"All fall down"

“A,B,C,D,E,F,G…echa…ucha…all fall down,” Izarra is enjoying her new composition. She is into remixing rhymes these days.

I read Chinese history. The first imperial dynasty is named Qin and the last Qing. I look up the country’s current map. Two neighbouring provinces are called Shanxi and Shaanxi. I give up on the Chinese.

Izarra, my two-year-old daughter, thinks English is weirder. The small purring animal in the courtyard is a cat while the orange pieces in her salad are called carrot. Lychee the favourite and chilli the repulsive is made of the same sounds. She has overcome a similar crisis by renaming the barking biting animal “gog” and the same-sized grass-eating animal “dot”.

Was she suggesting a linguistic breakdown when she remixed the alphabet with “Ring-a-ring o' roses”?

Superstar's gift

A day before Izarra was to leave Chennai, Santhosh Kumar came to see her. The shy boy – who brought a water can to the Besant Nagar house every day, with a no-longer-stray dog loyally tailgating his bicycle – had a gift for the child. Shirly the doll, who resembles Barbie, cost him Rs 250. Santosh said he was quitting as a delivery boy – to do what he wanted to when he came to Chennai. He will start working as one of those faceless junior actors in a movie to be shot in AVM studio. One day, Izarra could flaunt the little doll – a gift from the superstar.