Drawing with Kids and Ramayana
Drawing with Kids and Ramayana
Kucchu, as we called the younger one, coloured him as if he was mad—his words, not mine. Then, he named him Raavan, the ten-headed evil king who abducts Sita in Ramayana.
My neighbours have a boisterous duo of kids, the kind that make such incessant noise, day in and day out as to make your head spin—screaming, crying, laughing and most recently of all, shrieking at the top of their lungs while half-assing somersaults and giggling like it’s no one’s business. They’re walking, talking fireworks.
The elder one, six years old is a wide-eyed inquisitive kid who can already speak English better than some adults I know. He is in a hurry to grow up, hinting that he wants a blue-green bike for his upcoming birthday.
The younger one is almost half as old and always saves half of the chocolate you give him for his annaya (older brother). He has recently learnt how to say “school” and not “shool” as he used to before. At the drop of a hat, he’s ready to puff up his cheeks, go running to get his saffron mace and a towel that he’ll pester you to fashion a tail with and then proceed to give you his ‘Hanuman’ powers and blessing. Hanuman is the Hindu Monkey-God from the legendary epic, Ramayana and recently, with the inception of his character in mainstream movies, he’s become a legend, a superhero that the brothers look up to. My grandma, the last time she paid a visit, remembered to get them another mace. Now, each of them have one to run around with.
They’re regular visitors to our apartment, almost every morning before school and the evening thereafter. Today, being a Sunday morning, they came by our door early, called with strained throats with voices that could wake up the whole building and as my mom opened the doors, rushed in and never let me take a moment out of entertaining them.
We played musical chairs, London-London-Statue—a game where you spin around as long as there’s song and freeze when it’s turned off; most times, you get to sing the songs. They ate dosa, sitting on the floor with me; made a ruckus of the bed sheets jumping up and down on them and showed me the dance moves they learned in their new dance class. This was followed by a meditation to the cinematic rendition of Hanuman Chalisa from the movie, HanuMan, playing in the background. Turns out it’s extremely effective from the imaginary biceps they gained in a span of minutes. Try if you must!
Their mom dragged them home to feed them, but soon as they were done, they came sprinting again!
This time, we drew.
Lazing on the floor on their stomachs, they whipped out all kinds of crayons, pens and pencils and made up the most fantastical stories about their subjects. We tried drawing deep sea creatures, passing the same paper amongst the three of us—diamond squid to start with and after numerous stories of its tentacles matching those of octopi, they lost interest and forced me to switch to drawing a lion cartoon instead.
The younger came up with a Zombie Lion, while the other said his was a Smiley Lion, mine they called a Flower Lion with a mane resembling a flower. We laughed and penned down their names, spelling them out loud, “L I O N: lion.”
Then we drew a schoolboy, with books in both hands, a striped tie, pinstriped socks and shoes with laces. The poor boy was having a bad hair day and was badly in need of a haircut. Then we coloured his multiple portraits together.
Kucchu, as we called the younger one, coloured him as if he was mad—his words, not mine. I’m still figuring out who he meant. Then, he proceeded to add multiple heads to the body and named him Raavana, the ten-headed evil king who abducts Sita in Ramayana.
Halfway through all the fun and frolic, they decided they were bored and wanted to go home and skip—a good, late Sunday morning.
How was your Sunday? Did you try drawing tentacles or bad hair? You probably want to, now? Have fun!
Enjoy my writing? Consider subscribing and sharing it with a friend. Thank you for reading!
Want more? Here’s a short story that you can read under 4 mins:
