Dad was definitely reminiscent of his childhood, but rarely spoke of his parent's parenting. I don't know if this is only western thing to do, but I can't help to think back on some of the things dad did for us that had a profound impact on our lives. Because it is a well known fact that he ran away from his own home at a young age, its clear that his own parenting was largely figured out as he went along. I do think he experimented quite a bit (much to some of the elder Prasad's dismay), but you really hit home on a couple of things.
One of them was, everyday, regardless of the day, under any circumstance, we had to write a full page story. It was called "lines." I fondly recall turning the page of those KMart notebooks and twisting and turning every story I could think of to fill out a page. Sometimes, we'd write with really big handwriting. Others we'd paraphrase a book we read, or just write about our day. There was no excuses. Resistance was futile.
No discussion of my childhood is complete with out broaching the subject of lines. My father, being the engineer he was, lacked creativity but bore through each sentence looking for technical grammar or punctuation mistakes. He was militant about our hand writing, often making us rewrite any "lines" that were unsatisfactory. We'd then have to show him the rework.
He would have us read one another lines, make corrections for each other, then he would read them to ensure that we were writing well and also able to correct others work.
What was your favorite "lines" memory?
I just started laughing out loud when I read "sometimes we'd write really big..." I always remember Dad giving us the "Do you think I am stupid?" look when we'd do this. We all definitely had a love/hate relationship with lines, but this is one Prasad tradition I am most certainly going to pass on to my kids. It must have been so fun for Dad to read about his kids imaginations or see their personalities shining through on those 33 lines each day. Yes, there were 33 lines in college ruled notebooks. Do you remember when Dad would decide when you'd "graduated" from wide ruled to college ruled? You felt older, but now there were more lines to fill!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. Man those lines! I hated them and I still am SO bad at writing. I wonder how bad I would be if I didn't write lines. I do think writing those lines really forced us to use our imagination. I mean we wrote 5 essays a week at least. What a great idea! I'll totally make my kids do this as well. Write your lines!
ReplyDeleteRemember Ali Baba and the forty thieves, Pankaj? HAHAHAHA
ReplyDeleteOh Mang!
ReplyDeleteIn a test of dad's attention to detail, Anju decided to try to pull a fast one. She copied verbatim, Ali Baba and the Forty Theives into her lines book and tried to pass it off as her own writing. What she forgot was dad had a photographic memory and immediately caught it!
hahahah, man the dhukhuran (literally translates to hurt stick) came out that night.
Every day for the better part of a decade, Dad diligently read 6 pages of jibberish, each from one of his kids. Can you imagine? I think he knew us better than we gave him credit for.
I wouldn't say I copied it verbatim, but the author and I had similar writing styles :) HAHAHA
ReplyDeleteMan! I remember that too. Wow! Just the title Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves made me cringe. I couldn't even remember what you had done, just the dhukharan. hahahaah! Man that set us all straight! Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteDo you guys remember that one algebra book? I remember by the time it got to me all of our signatures were in the front starting from Pinki.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised it lasted all the way to you. I'd expect it to be illegible from tear soaked water damage.
ReplyDelete