When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park. Each time that we left home, her mother would ask, “Kim, are you wearing diapers?” And she, in turn, would ask in her cute lisp, “Nana, are you welling di-apples?”
“I don’t need to wear any,” I would say each time. Possibly for this reason, Kim thought I had superpowers and regarded me as a lovable combination of Superman and SpongeBob SquarePants. Since I had no inkling who SpongeBob SquarePants was, I did not know whether to be flattered or ashamed. But my granddaughter reassured me that SpongeBob was a friend, so I assumed that, overall, to be a combination Superman-SpongeBob was not a bad thing.
Besides the mysterious independence from diapers that I enjoyed, there were other things too that Kim was in awe about. She was impressed that nana was allowed to put ice in the bitter medicine that he had every evening and that he could drive a car. She was puzzled by the long hours that nana spent playing cards on the computer. She also wondered why nana and nani went for parties so frequently, even when it was no one’s birthday. Quite naturally, she regarded me as weird; but in a good way.
Illustration: Job P.K.
Time has this deplorable habit of passing by too fast and cute three-year old granddaughters become argumentative teenagers within a decade. Argumentative as well as rebellious! When Kim was a child, I could keep her entertained for hours by relating events from my childhood.
As every grandparent knows, narrating anecdotes to the young ones is actually creative retelling of the truth to arrive at an improved version of the past. My stories certainly made me remember the past more smugly. At the same time, they also amused dear Kim and convinced her that nana was “better-er than Superman!” Now Kim has grown up to become the quintessential argumentative Indian. She has also developed a robust sense of fair play and natural justice, marinated with healthy scepticism. This combination kills any hopes of mine to be mistaken for an extraordinary person. It is off putting when you expect your anecdote to evoke exclamations of joy and all that you get from a disinterested grandchild are indifferent ‘umm’s’. The ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s of baby Kim have been replaced by ‘whatever!’ of the young teenager.
Once when I told her that we were made to bend over and got whacked on the rump in school, she was shocked. “But that is physical assault!” Then, even as I knew I should not, I shared with her the nugget of information that our school principal rewarded serious transgressions with ‘six of the best’. “You mean caning!” Kim asked incredulously, her eyes as big as saucers. “How could you tolerate such abuse? You should have sued your school!”
On yet another occasion, I regaled her with the story of how my cousin and I, both then eight years of age, had once undertaken an overnight train journey quite unescorted from Ajmer to Agra. Instead of admiration, all I got from Kim was a horrified gasp. She blurted out, “That is so random! That is child abuse. That is irresponsible parenting! You should have sued your mom and dad!”
She was livid when she first learnt that I did not have a cell phone of my own as a young boy. “Not having a cell phone of your own is an infringement of your fundamental rights. It is against the law! Haven’t you read the Constitution of India?” she screamed. She laughed loud and long when I told her that many of my friends and I had never flown in an airplane till we were in our twenties.
For all these reasons, the grown up Kim’s contempt for not just nana but for his whole generation knows no bounds. “What kind of wimps were you and others of your generation that you suffered all these indignities and deprivations without rebelling? Why did you not protest? Why did you not sue the whole world?”
I now realise that there are many aspects of my childhood that Kim can never reconcile with. Sadly, I am no longer friends with Kim, though she still regards me as weird—but certainly not in a good way. It is quite depressing to have to accept the fact that my granddaughter no longer thinks I am Superman. It is still more depressing to discover that I have lost that special superpower, and sometimes wish I were wearing a ‘di-apple’. Maybe if I wear a red coloured diaper on top of my trousers I would look more like Superman; and maybe that would also solve the problem of the occasional incontinence.
K.C. Verma is former chief of R&AW. kcverma345@gmail.com