SOME YOUNG FRIENDS

I HAVE always liked playing with little children. After my retirement I had more time to devote to this pleasure, and I cultivated friendship with several neighbourhood kids.

We played some games like carom, Chinese checkers, draughts, monopoly and so on. But I insisted on their playing chess and scrabble at least now and then, since chess was good exercise for the brain and scrabble helped develop one's vocabulary. We also had some interesting conversations. They learnt something from me and I from them.

Sometimes I offered them a book of fairy tales, which they could keep if they managed to narrate one of the stories to the gathering. Some did this, and retained the book. Some others resorted to some subterfuge or the other to keep the book without telling any tales.

All for a pen


I noticed that though very young, some were quite calculative, and went all out to get something out of me. There were a couple of girls who said they wanted me to teach them how to draw. So I started a quick sketch, asking them to observe the procedure carefully. But their attention was not so much on the drawing as on the Rotring pen that I was using.

"How much does this pen cost?" one of them asked. I told her it was given to me by a friend from England. "Isn't it available here?" asked another one. I said I didn't know. Do you have another pen like this?" And by now the drawing was forgotten, and acquisitiveness was to the fore. But in the midst of this hectic grab-what-you-can activity pleasant surprises cropped up too.

A surprise gift


One evening a very small girl called Shanmughi (Shannu) called on me. She was too small to take part in the games with the other children. She sometimes sat and watched us play. Now she had come alone. She had a toy train in her hand, which she presented to me. "What's this for?" I asked her. "You can play with it," she said. And then she went on: "You are giving so many things. We also should give you something." I was too stunned for words. Shannu walked off shyly. Later I asked her father about this gift. He didn't know anything about it, but he was thrilled by his little daughter's gesture. That train is now one of my prized possessions, the only gift I ever received from a little child.

Sometimes I came across a child with some ambition. One boy, Venkatesh, had a single-minded desire to enter the Guinness Book of Records by learning the definitions of several thousand words. He has not got into the book yet, but I am sure he will achieve his ambition someday.

Naachu


The most remarkable of all these children was eleven-year-old Nachammai (Naachu for short). She had enormous eyes that bulged slightly, a thick mop of unruly hair and an animated look of enthusiasm on her face. So I called her cartoon girl. She told me some story or the other she had heard in her school. And when she narrated the story, her face came alive, and she was fascinating to watch. Even a dull story sounded good when she told it.

When she started playing scrabble with me, I told her that I would give her a prize if she scored 100 points. And though her vocabulary was not so good, she tried hard for several weeks, and finally scored a hundred. After giving her the gift I told her that she would have to score 200 for the next gift. After striving hard for about a month she scored the 200. We moved from that house, and our sessions came to an end. Wonder how many points Naachu would eventually have scored. She was a model of true grit and determination. I am sure she will go far in life.

These children have given me memorable moments of pleasure. Hope there will be more.

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