The big interview – Twintalising Tales, ep 7

Once upon a time there were two children called Jack and Jill, who went trudging up the hill carrying a bucket of water, while their lazy friend Humpty Dumpty simply sat on the wall instead of helping them and Jack was so annoyed that he kicked his friend on his fat behind and then of course, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and Jill laughed so much she went tumbling after him and all the water from the bucket fell on Baa Baa Black sheep who promptly turned into Mary’s little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.

Oh dearie me, a little jumbled up, aren’t we? I guess this is what happens when one is forced to listen to nursery rhymes chanted into one’s ears non-stop 24/7 for several days.

Welcome to the penultimate episode of my Twin’talising Tales, the 7^th in the series. I don’t know about you but I’m having some super fun dredging up childhood memories of my two boys.

So, the next major excitement in our boys’ life and ours too, was the beginning of their formal education and to reach this lofty goal we started with the procedures for their admission into a popular and much in demand Kindergarten for Indian tiny tots, in Abu Dhabi.

Going by the trend in India for school admissions back in those days, we took the whole process fairly seriously and began preparations for the big interview. Under my able tutelage, the boys were ready with their alphabets, names of animals and such like and one or two nursery rhymes in case they were asked. I was pretty much ready too with some legit answers to any probable questions, in case I was asked. And my husband was ready with cheque book and pen in case he was asked.

On the big day, at the school, except for the cheque book, nobody asked us anything. We simply filled some forms and met the Principal who expressed her delight that they were twins with an OMG. Then she waved us to the next room to pay the fees. And my boys were admitted to KG 1. Just like that.

I was quite disappointed that all the time, energy and effort I had taken to teach them all those alphabets and rhymes and stuff had gone unnoticed.  And it looked like the boys shared my disappointment too. As we waited for the cab to take us back home after the interview, they kept asking whether it was time yet to show off their newly acquired knowledge. Since nobody had asked them in the school, they came up with Plan B. They insisted on reciting the alphabets and the rhymes, over and over and over again, in the cab. It was so like an old irritating gramophone record which had got stuck; I ended up getting a colossal headache. I cursed the day Jack and Jill decided to go up that blessed hill and as for Humpty Dumpty, I was in such a mood that I could have pushed him off the wall before he fell off it himself!

I suspect the one and only person who benefited from all this was the cab driver. If he was half as bright as he looked, he must have learnt all of that, courtesy my boys. If you ask me, that man should be eternally grateful to them for teaching him such crucial knowledge, that too for free. I had half a mind to not pay him the taxi fare in lieu of all that.

Now that we’re on the topic, I think instead of me paying him, he ought to have paid us. Guru Dakshina, you know!

On this enlightening thought, I shall leave you guys for now. I shall be back with the last episode, the 8^th in my series very soon. If you have stayed with me till here, then you are without doubt my biggest supporters and deserve a Top Fan badge.

You can listen to it on my podcast Bits and Pieces with Radhika here on Anchor and here on Google podcast too.

Stay safe, stay healthy!