22. Miss Talkative

Courtesy Madhubanti Bose

Wonder what’s the difference between a teenager and a 16 month old girl? She is talkative and equally moody. She takes the call on the mobile, says ‘hello’ and walks away from us to talk in private. She loves loud music, her favorite song being ‘Jonny Jonny, yes papa’. She remembers the first lines of most of the rhymes. However, she will sing only when no one is around. She also loves to dance. In a party she will be the first person to get into the dance floor. If I follow her, she will try to close the door, as if saying, ‘leave me alone, I am not a kid any more’.

Most of the kids are scared of her. She calls all of them ‘baby’ even if they are over a year older than her. All this little devil has to do is run towards other kids; give them a tight hug, to scare them away. One of our relatives aptly named her ‘chub chub’ (you will know what I mean if you see the animation below).

Whenever she falls she says ‘dhopash’ (‘bang’ in Bengali). If she is hurt she will say ‘shat shat’ while rubbing away the pain. Being as active as she is, these are her most used words. Her favorite activity is climbing up chairs, tables or even stairs if she finds one. Stairs attracts her a lot and we have to be really careful if there is one nearby. As she climbs the stairs she counts ‘onn, too, thee, frrr, faa, see, ssnn, ett, nnna, teeeeeeeee’. She has to start again from ‘onn’ if there are more stairs.

@ Jaipur Literature Festival 2013

When we eat she will come running to have a bite, and when you try to feed her she will run away. She also likes to feed us, and her dolls. She will say ‘tabo’ (khabo means ‘I want to eat’) when she is hungry, she will say ‘jol bii, jol’ (jol means water) when she is thirsty, she will ask for my mobile and toys that are out of reach, but never tell us what we really want to hear. No, it isn’t ‘mamma’ or ‘daddy’….its ‘potty’ and ‘shushu’. We wonder when she will start warning us in advance.