Filing woes

The article mentioned how to identify which documents should be stored in fire safe places or lockers. A picture of a beautiful file organizer with all neatly organized and labled papers mocked at me.

Uhh ha...I thought ! High time I took control of my paper life.

Itching to organize all my 'difficult to replace' certificates, so to say, and get that NEAT look, I bought a new clear A4 file with 30 leaves. Next, I gathered all my certificates from birth till marriage which were currently dumped in a folder.

Oh my birth certificate is on the verge of tearing off..and woa..my name was 'Rachna' at that time !

Why did MCA have 6 semesters..now I have to take care of all of these all my life !

Can I throw away the provisional degree, now that I have the real one ?

Battling these thoughts, I arranged them in chronological order and started placing them in the clear leaves one by one.

Sounds easy ?

I guess those catalogue pictures of neatly filed papers never faced the problem of no two papers being of the same size ! I mean even the mark sheets of same course from same insti are of awkwardly different sizes. Either  longer than A4 or just a bit wider !

So the puzzling question of the day is - why can't everyone follow the same standard of using A4 (or whatever ...as long as you get files of those sizes!) for certificates and all sort of other documents.

Well...even if that happens.....I will have to live with the ones I have...in this life....!

But I am no quitter....I folded or cut the ends to make each one of them fit into the A4 file... and finally got a neatly organized catalogue look.

Yes... I am happy about it.
No.. I don't know if there will be any consequences. Only time will tell !

That infectious gesture

Roaming aimlessly at the promenade near symphony of stars in HongKong, we noticed a little frenzy. An organization had setup kiosks where kids were painting and playing games. Interested, we enquired whether Pranav could participate.

'Of Course!', one of the volunteer beamed enthusiastically.

She started to explain Pranav, 'When children have a disease or fracture etc. they feel discomfort. We will try to paint with that discomfort to better understand what they go through.' She showed him eye glasses which were opaque and had only a tiny hole to see through and asked whether he was ready to wear those for few minutes and paint ?

Pranav listened every word attentively and nodded his head gently. I could see it was like a challenging game for him and he was obviuosly interested. I waited for the lady to give him the tools to start. Instead, she smiled, looked up at me and said, 'I think he does not want to do this. He is saying NO'.

Umm...what was the confusion ?
And then it dawned on me suddenly ... Pranav was nodding his head from left to right all through the conversation. I muffled the itch to laugh out loudly...and said...well what he means to say is ..'Yes'..he understands and he is ready to take it up. She looked confused but gave him the paints and got busy with another child.

A lot has been said about this typical Indian way of nodding the head sideways to mean 'Yes' or 'I understand' or 'I agree'. But this was my first time to actually witness a confusion because of this. What I wondered most is how kids adopt these ways ! This isn't something that we have taught him and I never realized when he picked this up. It's an infectious gesture which we all indians just pick up, unconsiously.

Rest assured...the faster the head moves...the more the understanding !! This head Wobble crosses the language and cultural barriers and unites India....second only to cricket !

Thus starts the Cycle of Money

"Will you give me 10 cents for school?" Pranav, now 6, asked, lying lazily on the sofa one morning. "With 10 cents I can buy a super lemon candy in recess. If you give me 20 cents I can get 2, 3 for 30 cents, ... and 10 for 100 cents. But actually to buy 10, you will have to give me one dollar. Yesterday my friend bought a super lemon and he did not even share with me." The monologue went on.

Overall, I was happy that he could do this much of practical math and after some dos and donts talk agreed to part with 10 cents.

In the evening, we were super excited to hear his story of how he could not eat his lunch because he had to stand in the queue for a long time to buy the super lemon which was oh sooo lemony. How he sweated because there was no fan near the queue. How super lemon can be eaten by only older children like him because the kindergarten kids will find it very spicy.

After a few days, while running already late for the school bus, he asked for 20 cents so that he could share a super lemon with his friend. There was no time to argue and somehow I could not ignore the cute request. I handed him 20 cents just in time before the lift door closed. This time it was a sob story in the evening as he dropped and lost those coins in the bus. After some thought he said "If you can buy me a wallet, I will never lose money like this". We ignored it, but his request continued day after day with daily calls in my office - "I really hope that you can get my wallet today". I finally bought him one which has become his proud prized possession and he now refuses to wear any shorts or pants that do not have a pocket.

All was well till Pranav dropped another bomb - "See how empty my wallet looks with only a few coins.I want some 'notes' for my wallet. Will you give me one?" Welcome to the cycle of money and possession. What started as a  'request' for 10c has now become a 'demand' for 2 dollars (In SG lowest note is $2 ) and the battle of wits continues....!

We have been trying to avoid the topic for a while. 
No prizes for guessing who will emerge as the winner in due course !
Looks like the time has come for some serious money talk.