Summer Vacation Initiatives...

Yesterday I found myself brushing up my Punjabi (Gurmukhi). I am one of the few in the family who can reasonably read and write in Gurmukhi (though I cannot talk in Punjabi to save my life). The reason I was brushing up was to teach the language to my kid during her summer break.

I had no option, but to learn how to read and write in Gurmukhi, while growing up. My grandfather (we used to call him Baoji) insisted on it. But frankly it is quiet similar to Hindi so it didn’t call for huge effort on my part. My mom would religiously fish out kaida (basically the rulebook of the language) before our summer vacation and try to teach us as much as she could. In spite of her best efforts, I barely managed to scrape through. At the end of it, we had to clear a test, which was nothing but a letter to Baoji in Punjabi. The carrot for going through all this was a princely sum of Rs 1000 (by the way, this was never given to us but deposited in our bank accounts). I fail to understand the urge to teach our kids what we so strongly resisted while growing up.

I have tried teaching kiddoo the basics of Punjabi and she does recall some alphabets. Another challenge is to find time for this activity…a perennial problem of all working mothers. I would want to do so many activities with her but time is always limiting factor.

Besides Gurmukhi, this year I would make an effort to introduce her to some all-time favorite English movies and books for her age-group. Problem in this initiative is a chap called Percy Jackson. The kid is totally in love with Percy Jackson series and must have read each book at least 9-10 times (I am not exaggerating!!). So I anticipate a strong resistance to this. This obsession with one particular kind of book/magazine is hereditary I think. I was so in love with Champak, Tinkle, Chandamama and Nandan that I recall reading them in faint streetlight which used to fall directly on my bed in Kanpur as well. And nothing, absolutely nothing was allowed to come between me and the magazine once I had the latest issue in my hands. And I would read them again and again till the next issue was out. 

Let's see if we actually do all these things or end up with Science and Maths syllabus. Such a tragedy that the time which should be utilised to do some creative activities might be wasted on course books...