1986 Vs 2011

Wondering what this could be about????? Have some patience....

Hair Cut

1986(ish) - Cut her own hair that made her hair look like a roosters crown.

2011 - Cut her own hair and spread it all over the bedroom floor

Learning abilities

1986(ish) - Learned all the classical songs her sister was taught by just listening to her sister sing.

2011 - Learned about 20 shlokas by just listening to parents, grandparents and teachers sing without repeating even a single one while in the learning process.

Creative Analysis/Qstns

1986(ish) - a) Apple seeds if eaten doesn't lead to apple trees from your stomach, it will be passed in your stool. b) If the shoes are left on the sea shore, they may go off to Srilanka.

2011- a) why doesn't the windmill turn? b) why are the carrots hard? c) If you don't apply lipstick its ok, you are looking so beautiful, why don't you kiss me on the lips (to get the lipstick on her lips)?

Smelling Sense
1986(ish) - " I will not eat this Upma because, the sojee has been burnt while roasting." "Bisibelebath has extra coriander seeds" - just by smelling.

2011 - "This drink you are drinking is not tea, it has lemon in it. I can smell it.(Undu tea aath, limbe puli tho smell baronthundu)." "This is not the smell of smoke, this is biscuit smell." - which was actually the case as we were passing a Bakery.

Milk & food

1986(ish) - never drank milk. Even if she drank the milk, would leave a little (almost 1/3rd) saying there is dirt in it (Kajavu undu).

2011 - Drinks milk. else ditto including the Kajavu undu.

1986(ish) - The milk had to be of the exact temperature. "It is too hot... now it is too cold....now again it has cream in it."

2011 - ditto

1986(ish) - Kukku Rasayana - "No! No! No way!!"

2011 - ditto

Memory
1986(ish) - memory of an elephant. - Remembers who had worn which saree on what occassion
2011 - ditto. My memory is bad and so I am writing whatever I can remember. Mickey wanted a wrist watch and we had promised her that Shri would get it from US. Shri went to US for about 3 weeks. Mickey didn't mention 'watch' for the next 3 weeks. Shri returned early morning when Mickey was still asleep. As soon as Mickey woke up, the first thing she asked was 'have you brought my watch?'.
(will add instances whenever I remember them).

Behavior

1986(ish) - No fear except for fear of darkness

2011 - ditto

1986(ish) - Never asked anybody apart from parents for even chocolates

2011 - ditto

1986(ish) - Behaved very mannerly and composed when parents were not around without even inquiring about them

2011 - Behaves very mannerly and composed when parents are not around without even inquiring about them

1986(ish) - Had a mind of her own and said and did whatever she felt like

2011 - Has a mind of her own and says and does only things she feels like

Going Forward

1989(ish) -  Never studied. Yet knew whatever was taught in class. 
2015 - ????

 

2011 - BA, MA, Mphil and enrolled for PhD. 
2036 - ?????

Still wondering??? If you know my family, you wouldn't... Here it is...  

1982 - No! No! it is not me. Its Ramya - my sister.

2007 - Sumedhaa

Will post pictures of each of them (1986 and 2011 respectively) very soon. 

An experience for a lifetime!!!! - Afterwards, No goose bumps!

Contd... 

Sumedhaa was sobbing and walking towards her bus stop (about 250 meters from our house) when Siju found her. When Siju called her name, she turned, saw him, ran to him and hugged him (as narrated by Siju). 

When we were taking turns carrying and hugging Mickey we realized she had worn her shoes. When asked where she was going, she said, 'When I got up I couldn't find you, so I went looking for you (Yen laknaga yerla ithriyer, aaike yen poye)'. Shri asked her the reason for her to scream and she said, 'There were dogs coming close to me and so I was scared and screamed (Aaulu mast doggies iththen athaa,  yank podige aanatha aaike kaLkiye)'. 

I know you have a lot of questions:

• How could you leave her alone at home?

She has always been scared to get up alone from the bed, be it during her afternoon nap or a good night's sleep. She starts screaming. The place on the terrace where we were all sitting was chosen so that we could hear Mickey screaming if she got up from her sleep. There have been so many afternoons when she has cried that none of us were sleeping with her. But unfortunately, this time she didn't scream/cry which I would have expected from her had I been at home. But it turned in our negative this time.

• How could she have gone out of the gate?

Firstly, the door was open. Even if it was closed, she knows to open it. We don't have a latch on the door from outside. None of the apartments in our building has it.  The lift was not working, had it been working she would have taken the lift. But she took the stairs. The gate next to the lift was left open by probably some guests who had left earlier. Mickey can easily open the main gate as it is  very low.The watchman was sleeping in his room oblivion to the happenings in the building. Everything facilitated her to leave the building so easily.

• Did you beat Mickey for leaving the house like this?

