The Doggies

It started off playfully enough.

Big A and Li’l A and I have different surnames. (Long story; some other time.) Anyway, for emotional reasons, I’ve been meaning to find us a new family name. Of course, we started with the obvious suspects, a mix of our family names: we tried Wandawasi (one of my family names) coupled with Laskey (part of his) as in “the Wandawasi-Laskeys are all crazy” but that’s just so tediously fangled.

We needed something else.

Long ago, we’d watched an American-Desi movie (in fact, it might have even been called American Desi) in which the FOB cousin mangled the “dawg” greeting and hailed his homies with “Hello Doggies.” That totally cracked us up for days after. And so, for years now, we’ve been calling each other “Doggie.” Except when Big A is mad at me and yells, “Sweet Baby Puppy” (because you know, the fact that he’s actually yelling at me coupled with mean names could traumatize me forever).

So last night after he returned from work at 11:30, we’re gnawing this to bits again, and he facetiously said that perhaps we should just go with “Doggie” except perhaps we could ethnicize the spelling a bit so it’s not too obvious. I came up with “Daghix” (‘x’ silent) and “Daghe” (with an accent on the ‘e’) and we fell asleep laughing.

This morning, I realized that I’m 100% in love with the name and 90% serious about actually changing our name to Daghe (more Indian sounding). While we were stopped at a red light, I confess this and was stunned when the normally super sensible Big A shared that he likes the name 90% and is 40% serious about adopting it.

Helllllooooo Daghès!

Update: Li’l A came home from school and said: No way. It’s a strange day when the voice of reason comes from the seven-year-old.

Update Again: Big A just reminded me that the movie was actually Dude, Where's the Party and the line was actually, "Hello, Doggie friends!" (which is infinitely funnier!)

The Martin Luther King Day Mystery

Last year, Li’l A and I watched Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi together. Don‘t tell me it‘s overly hagiographic (I know); and don‘t ask me what a five-year-old got out of it (I don‘t know).

But I guess something must have stuck, because he told me that he had mentioned to his class when they were prepping for MLK Day that MLK had been influenced by Gandhi.

And that they didn’t believe him.

So we embarked upon some high-tech research (okay, okay--we googled) to reassure Li’l A that there had, in fact, been a strong and acknowledged influence. Although really, whether MLK’s avowal of moral force over physical force is Gandhian in provenance or not, it would still be awesome and admirable.

We also found the I-have-a-Dream speech.

And we watched that too. Too often, as the grownup, I’m unable to satisfactorily explain to my boy why some people live on the streets (no, really--how do we let that happen?) or I may have to introduce him to the world in terms of its danger--don’t talk to strangers. So on the occasions that we watch something uplifting like MLK’s speech, it makes me feel like a successful parent to be able to say: Yes, it’s true that the world isn’t always fair, but it is possible to take a stand, to change indifference and injustice to action and equality.

Watching those thousands of marchers singing “We Shall Overcome,” readying to fight the moral fight, black and white amassed like one family in the literal and figurative shadow of the Lincoln Memorial resulted in significant goosebumps for me and a look of great seriousness for Li’l A (even though as any self-respecting kid would, he ribbed me, momentarily, about the goosebumps).

Then I noticed all these men in the background wearing what looked like Gandhian topis. Although I wonder if they might not just be naval flat hats.

I don’t have a clue…

Do you?


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Happy Husband Day

I dreamt last night that my sweet, sweet mother-in-law threw me a party and baked me a cake and the glittery chocolate frosting on the cake said, “Happy Husband Day.”

So when I crawled back into bed at 9 (a.m.! Don’t judge!) to wake Big A, I told him about it, and declared today Happy Husband Day. He was super sleepy, but nevertheless mildly pleased, and he then started making lame-o, low-key requests such as-- “I want five more minutes of sleep,” “I wish my phone was charged” etc., until I had to spell it out for him.

