Fairy Tales - My First Love

Audrey Hepburn said "If I am honest, I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all".

For me, the avid reader, Fairy Tales were my first love. When I was a 5 year old my mom used to read out Fairy Tales to me. Those stories had big castles, nice food, good clothes, jewellery, and a charming prince to keep you happy ever after. The ladies were always very beautiful and the prince was always the best looking man possible. That was when I started dreaming, not necessarily of a prince but of a life with luxury and love, a life of abundance. I used to think that life has only 2 shades BLACK - the witch of the story or WHITE - the prince or princess.

Then as we grow up, we outgrow fairy tales and our horizon extends to all other genre of books. We learn and understand that prince charming is not always charming and can kill you for dowry or not bearing a male child. The witch can actually save you at times by not letting you meet the prince charming. Good food and good clothes does not always guarantee a good life. The teachings that life gives are in contrast to the dream that you weave after reading fairy tales. Then there comes a time when we distance ourselves from fairy tales and think them stupid. I once reasoned out with a friend that life is always a shade of grey, it can never be WHITE or BLACK in totality. I hated fairy tales after I saw that life was not what the fairy tales told me or made me believe to be.

After some years, I had a 4-year old curling up to me and asking me to read fairy tales to him. While reading out the stories again, I realised what the fairy tales do. They give us a dream. It is we who decide how to take it. We can turn that dream into reality or we can just ignore it as I did for many years. Fairy tales teach us that there are always BLACK and WHITE in life and we have to choose which way we want our life to turn. It teaches us that there is always a WITCH present to mislead you and there is always a FAIRY MOTHER to guide you. You will not physically see the witch or the fairy mother but you will get signs and will understand one from the other. You have to choose whom you want to follow. It depends on us, yes, on us only.

So Audrey Hepburn, I agree with you - I love Fairy Tales, not because I have not grown up, but because I have grown up to understand them.

My Mirror My Son!

Mamma the fat lady in TV looks exactly like you!!!! I was horrified to hear my son utter these words without any feeling. Yes, he hurt me by saying so and he did not feel for my feelings. Was he mocking me? Was he actually being cruel?  All these things crippled my mind.... and then I saw his transparent eyes and innocent smile......  he came to me and said - but still mamma you look very beautiful. Awww my baby, although he is growing up I love molly cuddling him and relish such mamma-baby moments.

He is one person in the world who is my mirror, he tells me things straight on my face and does not even bother about my mood swings (his dad does!). So, he is very blunt at times telling me - "God mamma you looked bad  while dancing", or "mamma you cannot sing".
He is usually a child who will not behave in a very matured way.... he is always in his own world.... watching cricket or cartoons, trying everything to escape studies and eating biscuits or bhujia when I am not near the kitchen. But then he stunned me one day with his maturity. It was a Saturday and my husband was out of station. I needed to go to bank for some urgent work. So I took him along and we went by a rickshaw. When we reached the HDFC bank I realised that as I was not carrying my credentials so they were reluctant to issue a DD. I headed towards SBI in the same rickshaw. The rickshaw driver, a migrant from UP, started chatting with me. By nature, I am a person who loves to talk so within a minute I was telling him how badly HDFC treated me even though I have been banking with them for years. The driver told me that SBI is a bank I should always trust as it has its branch everywhere in India (even his village in UP) and how they trust people and all. By the time I got down from rickshaw, except exchanging our numbers, we were chatting like old friends. The moment the rickshaw left, my son turned towards me with an intense look and with utmost seriousness he told me - "Mamma you chatted with a total stranger for so long? Do you know if he is good or bad? Why did you tell him where we stay and all." I looked at him and felt that he meant what he was saying.And then I realised that he was very gloomy throughout the ride.

I promised him that I will be careful next time on and then he was back to his chit chat of how Dhoni scored 100 and how he will never score anything below 200 when he plays for India! But the thought never left me......  from where he got that thing in his mind? he is not someone who is observant, on the contrary he is always in his dreamland (playing cricket). But I was very happy knowing that whatever I told him about Strangers and not talking to them and taking care actually seepped into his mind.

I realised that under his immaturity and kiddish behaviour, there is a little MAN hiding, who knows where to draw the line and how to behave. I was happy!