What is it with kids that blurs the real from the unreal?
I have been noticing this for sometime now. Everytime they ( A and A) come across a character that they like -in a book, TV, AD, billboard, newspaper- a very amusing quarrel erupts between them.
Here’s how –
Ananya: “You cannot copy me and I am going to say this first. The girl in the pink glasses is my friend.
And then she mutters ‘Se’ and sticks out her thumb to whoever the pink-glasses is. ( For the uninitiated, ‘SE’ in KIDSPEAK means ‘ I am your friend’.)
Ameya: I said “se” to her even before you. Yesterday itself.
Ananya: How? I told her she can be only my friend.
Ameya: I took her ( here, she means the comic book) to the room yesterday…and said ‘se’ to her- 5 TIMES.
Ananya: That doesnt mean she is ‘TU’ with me. ( ‘TU’ means, ‘ I am not your friend temporarily, say, for the next 5 minutes’). I gave her a ‘SE’ too.
Ameya: No ya…not fair. I said ‘SE’ first.
Ananya: Fine, I’ll find another friend. Better than this one.
Ameya: OK…fine. She can be ‘SE’ with us both. I can share for sometime. But, promise you will share your friend with me?”
Ananya: Ok. Promise.
And, I, the amused spectator, am left thinking- “Its true- The HOBBES effect, it is TRUE! And I have two Calvins here!”
If only we can get so serious about real people!!!