Is It His Fault?

A was sent back home from the neighbors last evening.

He was playing with their sons (two grown up men, no kids); the game was WWE wresting and Chhota Chahcu (the younger of the two, 22 I think) was not letting the poor kid (four years and 7 months) win. Chahcu was hitting, blow after blow and finally, a frustrated A screamed at him., 'Chhodo mujhe." But this was not all. The frustrated scream was suffixed with "kameene!"

It was this word that had stunned them and their mother, A's favorite. The silence was so sudden that A was scared. And, then, when he was asked by Mrs. K, with a stern gaze, from where did he learn this 'bad word', A was scared as hell. He started screaming, kicking, pushing and trying with all his might to evade them.

It was then that he was sent home and he immediately tried to bang the door shut, so that Mamma doesn't get to hear from them what all the commotion was all about. But of course, I had already heard the commotion, being just right across the stairs with our living room windows opening side by side. I was about to go there and ask what was happening when there was a knock at the door.

Failing to shut the door, A rushed in the bedroom, screaming, crying, fuming; more scared when he saw Papa home. I was told by Mrs. K to find out who is teaching the kid such bad word. Of course we need to find out and take steps, maybe talk to the mother of the kid who's teaching him such stuff. Or find out if it's the maid at his daycare. But the moment I heard the 'bad word' that he had used, I knew from where it had come. In fact, he had learn it right inside their home!

While, I, at my place try to censor whatever TV he watches, even if it means sacrificing my favorite Friends reruns, at the neighbors, it's all there, bare for him. So when Aishwarya Rai and Shahrukh Khan gyrated on 'Ishq Kameena', nobody in their home thought of changing the channel, and A, as always, was glued to the TV. Back at home, he had asked me the meaning of ishq and kameen. Ishq, I had told him was love and kameena was a bad word. Why were the calling love bad, however, was beyond me. They sure were stupid; those characters that these two actors were playing! There could be no other explanation! But A is a good boy and good boys do not use bad words.

But good boys can definitely have raging tempers. And then it's no bad using a bad word, is it? After all Shahrukh uses it!!!