The Lies of Benevolent Dictators

B and I have been together for…a while now. I honestly do not keep track of these things and without more than a few minutes thoughts cannot tell you how long we have known each other or the date when we met, got engaged or even married. Many folks, including an especially irate immigration agent, are incredulous of the fact that we don’t track this data. It is always a nice, welcome surprise when family starts inquiring what we are doing for our anniversary as it usually spurs grand-parent sponsored, last-minute plans to “do-something”. For all the lack of remembering dates, I do remember what I felt, where I was and, of course, what I wore for these occasions so that should amount to something. I also know I probably got back from my honeymoon around the end of August and started married life around this time of year. I prefer to think of that as just the other day as opposed to however many years ago. There is both beauty and risk in keeping numbers arbitrary. I believe in a time table for life but just don't want to be reminded of it everyday.

Honeymoon, Petit St. Vincent

The kids help to keep temporal numbers arbitrary : they are going to eat capers when they are nineteen, go to Africa at seven and chew bubblegum at twenty two.

Even when Tings and Huns remind me once a week of how old they are and how old I am we are able to indulge in the time-is-arbitrary-fantasy a little longer. Tingu refers to his current age as "late fives".

"Hey, little guy, how old are you?"
"I'm in my late fives; You?"

Tingu : “I just kissed your brain”

Me : “That was my hair”

Tingu : “No, I mean that gray part”

Me : “Yeah, of course, that is hair”

Tingu : “No Way! I was sure that grey part was your brain, not hair….(pause and concern) Do I have grey hair?”

Me : “No”

Tingu : “Because I am late fives and not 24?”

Me : “Right.”

So truth be told, I am a ways away from 24. Shocking, I know. A close look at the suddenly sprouted ‘laugh lines’ around my eyes are a fairly obvious indicator so I figure my little ‘lie’ to Tingu is more comedic then actually misleading; And perhaps contrary to that little dialogue, I really do appreciate aging, for now. That’s not to say I don’t miss my once well-defined jawline and hummingbird-like metabolism. They were very under-appreciated in their prime. Even the Tings is starting to catch on that all is not as it seems since I smirk every time my ‘age’ comes up. It is surprising what the kids notice about expressions and lies.

And, oh my, the lies. For a while, it was like the Inquisition around here. Any verbal misstep or mistake by B or I was met by tiny bodies with flashing eyes and pointing fingers vehemently crying out “YOU LIE!”.

"The Squad"

Our offenses ranged from noting they had peas as opposed to broccoli three nights ago at dinner to what a best friend’s favorite color of Bablade was on Saturday to if Pluto is a planet even if it is a dwarf or minor planet. The boys have fantastic memories. Mine is a little shoddy but I shall blame it on my real age! Thankfully we were able to relatively quickly enlighten the boys on the concept of mistakes - good mistakes and bad mistakes - which lead to a conversation on accidents. Now, we are facing an accident epidemic at the house. There seem to be a lot of mysterious accidents occurring….

"Accidently" coloring your face:

"Accidently" falling massive-monkey-bean-bags:


"Accidently" sitting on your brother:

And foiled 'Accidents' in progress:

So the discussion has progressed to ‘Intent’.

Hunie was found sitting in the midst of a pile of torn up books at school. He refused to answer as to if he did this or not; even after a standoff with the principal, he simply refused to answer her questions after 30 minutes of probing.

On the drive home from school, I recanted a convoluted, half-forgotten version of Pinocchio. Even so, I was silently applauding myself for the finesse in which I was handling this incident and as I neatly concluded the tale, emphasizing the morale of the story, I asked Huns, “ So did you do it?” Hunie quickly responded, “ Yes, but since I didn’t say so, sooo No” and darted off into the house. This left me not only astonished but wondering what message were we teaching him that brought him to the conclusion that if you don’t answer you are not guilty. It is true enough and a good survival skill however I also viewed it as the seeds of civil disobedience being sowed within my homestead: without due cause, one should not “just not answer” an authority figure esp when you are three years old. Right?

