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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Why are men such kids? "So let's look at the odds a guy faces from the time he graduates from playstation (it is altogether another issue that some men never graduate from playstation)". Rahul Bose "Taking the Plunge" Femina (Indid) September 15, 2003 If no one has said it already, it's hightime someone did. In every man there lurks a three-year-old. Now this toddler is most apparent when, in my case Daddy-Boy is struck by some passing cold or cough. The illness doesn't have to be serious you see. It doesn't have to be anything unpronounceable which'll make a doctor sweat over his medical encyclopedia. Even a good swig from the bottle of expectorant would cure him. But Daddy-Boy will groan loudly from his bed calling the family members at intervals to say that he has never gone through what he is going through now, that it has never been this bad. Mother-Dear will be seen bustling here and there fetching him hot milk and kottamalli. After all this he'll call his office and in a voice more suited to a victim of a bungee jumping accident, explain that he is far too sick to turn up. Another time is when Daddy-Boy is asked to fix a nail on the wall. As you know this is quite a simple task, nothing which requires a three digit IQ. I too have put up several in my room, all by myself (surprisingly Mother-Dear is not proud of me). He will not get out of his chair until the hammer is placed in his palm and even then someone has to pretend to prod him with the nail. Somehow we shall get to him to stand on a foot highstool. Then just for our entertainment he will pretend to fall off and when he actually does fall off he will say that his back is broken and that everyone in the household is forever pushing him off stools. The next thing is that although a man loves his car, the three-year-old in him always looses the key. You might calmly ask him to check his shirt pocket and he will glare and say that he did not put it there, he never puts it there and he is sure he gave it to you. When he finally does find it there he will grin and ask why you didn't mention that and that he is lucky to have had thought of his shirt pocket. He is a three-year-old when he wants Bombay toast for tea and if you say that there is no bread in the house, he will obligingly go out and buy some. Now that's a tricky thing. Mother-Dear might ask Daddy Boy to go to the grocery and buy something and he will obstinately say that it's raining. Surprised she will say yes, she knew all along, she isn't as dull as all that, but would he kindly go in the car or did that never occur to him? Daddy-Boy will answer as if that had been a dumb question to ask, "But I just washed it!" Shocking three-year-old tantrums. Strangely, there is something intensely appealing about this three-year-old. It's what makes Mother-Dear fix him his favourite dish when she is really very busy. It's what makes me loan him my pocket money without thinking of the repercussions, when he is short on cash. It's what makes Bro-Boy (inside him is one-year-old, but that's another story) say yes, he will wash the car under the scorching sun at 2.00 p.m. But if it's that same three-year-old who'll forget to ask for the balance when Daddy-Boy has given me a big green note (Not a ten rupee note) to pay for something small, who am I to complain? - Dilini Algama |
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