Being an only child is a privilege. Your siblings might join you in a few years. With time, the novelty of an only child may just wane off for your parents. For the brief time when you are an only child, you walk the earth with the highest of privileges. Well, you don’t merely walk. Your very step opens up a schism through the moral fiber of the universe, and out you go, running over things. Uncles hide for cover from your punches and kicks. Aunties adore your tantrums. No one can stop you. And if someone dares to question your divine right to stomp around, make sure there is a patronizing relative who would say, “What does he know? After all he is a three year old”.
One fine day, you discover that your mother has a baby boy sized lump around her belly. You have watched movies with pregnant women carrying babies. They never end well. For the first time in your toddler life, you are consumed by fear. Your mother tells you that she will be alright, and come spring, you will have a baby brother or sister to play with. Both of you leave for your maternal grand mother’s village and wait in expectation. Spring arrives. Another schism opens on the moral fiber of the universe and out comes another privileged male. They say it was manual labor.
You can not wait to start playing with your brother. But he is caught up in his own world, busy eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping. You get bored, and your instinct tells you to carry our baby brother and show him around as your dart around the house. As you struggle to lift the baby up from the cradle, your mother gets a wind of the plan, and restraints you. “You are a four year old now; a big man with a little brother. Stop acting like a baby”, she tells you.
To keep you from trouble, mother puts you temporarily in the neighborhood school. Your kinder garden teacher is a strict, full figured mother of five children, and a no-toddler-nonsense person. The other children have been trained to be obedient, and you too learn to curb your instincts when at school. You bide your time by expectantly looking through your classroom windows to glance at the school gate, waiting for it to open, while sadly mumbling “A for Apple”. Soon the teacher finds out that you are not paying any attention to the lesson. She orders you to stand outside the class and demands that you repeat every syllable she utters. You leave your seat without creating a scene, and stand just outside the threshold of your classroom. The entire class repeats after the teacher, “D for Dog”.
As you stand outside the class making steady progress through the alphabets, the sound of the incoming school van briefly distracts you. The watchman opens the gate for the school van to enter. The class is too focused on the next alphabet and prepare to begin the routine yet another time. “G for …”. An idea flashes in your mind, and your old instincts take hold of you. You run from the controlling teacher and the subservient classmates, past the now open gate, to your mother, your baby brother and your grandmother’s house. You can hear the teacher’s alarmed voice trailing after you. You know that neither her voice nor her bulky frame would catch up with the speed of your legs. Your stunned classmates watch the spectacle through the classroom windows. You zoom past the play ground, the parked school van, the little nursery and almost take the first step outside the gate. But just before that, a pair of strong arms belonging the watchman grab your frame between your tiny arms and lift you off your feet. A schism opened on the moral fiber of the universe, and gobbled up yet another privileged brat.
One fine day, you discover that your mother has a baby boy sized lump around her belly. You have watched movies with pregnant women carrying babies. They never end well. For the first time in your toddler life, you are consumed by fear. Your mother tells you that she will be alright, and come spring, you will have a baby brother or sister to play with. Both of you leave for your maternal grand mother’s village and wait in expectation. Spring arrives. Another schism opens on the moral fiber of the universe and out comes another privileged male. They say it was manual labor.
You can not wait to start playing with your brother. But he is caught up in his own world, busy eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping. You get bored, and your instinct tells you to carry our baby brother and show him around as your dart around the house. As you struggle to lift the baby up from the cradle, your mother gets a wind of the plan, and restraints you. “You are a four year old now; a big man with a little brother. Stop acting like a baby”, she tells you.
To keep you from trouble, mother puts you temporarily in the neighborhood school. Your kinder garden teacher is a strict, full figured mother of five children, and a no-toddler-nonsense person. The other children have been trained to be obedient, and you too learn to curb your instincts when at school. You bide your time by expectantly looking through your classroom windows to glance at the school gate, waiting for it to open, while sadly mumbling “A for Apple”. Soon the teacher finds out that you are not paying any attention to the lesson. She orders you to stand outside the class and demands that you repeat every syllable she utters. You leave your seat without creating a scene, and stand just outside the threshold of your classroom. The entire class repeats after the teacher, “D for Dog”.
As you stand outside the class making steady progress through the alphabets, the sound of the incoming school van briefly distracts you. The watchman opens the gate for the school van to enter. The class is too focused on the next alphabet and prepare to begin the routine yet another time. “G for …”. An idea flashes in your mind, and your old instincts take hold of you. You run from the controlling teacher and the subservient classmates, past the now open gate, to your mother, your baby brother and your grandmother’s house. You can hear the teacher’s alarmed voice trailing after you. You know that neither her voice nor her bulky frame would catch up with the speed of your legs. Your stunned classmates watch the spectacle through the classroom windows. You zoom past the play ground, the parked school van, the little nursery and almost take the first step outside the gate. But just before that, a pair of strong arms belonging the watchman grab your frame between your tiny arms and lift you off your feet. A schism opened on the moral fiber of the universe, and gobbled up yet another privileged brat.
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