Ummm, Hello? It’s Happy Husband Day. Kinda like Happy Birth-Day. So i'm pretty certain it’s actually MY day, ok? Then I gave him the list: Cake, party, presents...

He was asleep before I got to the messenger bag I really, seriously, desperately need. (Know this: An outsize Canal Street knock-off Balenciaga will give you shoulder pain. I lived and learned. Hopefully, you've learned without pain of your own.)

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It’s the End of an Era (But shed no tears for me!)

For years now, Big A has been enslaved by the power of my tears. They’ve effectively halted arguments, wrung out extended apologies, made it possible to get my way on everything, be forgiven anything, and frequently enabled good in the world.

But not anymore.

Not after he mistakenly donated my much-beloved, sample-size Italian designer jacket to Goodwill and I cried real gulping, sobbing--and per him, for the first time--angry tears at the loss. That materialism put paid to the fiction about me being a noble and sensitive soul. You can get that worked up about some silly jacket? Really?!

That means no more Magic of Tears™ in this household.

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Children of Men (I think they mean Human Children)

I wasn’t sure I’d like the movie. I know I didn’t approve of the title--Children of *Men*??

Also, pre-viewing, I disliked that the trailer seemed to endorse the barely-under-the-radar preoccupation with fertility that seems to be everywhere these days. I know that my upcoming, bigheaded comment is exactly the kind of thing that’ll return to bite me in the ass someday when I really really really want to have my own biological kids and it turns out I can‘t--but I’ve always felt it wrong to go so crazy about expensive fertility treatment in an already tired and overpopulated world when there are orphaned and abandoned children everywhere in need of love.

Alright. Alighting off soapbox.

The movie is a very dystopic vision of our near future in 2027, where Britain is the last outpost of Western power and there has been a global failure of fertility--according to the movie, specifically female fertility--resulting in no children at all since circa 2009.

Britain stagnates on two levels because not only are there no children, but immigrants, the other way that a nation state aggregates citizens, are unwelcome--i.e. they are caged and deported or tortured and executed. There’s too much sordid hatred, guns, bombs, futility, despair, crumbling buildings and broken lives to really do any enjoying at this movie, but it does encourage thought and taking stock.

And bad dreams.

And sporadically, grim moments of nervous humor. You simply have to laugh when a young woman in a barn reveals the miracle of her coming baby and the first words the other character utters are “Jesus Christ!” Imprecation rather than an explanation, but still. Although, ultimately, Jesus Christ might be the key to the movie--not in a Christian sense, but in tapping into the way that his birth or anyone’s birth alludes to the vast and mysterious miracle of life and our choices about and within it.

The ending is supposedly uplifting, but I didn’t appreciate it. I was otherwise engaged in speculating about how awful it would be if I were caged and tortured and deported. In fact, I went on and on about this even after Big A valiantly promised to come save me, spring me, etc., and only really stopped when his eyes acquired a misty film. Whether that was from strongly imagined sadness at my loss or distress at my utter and exceptional idiocy--We. Will. Never. Know.


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COURAGE

Today has left you
Yet you have no fear for tomorrow

The evening hides
Empty between day and another night

You decorate your loneliness
With remembered smiles and old words.

Anyone can question pain
You are the only one to seek answers from it.


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[Another found poem from an ages-ago notebook.]

DEMAND AND DESIRE

[Being a ditty that I scribbled in the margins of my Economics Reader the day I received my first payment of pocket money--a sum of 25 princely rupees--at age 15*.]

Digit-al dreams rise through the senses
Budgeting income and desires
Desires badger on seemingly relentless
And my limited income expires.

If one had everything one wanted
There would be nothing left to buy
Money is therefore vastly overrated
And there really is no need to sigh.


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* So although I cannot claim any real childhood hardship [I.e. I never walked to school uphill in the snow etc., or ever even walked to school...] I’ll never tire of pointing out to Li’l A that his $2.00 per week trumps my Rs. 25 per month in all of these ways: age of recipient, value of amount, frequency of payment.

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