nidhiramblers

I saw this in today's 'Animal Crackers' cartoon in B. Post! It is a conversation between two Ants watched by Leo: 'Are you my Aunt' asks one Ant to the other. 'I am an Ant' says the other 'But I am also your Uncle' . The first Ant says 'I am confused' . My first reaction was to go AAGrrrhh ! Then I thought, wait a minute this is me! I am always confused about the correct accent to adopt while speaking English! It took me back to a conversation with a friend on my first visit to USA years ago. 'My ant is visiting me.' She said. 'Your Aunt ?' thinking I had heard her wrong! 'Yes my ANT! ' with an unnecessary emphasis. 'Oh Your Aunt ' not willing to give up. I think we both were mystified and a bit irritated but decided to let go. Mukund was narrating to us recently, how his daughters Aparna and Aditi were always correcting his accent. ' Hostile ' to them was Hosteel and not Hostyle . Tile is pron...

While speaking about my earlier blog on Leela and her question, Chandramouli mentioned that children could and did bring knowledge by their questions and actions. He spoke of Nachiketa and Dhruva and their impact. The conversation between young Nachiketa and God of death Yama is the basis for Kathopanishad. The story of Dhruva, (I remember my grandmother telling me this story) is about a 5 year old's great penance till God Vishnu pleased with his steadfastness appeared before him and blessed him. In his opinion children must be encouraged to ask questions and should be allowed to find answers by themselves instead of lecturing them. Interesting idea, I hope he elaborates on this sometime. He retired as a schoolteacher in the US. This suddenly reminded me about the time when Rohini told me that amma had read her the story of 'Rama and Ramana'. I tried to correct her by telling her that it was Ravana , but she insisted that it was 'Ramana'. I let it go with a smile ...