Pari says...

Pari likes deciding what clothes she would like to wear when. Most items in her wardrobe are gifted from relatives. And people buy frocks, skirts, salwar-suits for girls. They do not know that the girl is more fond of t-shirts and jeans. She hates all the fancily decorated items of clothings and complains that they irritate her. She has only occasionly got a chance to shop for herself, but whenever she did, she picked the most elegant ones of the choices given. She didn't take time to decide, neither did she budge from her decision even when coaxed. Her Daddy is so proud of her for this and hopes that she continues to have this wisdom even when she grows up. Everytime when she has to go out, she insists on wearing shirt and pant. For the last one year, her favourites are a red t-shirt with a cat on it and blue jeans that Kunal Mama got from Bangalore, and a navy blue t-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it  accompanied with red trousers bought for her by Mummy-Daddy in Kharagpur. Now Aaj...

Athak is Pari's first cousin, almost 7 months elder to her. Mummy has spent a lot of time playing and helping take care of baby Athak when she was carrying Pari. Baby Athak had a doll with onion-coloured pink head. He would poke her eye with his little index finger. So when he saw baby Pari, he probably thought of her as another doll, and so he used to try to poke her eye too. Mummy and Aaji had to be vigilant when the two little ones were kept together. Pari inherited most of Athak's toys and clothes. She was also put in his cradle. Athak was already crawling when she was born. She was introduced to him as younger sister and he seemed to have liked her from the beginning. Mummy even has a video of him singing 'aaaa....' while rocking her cradle. Aaji helped him stand with the cradle's support. The two kids were separated when Pari was 2.5months old. They later met for Pari's naming ceremony in her fifth month in Vizag, where she kicked him the eye, as if takin...

Pari was born at 6.36pm. Its said that babies born in the evening stay awake at night and sleep during the day initially. It takes around a month or so to get them into the normal human routine. But Pari is yet to reach there. She likes sleeping late and and getting up late, a trait inherited from her parents. Although, both her grandmothers have been followers of the 'early to bed, early to rise' philosophy. Her Aaji, who has been her principal caregiver for last 2.5 yrs, was habituated to going to bed by 10.30pm. But for some reason, Pari is most active between 10pm to midnight, sometimes even beyond that. All attempts to put her to sleep early have failed. Another issue with Aaji is that if she doesn't sleep on her usual time, then she finds it difficult to sleep well the whole night, eventually leading to he increased sugar level. Pari's nocturnalness has became a pain mostly from the time the little one gained independence to move around by herself. Aaji and Mumm...

Pari has, like any other person in the world, a mixture of qualities (some good, some bad, as per the societal norms). She is possessive about her stuff, wants everything to her and needs a lot of convincing to share. She only shares with people she really likes. She is a little short-tempered and somewhat jealous too. All this has come naturally to her, inherited mostly from her mother. An attention-seeker, but not adventure-loving, she hates to take risks. All these bundled and wrapped in her innocence makes her a sweet little devil sometimes. Most of her quarrels are with the people she is closest to; Aaji being the first in the line, gets to hear the music more. Mummy and Daddy are seen less, so are adored more. The other day for some mischief she was scolded by Baba, so she declared that he is bad, she doesn't like him and he should be thrown away. (Throwing people away, to pigs, is the best way of getting rid of them).  Aaji said to her, "If Baba is bad, so is your Dad...

Pari is one of those fortunate children whose parents have an inter-religion inter-state marriage. While her father is a Telegu-speaking Christian, her mother is a Marathi-speaking Buddhist. The first 1.5yrs of her life had alternate exposures to the two cultures when both her grand mothers took turns to come to Kharagpur. But since the time she actually started understanding the world around her and learning to communicate, she has been surrounded more by people from her mother's side. As of now she doesn't understand the difference though. But she has learnt to easily code-switch between Marathi and Hindi when she is talking to her Mummy and Daddy at the same time. Her everyday questions to both on the conference call are: Mummy, tu kaay jevli?, Daddy, aapne kya khana khaya?, Mummy, tu kaay karat hoti?, Daddy, aap kya kar rahe the?... and so on. A few days ago, when she fell off the bed and hurt herself while doing some mischief, she cried and complained like this to Mummy, ...

Pari's time to talk to Mummy and Daddy is daily before bedtime. She asks what they were doing, what dinner they had etc. She is used to Mummy eating Oats almost every night, and so her response everytime is, "oats are not to be eaten at night, but in the morning". (She has oats with milk in breakfast twice a week). Some random day when Mummy ate chapatis, she was suprised and asked, "why didn't you eat oats?". Mummy said, "Tomorrow onwards I will eat oats. Is that ok?". She paused, and replied, "No, you should eat oats in breakfast". From Daddy she remembers hearing 'brinjal fry' more often than any other vegetable. One day she noticed something else was told and again the same question popped up, "why didn't you eat brinjal today?". Sometimes she asks Mummy to sing a song, one of the many that Mummy has been singing for her since Day 1 to put her to sleep. Her all-time favourites are "Chanda taala wala gaana...