I came across this interesting weekly feature in a marathi daily - Loksatta.
Its basically about how parents have deliberately put in an effort to spend quality time with their child or how they have ensured that they participate more actively into enriching the 'growing up' phase of their child.
Every week there is an article about such efforts.
One article featured how a father encouraged his son to participate in the re-decoration of the house - generally kids are exlcuded from this process which is considered an 'adults-only' decision. One wall in the living area was exclusively kept for the kid to decorate - but on his hesitation to do so, the father joined him in painting a scene from some tribal art onto the wall - much to the pride of his son.
Another one featured a celebrity couple always on the move due to frquent tours of their play. How they divide time to ensure atleast one of them get to spend quality time with their daughter.
The article that caught my attention though was one where a child-psychologist explains how a child finds regular jobs by tradesmen very fascinating than all the glitz and glory of TV shows and cartoons.
Simple everyday tasks like watching the laundrywalah do the ironing, the mill walah load and unload his mill to grind flour, panwalah folding up a meetha-paan and so on!
Memories of childhood flooded back - how my Dad always ensured that we got our fair share of these treats.
He would not stop at buying a bicycle for us - when there was a puncture - he would ask - "Do you know how this is fixed?" " Have you seen the repair man do it? "
If not, he would accompany me to the cycle-shop (owned by a person he called anna), park our 2 wheeler there, and we both would sit there and watch one of the assistants in the shop fix the tyre tube.
Dad would ask some basic questions - to see if am getting the process, and would give simple answers if I couldn't..- 'why use a pail of water ? ' ( so the tube when immersed, sends out bubbles at the punctured hole)
'why sandpaper the affected area?' (so the glue works better) ..and so on!
I would feel very proud and knowledgble at the end of the process - I now KNEW how a puncture was fixed!
If an electrician or carpenter was called over at our place to fix something - and Dad was around - he would encourage us to watch what the skilled person was doing - he would point to the tools being used and ask if we knew what they were and how they were used.
I remember some really novel items like 'rawal plug' - a small maleable plug that was pushed into the hole in a wall before the actual nail or screw - so that it fits in snug and tight.
Same applied when we got our chappals or school-bags mended from a cobbler ( we could argue with the cobbler how instead of using glue, putting a ribet (rivet) is better for the chappals' longevity! ;-) )
We could identify choona from kaat (or kattha) as the paanwalah made paans - and could request favors like more gulkand and less supari in our paans! ( Whenever there was a big family lunch at our place, it was the duty of we cousins to take the order of post-lunch paans for everyone and get it from the paan walah on the corner)
Making veedas at home was also later added to our list - make veedas , lock them with cloves, and string them together using thread and needle. Parents taught us a few basic folds for these veedas - like peti-veeda (flat one) and govind-veeda ( a pyramid like fold, which if managed well - would be promoted to be kept in poojas) . Ok - I digress..
Thankfully, our childhood provided us with ample opportunities to watch these tradesmen at work - many of these trades are forgotten arts now.
There were door-to-door tradesmen coming once a month - like 'Kalhai - walah' who would coat the insides of brass vessels with tin/aluminium (not sure ..) or 'dhar-walah' who would sharpen knieves, 'vili', scissors etc on his special cycle mounted wheel.
There was this one guy who would fix iron/ tin bases to old metal buckets which were leaking. I always wondered where he got those tin-cutting scissors of his!
And how can we forget the vendors - ice-gola walahs, kulfi-walahs ( they rub the kulfi moulds or the ice glasses in hand to melt it a bit, so it comes out clean in one shot! ), chanya-manya (!!) bora walahs, mogra walahs ( their measurements used to be like chatak, aat-paav etc which Dad and Ajji used to explain were quite appropriate for these kinda goods).
Then there were the bhadbhunje ( people with big furnaces or bhattis) - we would take dried corn to make cornflakes, or jowar / sali to make puffed lahya. (popcorn)
They would use huge iron woks with heated sand on coal fires - and use it to puff the grains into popcorns - it was fun to watch !
There used to be regular trips to girniwalahs (flour mill) - one for routine stuff like atta, besan and jowar - bajra flours, and special one for yearly stock of red chilly powder, turmeric, shikekai.
Both these mills were very different in scale and size, and comparing those machines and techniques was fascinating! It was like being into a previledged world!
We as kids have watched mattresses and pillows being made, customised shoe racks and cabinets being hand-made from wood, dining table frames being welded, petrol pumped out and fed into another scooter, names inscribed on vessels, new notebooks being bound from old, unused pages of last-year notebooks, breads and biscuits being baked in bakeries, pots being shaped and baked by a potter - even silk sarees being rafooed ( very fine art of mending a small tear in expensive fabrics)
I even remember watching how colored glass toys were made - some place in Bhor I guess where my friend S's dad took us to - and later gifted us all with a set of small glass animals!
So many times I remember my Dad telling us - '....just stand and watch - observe how they do it - it may appear easy - but it requires a certain amount of skill to do it - thats the beauty - they make it seem very simple! '
Today, we have programmes on TV like 'How Stuff's made', 'How do they do it' - which is an informative treat to watch. But better than that, as a child - this more human experience is far more enriching - not just in terms of information but also in terms of the emotinal quotient it offers.
Simple task of observing and watching skilled people at work has enriched our childhood with experiences that would last for a life time - and at the same time filled our minds with everyday knowledge and a wisdom to respect those people who know how to do their job - and do it well - however small it may be.
We will always be grateful to our parents who taught us to admire , acknowledge and respect these tasks and the people behind them!
