The photoschool homework was to tell a story in three pictures..
Our story:
Pretty self explanatory, we thinks!
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Explaining the economy
How does one explain the economy to a four year old?
We grew up in a poor household and as kids our understanding of the economy was simply:
"There are people with a lot more money than us we have to interact with every day. We are not rich. But it is okay. All our relatives and friends love us and we have no dearth of fun"
Over time we kind of learned (we weren't necessarily taught openly) to understand what our parents could provide for us as a default, what was pushing them to their limit, what was an extravagance for the household, etc. and would not bother to ask them for things that they might want to give us but cannot. The few times we did, we did with a lot of regret knowing the pain it would cause them.
The setting for the little one, is a lot different from the setting for me. Even Jr. understands things to an extent because we were going through a tough time when she was four, when the little one was just born and were moving from place to place and living in one room for almost 6 months.
The little one always "needs" things and "wants" things. She always compares with her sister or friends and is very temperamental, but she is also a very smart kid.
Earlier today, I gave her the usual speech about work, money, job, jobless people, expense, buying, spending, responsibility, etc. etc.
She listened to it patiently as though she cared and still wanted to get new shoes because her shoes are too tight, which is typical of four year olds because they change shoe sizes every 6 months! (and she IS going to get a new shoe).
Told her that she should listen to me and get the shoes Daddy picks for her.
She promptly ran away from me, looked at her mom and goes
"don't ask appa to buy me a shoe for 10 dollars okay.. just ask him to buy me a shoe that is one dollar!"
We both burst out laughing.
If only it was that simple!
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The old Yellow AGFA tape
The tape recorder my mama (uncle) purchased in the late seventies was a novelty item in those days. It was amazing to watch how it recorded sounds and would play it back.
The tape recorder did not have a built in radio in those days. If we wanted to record programs broadcast on All India Radio, we would have to keep our Philips transistor radio (which was the size of a small TV.. not todays flat screen mini 7inch LCD's.. but CRT TV's from the nineties.. boy I talk of the nineties in the distant past.. that means I am old.. very old.. cut cut cut.. change topic!)
The one tape that always would bring me back a lot of memories was a meera bhajan (?!) on Radha. No one is sure who the singer was except grandma who tells me it was someone from Hyderabad named Sita and she was a Station director or something at AIR Hyderabad.
On my last trip, was told that the tape is "no more".
If anyone can give me a audio link to this song or even tell me correct lyrics, would really appreciate it..
It is a Hindi song and my transliteration is based on my poor grasp of the hoarse recording. But even with all that noise, the original song is just so touching that it would make me want to cry every time I listened to it. The voice was so imploring, beseeching that it would touch a yearning inside you for things that you don't know you are missing.. (okay, I really don't know what was going through my head while writing that last sentence, but for some vague reason, those are pretty much the words that come up).
Raadha pyaari thee
darohi banthi--e hamaari
gadi ek pal me
gadi ek mukh me
gadi ek avala dhari -ee saari
meera ke prabho giridhar dhar?
Charana kamal pal haari
Please do let me know.
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