How could I? Why should I have? It was my irresponsibility that I left her alone in the house and it was her fear of not having us around that made her do this. Instilling more fear in her by beating would mean I was not acknowledging my mistake and also it would be wrong to beat her for not her fault completely. As elders and matured people, if we can do mistakes, she is just a 3.5 years old. Imagine what would have been running in her mind when she found herself alone. The degree of fear is incomparable, isn't it? I still can't figure out the impact of this incident on her psych. Atleast that night, she was not ready to hold me or my hand while sleeping. She was clenching the rods of the cot instead.

The following Sunday, we took her to the Raagi Gudda temple to remove all her fears and to thank god for giving her, our life back to us. We told her that it was not right for her to go outside the house alone without letting us know or without anyone of us accompanying her. So now she relates to it so much that if a teenager goes alone on TV, she asks why the parents not accompanying the kid. So I hope this has sunk in so much that I don't have to worry about it for sometime atleast.

No, I will never loose her again.... :)

An experience for a lifetime!!!! Assured goose bumps!

Do you know how it feels when you no longer have a purpose to live? All you want is that the world should come to an end for you at that moment of time? Go on.... read further.....

I was screaming but couldn't hear my own voice. I remember clutching the gate and almost falling on to the road. I don't remember if I was breathing at all. Shri's boys were running up and down the street. Shri was running up and down the stairs mumbling 'this can't happen!!! this can't happen!!!!!'. The only thing running in my head was 'How irresponsible could I be?' 

It was the night of 18th March 2011, Friday. Shri's friends (Shri's boys) had ganged up at our place as their plans of going to coorg had been canceled. Not everyone was in a good state of mind as AOL had just announced the closure of AOL India Operations. Yet, boys were drinking. It was almost 12.45 am. A few of the guests had already left. Mickey had been put to sleep (she was in the terrace until 12) and all of us were in the terrace talking. Shri had just got me Mishti Dhoi (from K C Das). I was telling Siju that I would finish the Mishti and go back to Mickey.

And at that moment, we all heard a scream and realized that it was Sumedhaa's voice. Shri ran down to the bedroom to console her and I followed him after a minute or two. By then, her screams  had stopped. I could hear Shri screaming that she was not in her bed. We looked for her in all the rooms, bathrooms, balcony, utility but she was not there anywhere in the house. We looked for her in the stair case. We all ran downstairs, the gate was open. She was nowhere in the street too. We checked again in the house. She was not there anywhere!!!! We had lost Sumedhaa!!!!!!!! 

'HOW COULD WE LOOSE A CHILD THAT WAS SLEEPING IN OUR OWN HOUSE AND WHEN WE WERE JUST IN THE TERRACE? HOW?' 

I was screaming but couldn't hear my own voice. I remember clutching the gate and almost falling on to the road. I don't remember if I was breathing at all. Shri's boys were running up and down the street. Shri was running up and down the stairs mumbling 'this can't happen!!! this can't happen!!!!!'. The questions that were running in my head were 'how could I live?' 'How irresponsible could I be?' 'Couldn't I have gone back15 mins earlier?' 'Is it necessary to have fun all the while?' 'But don't I have a life of my own?' 'What would I tell my parents?' 'What would I answer the world?' 'How could I live with this guilt?' 'How could I breathe going forward?' 'Couldn't the world come to an end, right then?'

And suddenly, Shri and I could hear Kaustav  (Shri's friend and a member of the search party) screaming 'We found her' and then we could see Siju (Mickey's favourite maama amongst Shri's friends) at the end of our street, carrying Mickey back to us.

I can't explain the feeling when I saw Mickey in Siju's arms. Now, I could atleast breathe. Though only five minutes had passed since the time Mickey had gone missing, it seemed to us as though a lifetime had passed. Though I appear not to be attached to my daughter, I realized how much I wanted her to be with me, how much she is a part of me and how much she means to me. Same is true with Shri. Shri and I were taking turns hugging and kissing her.

A lot of things could have happened. Had she not screamed, it would have taken us another 5 to 10 minutes to figure out that she had gone missing. And within that time, a dog could have bitten, someone could have taken her, she could have gone somewhere where we couldn't find her, or ANYTHING else could have happened. But we were lucky enough to find her intact without even a scratch on her body. I am grateful that we could find her before we lost our minds.

Come to think of it, it is different to loose a child somewhere else, here we had lost a child that was sleeping in the house. We couldn't continue to live without her and how could we live with that guilt of irresponsibility. You can say that I am very curt when I am saying this but loosing a child to death is completely different from loosing a child like this. There surely is a certainty in case of a death. But in this case, the parents have to live in a constant fear. Is the child alive? What condition is she living in? Also they have to live in an anticipation that the child would be found some day or the other.  Yes, there is a chance that the child is found. But until then every moment the parents live is equal to a million death.

Sumedhaa was sobbing and walking towards her bus stop (about 250 meters from our house) when Siju found her. When Siju called her name, she turned, saw him, ran to him and hugged him (as narrated by Siju). 

Contd.....