Turning seven :)

It was Tina's 7th birthday and she was all excited about meeting her favorite 'Nanni' for her birthday.It had been a good 1 year since Nanni visited her at Bangalore, so Tina was all excited when her parents decided that for a change they would be visiting Nanni for Tina's birthday.Even if it meant that this year there would be no 'surprise' birthday parties, no meeting Riya(her best-est-est friend) and celebrating with her barbies and doll house gang, Tina was all up for this change as she wanted to prove to her parents that she is a 'big' girl now.

Tina loved her Nanni very much.Nanni brought into her life a sense of reality in fantasy for her.Since she is a part of a thoroughly nuclear family, going back home to her Nanni after school was something Tina used to look forward to.Tina loved Nanni's home made food, she loved the lime pickle and avakkai's Nanni used to make for her while she was around.Nanni used to treat her like a princess - it just had to be a kind request from her and Nanni would make sure her wish was fulfilled. Since she was the princess while Nanni was around, Tina would order a bed time story every night by Nanni, which was duly fulfilled to her. Nanni was an ultimate story teller - she used to wind fantastic stories for her princess which always used to keep her mesmerised as to how many stories Nanni actually knew.After one point of time Tina just stopped counting as she did'nt know to count after 80 :) .Tina was a girl with an excellent photographic memory and vivid imagination, all this thanks to her Nanni for being able to sow into her mind, stories of nature, love, war, goodness , truth and other topics which needed imagination of the listener as important as the creativity of the story teller.

Tina had never been to Banwasi , her ancestral village. In fact Tina was a total city girl.Never been out to her village, always travelled in cars etc etc. The train journey to her village was something very exciting for little Tina.She kept peeping out of her window whenever the train halted at a station asking her daddy inquisitively 'Daddy are we there yet? Is Nanni going to come see us at the platform?...How much longer daddy?'. Her list of questions never seemed to end.
Finally Banwasi arrived.Tina, mommy and daddy got a chauffeur driven car to pick them up from the station while her Nanni was waiting eagerly to meet her princess at their house.The car led Tina into Banwasi through narrow un-tarred roads, roads which no one knew when had a pot hole or when a ditch.The driver artistically led them through the roads of her village- the roads were filled with rich greenery of paddy fields all around them.Far away were enormous hills which Tina thought one could never reach.She had never witnessed such rich blend of strong colors around her, she was just jubilant and that could be seen by the intensity of attention she was paying to her natural surroundings.It was such a beautiful ride that she almost felt like she was being ridden into her kingdom in her own palanquin.

After a nice 20 minute ride into the fields containing paddy, coconut trees and other crops that Tina couldn't yet recognize, they finally reached their 'Nanni's' house :). Nanni was standing there waiting for her Tina in her crisp cotton Saree, hair tied into a nice cute grayish-white bun.Tina got out of her car and went running to give her Nanni her beariest-bear hug.After being ushered into her house, Tina couldn't stop to think how big and airy her 'Nanni's' house was. Tina pleaded her Nanni to take her around the house and wanted Nanni to make-pretend to be her guide in her newly formed kingdom.Nanni as usual obliged :).

Nanni held little Tina's tender hands and showed her around.The tour was to begin from the entrance and end at the terrace."Let the show begin" said Tina. The house had a huge lawn outside with a variety of plants which decorated the entrance of their house.As she stepped her foot inside the house she saw a quadrangle bigger than her apartment's lift lobby which ran all throughout the house.In the center of the quadrangle was a huge empty courtyard where Nanni had her sacred 'Tulsi' to whom she prayed every morning without fail.On the periphery of the quadrangle was the kitchen, a couple of rooms, and the other boring parts of the house.Each room had huge ceilings which Tina had never seen anywhere before.The walls of the house were filled with artistic paintings that Nanni had made when she was a little girl maybe even when she was as little as Tina herself. Nanni showed her each and every painting that was hung in the house and told her everything about each one of them.


There was one painting amongst them that Tina couldn't stop staring at. It was a beautiful array of colors that mesmerized her.The symmetry of shapes, the inter wining of patterns, the exquisite color pallet in the painting kept Tina asking for more.Nanni knew Tina liked the painting a lot and on purpose didn't describe much about it to her.Nanni knew Tina would get attracted to this one particular painting and hence had her birthday gift related to this painting.Tina kept begging Nanni to tell her what the painting really, actually (with 'God promise' made) meant, but Nanni kept playing around her excitement and asked Tina to wait till tomorrow(her birthday) to get answers to her questions. Tina was soo lost in the painting and attracted to it that she spent the whole evening trying to figure out what it is exactly?Is it a design? Is it a flower? Is it the rainbow turned into a circle? She kept looking at that particular painting and swinging back and forth in her wooden swing in the quadrangle.She was soo full of questions that it was fun to see her derive her own logic out of simple little things around her. Her parents played along with Nanni and kept her questions unanswered till tomorrow.

Tina spent the rest of the day tagging along with Nanni, helping her around the house, learning her everyday move and enjoying every bit of her holiday time with dear Nanni.But there was still this question running in her mind as to what the painting really was :). That night Tina slept with her Nanni in her room.For the first time Tina didn't ask Nanni for a bed time story, instead played floor chess with her till she dozed away in Nanni's lap.

"Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you...Happy birthday dear Tina...Happy birthday to you". These were the words little Tina woke up to the next day :) These words were like music to her ears and she woke up rubbing her eyes and giving her best smile possible :) . Nanni took her in her lap and placed in her hand a long rectangular package wrapped in colorful sand paper. Tina was soo excited to get a gift from Nanni the first thing in the morning, and the smile on her face just got plastered for a little longer than she thought. She carefully unwrapped her precious gift. It was a long rectangular piece of hard cardboard which had a mirror on either ends and looked like it was filled with something, when she shook the gift she could listen to nice melodious clicks.She was very excited and asked Nanni what it really was. Nanni told her that it was a Kaleidoscope. "Ka-lie-do....Ka-lie-do-sco-ppe" she finally got to spell her gift in her still slumbered voice. Tina wasn't sure how to use her new found toy, it didn't have a button to press, didn't have a key to start with, it was just a long rectangular box like thing which if was a little bigger could have passed off as her pencil box. Nanni got Tina to use her gift, she trained her hands to place her gift in such a way that one of the mirrors was placed in front of her eyes.Tina was made to close the other eye and look into the mirror with the other one. Tina just couldn't believe what she saw in front of her eyes.It was exactly a pattern like the painting she was pleading her Nanni to explain her to. The symmetry, the pattern, the colors and the different designs the gift made with her turning it in different directions brought her soo much joy that no other barbie she played with ever got her.She turned her "Ka-lie-do-sco-ppe" round and round till she found newer patterns in front of her eyes.Patterns she had never seen, never made and never imagined. The little clicks inside her gift brought to life colorful forms that made Tina's heart jump with joy. It didn't take Tina long to figure out that the elusive painting was all about such patterns that Nanni had seen when she must have got her hands on her own Kaleidoscope. Tina hugged her Nanni tightly and thanked her very very much for such a beautiful gift.

Tina knew that none of her friends had ever seen something like this ever in their little life and Tina was the first girl in her class to have something soo special for a birthday gift.What made it even more special for her was that Nanni had made the Kaleidoscope all by herself for her Tina.She used her old colorful bangles which she no longer used to make the inner 'clicks' of her Kaleidoscope. She spent the whole day proudly walking around her quadrangle playing with her beautiful Kaleidoscope all through her new Kingdom.

Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooo much Nanni. I love you a lot :)