Writing on the wall

In 2 weeks he will be speaking on stage in his graduation ceremony. It will be his third and last, this year, after our long procrastination to find him a non-sectarian pre-school (still have not found one, though). Many of his peers left the day care and went to a formal pre-school (the one that comes with books and periodic tests and homeworks) after they turned 4 but he stayed on. Every time we asked him, he would say he'd like to remain in his play school. We never insisted on leaving. I wasn't ready for homeworks, to be honest.

He came home from school one day bringing a truck he assembled from milk cartons, cut out rubber slippers and balloon sticks. He beamed every time he showed it off to every one who arrived home from work. His grandfather could't be prouder. He said kid is going to be a good engineer. At times he would sit at the computer (desklaptop, he used to call it), wear his father's heavy watch, work on the mouse and announce that he has a design to finish and a meeting at 4 o'clock pm to attend to. He would glance at his borrowed wristwatch, which looks so humongous on his short, chubby arms. No matter what time of the day it is, the meeting is always at 4 o'clock. His grandfather would say kid is going to be an architect. At the dinner table he would butt in in adults conversation, provide us logic wherever it is lacking. His grandfather, beaming, would say his grandson is going to be a lawyer.

But all he wanted to be now is a prime truck driver.

A couple of days ago, i received news from his teacher that kid "vandalized a black board" in the university auditorium (he goes to a university day care). He has been enjoying writing since the Santa letter-writing activity last christmas, and he has been enjoying drawing since he got the coloring pencil gift from one of my friends. I never thought he would take it to another level. But was it really him? I asked. There was no denying. Amongst the stick figures, teacher said, written in bold, black permanent marker is his full name. He wrote it so perfectly he did not even miss his middle initial, "P."

He took to street art quite too young.









- end -

for this is how WE roll.

oh yeah. Sang my lungs out to this song at karaoke last night. To celebrate the 2-day successful forum I organized.

Now i can rock. and can sleep well at night.

yeah. for this is how I roll.

at the bottom of the stairs.

babies have no sense of time, just a sense of what they want, and always they want it now.

Gogol is no different. When he was younger, he would always wonder on the days i do not leave the house, and just play with him. He would wail every Monday morning, when i again start my work week.

I didn't have much pictures left from our childhood and with a borrowed camera (my father's) I would always snap photos of gogol at every moment possible, sometimes a million burst in a minute. But as he grew older and wanted more interaction, i realized that things like cameras, they get in the way. They break  moments of what could have been a seamless interaction between a performer and an eager audience. I stopped taking "candid" pictures of him, and started choosing only moments that i thought he would want to to remember when he gets older, and jaded about life.

This, my brother shot one weekend, at the house we are renting, weeks before he left school and left my parents' house, without them knowing it.

They are the only young boys in the family.