Pocketful of froggies

She was three and a half, very much aware of her surrounding with extremely awakened senses. That of the aromas of her grandmother's meticulous kitchen to her mother's extremely disorganised minimalist urban kitchen. She wouldn't touch the toddler-appropriate food the mother hastily would try make before she left for work. No! That wouldn't work. It had to be elaborate. 

The only way the parents could get her to eat happily was if they fed her food that she had learnt to like. It started with glazed-carrots and tiny nibble-sized tea-cakes. So there were glazed-carrots every day for six months on the menu. The parents had to eat whatever she ate. Please feel sorry for them! Over the years, however, the items in list of comfort food increased, much to the mother's relief. It started with Dida's ‘paayesh’ and the father's extremely elaborate Sunday chicken curry rice with potatoes. 

Every day, the food situation was a thing that had to be planned and discussed in detail, what worked, what did not - they had a blackboard full of combinations. The only silver lining, their adorable child never shied away from trying anything new. New for a urban privileged grown-up in the '90s, that is. Today, the twenty-one-year-old is a little less fussy about food and will happily let you cook for her. She has learnt to appreciate all kinds of food, from the Shakarkandi chaat at Sita Ram Diwan Chand to the beauty of home-cooked meals by mothers of her friends. Now the list of comfort food also includes ringan-nu shaak that R's mother makes to the aloo tiki made by H's mother. Homes of your best friends are eventually yours, people! That's the word.

As the winters gave way to spring in that year, the four-year-old had already mastered the art of using a fork and saying no to eating boiled food. She needed sandwiches for lunch, they had to be grilled with no cheese, no tomatoes. Crisp on the outside, soft inside. She would not touch something a second time if she didn't like it at first. No amount of petting, cajoling, scolding worked. I'm assuming scolding a four-year-old to feed her was a normal Indian parenting behaviour. She knew her food. She knew her flavours. She knew her steps to dance on 'didi tera dewar diwana'. She knew the lyrics to Apples, Peaches, Bananas and Pears by The Monkees. She could fake a tummy ache, the moment mother had to leave for office. She would gleefully leave for school and flick her classmate's arm because that other child did not wish her 'Good Morning' gleefully.

Her parents would cry blatantly to the Doctor Uncle; who would in turn tell the harried exasperated souls that she was quite a normal kid. The mother surely got her tested. 

By the time she was four, she knew how to get her way. She had a behemothic temper to those who did not comply with her demands. Like, this one time when she wrote her B's and D's in mirror images of the actual alphabets in her strangely beautiful handwriting, not because she was dyslexic, but she knew it would throw the father into another jumping paranoia. She sniffed the books in the mother's bookshelf religiously, started reading the alphabets and basic words from books like Doctor Zhivago and practice writing. Her father's copy of the Encyclopedia had doodles drawn unceremoniously all over it. She would string a wooden guitar, rather tunelessly and demanded the father to stay back home to clap for her. There was this other time, when she handed the mother a piece for house decoration which turned out to be dried cat poop. She once dug her teeth into the house-help's hand because she was refused the electric stove lighter to light a candle.

All the signs were there, right there. The parents were bringing up a problem child. The doctors however said otherwise, but then they were never subjected to pelting..

However, to the world outside of her universe of those seven-year-old friends and the three unfortunate people who lived in the house trying to being her up; she was a doll. She was this ultra-polished four-year-old one could have ever met. So no one really believed the parents when they told tales of the brat they had at home.

Encouraged by the desultory good behaviour of this monster child to other people, the parents started having friends over at home all the time.

That monsoon, one evening a few friends of parents were over, in hopes of discussing Brazil win in the World Cup and Baggio's missed last kick. The parents spent a busy morning cooking. Later they tidied the house, fluffed-up pillows, arranged dinner plates, made the house smell good and dressed their darling daughter up in a frock with pockets.

Their friends came, conversations kicked off. The brat got applauds for the new poems she had learnt to recite (Indian tiger parents of the '90s always had to show their child off like a trophy). After which she was left on her own to sit on the wooden rocking horse. Sneaking out to the garden was not that difficult either, the door handle was in her reach with a stool. 

She returned and stood in front of the guests, waiting patiently in one corner and preparing to get her cheeks kissed and pinched. No one had really noticed her taking handful of small ground-dwelling frogs from the pockets of her frock and holding them in her tiny fists.

Frog after frog came out of her pocket, some escaping her little hands. Shrieks and shrills echoed the room which is when a firm hand picked her up and put her down on the big, rocking chair. It was her favourite place, after the swing.

The adults got busy looking for jumping frogs. The brat looked gleefully at the mother who was fuming at her, trying to keep her composure in check. The large rocking chair's back and forth motion ensured that the brat did not get off it for the next few minutes. She looked amusingly at the hither-tither around. Excited, she tried jumping, only to be put up back again. They tied her hand to the chair handle.

By now, the mother decided to deal with the daughter instead of helping her guests pick frogs out of the house. She asked the four-year-old her if she was hungry. The brat nodded and was handed a piece of grilled pineapple and a piece of fried chicken smeared with ketchup.

She licked the ketchup off with satisfied delight and then her tiny teeth bit into the perfectly crusted flesh. She liked it, finished it in no time and reached her little hand for another. The mother handed it over only too eagerly. Then two more pieces were asked for and devoured. She liked something new, that was enough. This just meant that there was going to be meals of grilled pineapple and fried chicken for quite some time now. It went on to become a bi-weekly staple for the next three years. The parents had to start growing their own pineapples. She was an extremely opinionated seven-year-old by the time she found a new favourite, fried prawns.