21-Mar-06 (Created: 21-Mar-06) | More in 'Shells: My Writes'

A surprising level of imagination

Last night I was hoping I could work with Kavitha for an hour after the never-seem-to-end house chores of the eventing. I was too tired to plead, and cajole her into doing some of the workbooks she has. So I sat with her on her bed reading the hardships of 1930s in the Great American Dustbowl. The book was a fast read as I have always been interested in the larger factors in the environment that crafter much of the history and people with in it. Kavitha looked over a couple of times and duly noted what number I was at. Being on number 16 did not impress her too much. I subsequently ignored while she was trying a contraption by tearing apart the empty pages from a note book.

"I am making instructions to fold this map"

There went 1 page, 2, page and then 3 pages.

Around page 35, she interrupted.

"Dad, see if you can follow the directions and fold this paper as per the instructions".

I looked at the well creased a4 size paper. I took it in my hand and proceeded to fold it at the creases, while wondering why there was a large single headed arrow in the middle of the page running bottom to top.

"Dad, you cannot do that. You have to follow the arrow to fold!"

"Ok!" I said, and folded the paper up from top to bottom while bending the arrow right in the middle. She disagreed.

"No, you have to fold it from bottom to the top so that the tail of the arrow goes and meets the head and not the other way around."

So, I conceded. I folded the paper once.

I was surprised to see another arrow show up, now on the half folded paper. I folded it again. And another arrow. Finally the arrows led me to fold the paper to the size of a quarter, on which it was written.

"Good Job!"