure you never forget ‘non-violence’ for the rest of your life!” The poor thing started crying bitterly.
“Sufficient!” The wife said. “Go now. I’ll take it from here.”
After being evicted from the room, I did not get to see his role play of Gandhiji. But later I heard from the Wife that everyone appreciated Katta’s last line on Gandhi’s message to the world: “Non-violence begins at home.”
sampath.g@thehindu.co.in
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