By the time I got inside the house, I had decided there was no way I was going to let my boys not answer my questions. This homestead is under the governance of dictator, albeit a benevolent one, and I expect all ‘littles’ to obey. Poor Tingu. It must have been a full moon night as he too was acting very strange and hyper (no comment on my own mental state).

I immediately thought he must have been sitting next to this one recalcitrant child at school, “ Who did you sit next to at lunch?” He refused to answer!! I could not believe it! The golden boy held strong. Oh, there were rants and raves and neither of us backed down until finally B intervened and it was decided to table this conversation until after breakfast Saturday. However the weekend came and went and Tingu still refused to answer the question. However, on Monday as soon as I got home from the office, Tingu joyfully exclaims,” I sat next to Maya and Sam at lunch today.” Then he innocently looks at my face and asks, “ Am I lying?”

I peer into his eyes and say,” No”

Tingu, “ How did you know I am not lying?”

Me, pointing to my forehead,” Parents have an invisible third-eye by which we can detect lies.”

Tingu, “ Ohh.”

He stares intently at my forehead for a few more seconds, “ I really sat next to Brandon and Jared.” B just laughs and laughs. A page from history, my total command dictatorship is crumbling in the face of knowledge and experience that the boys are obtaining at dizzying speeds.

Uniform of a late 5's Freedom Fighter, Knowledge Seeker

Even B is susceptible as he was struggling putting together a new toy, Tingu gives him a very skeptical look and said, “ Uh, do you know what you are doing?”

B just leans in very close to the Tingu’s face and stares right into his eyes and after a deliberate pause says in low, measured, convincingly gruff voice, “ Yes, I do”. It was very Dirty Harry.

Nonetheless, that became a pivotal moment to me: Tings questions his parent's ability.

Hunie valiantly attempts to follow his bro's footsteps on how to out smart us however still (luckily) struggles in selecting appropriately unfamiliar topics : it wasn’t “pee-pee” in the bathtub, it was just “yellow-soap” that comes out of his body.

The Olypmics may be over, but the games have just begun!

The Chaos and Order of Hunie

Chaos is defined as the behavior of systems that follow deterministic laws but appear random and unpredictable.

 Hunie is a chaotic system deferring to the deterministic laws of his inner-monkey.

Chaotic dynamics
If you happen to have wandered around all day with your lucky penny in your sock, as Tingu did, and then fished that penny out and placed it on the table whilst you enjoyed your dinner, concentrating with tunnel-vision precision on an episode of Tom & Jerry, in a flash of an instant, Hunie’s eyes will light up, his mouth will settle into a closed smile and he will grab that penny and run to the nearest vent and deposit it into the abyss. Tingu will howl and throw himself onto the floor, Nana will shout and launch half his body down the vent to retrieve it and Hunie will watch this little episode while slowly backing out of the room with a sheepish grin on his face and a gleam in his eye.


I am quite sure that Hunie does not suffer from schadenfreude but I do believe he relishes the ability to elicit action from others. Perhaps an overstatement of my toddler’s psychological foresight however we have a generally happy family and you really have to do something super-over-the-top to bring out ecstatically happy reactions. The reality is, it is easier to derive minor levels of disturbance, with rather entertaining results, through these pranks. Huns has mastered that skill completely. A reality TV producer in the making.

This Friday alone, he turned getting into the car before school into a full out game of chase through the cul-da-sac. Aside from the fact that I got to the office at an abysmal 9:30am, it was fun way to start the day. He coaxes us out of our daily routines with his compelling brand of charm. He absolutely refuses to believe you don’t want to play with him - he laughs and grins and will impishly steal something you need until you engage in a round of play.

That being said, describing how my exceptionally charming three-year old made me late is a hard-sell when you work in a traditional office environment and is generally a rather lame excuse full stop so I wake up an hour early and somehow manage to dress in under 10 minutes so as to accommodate a morning game of “Sneak-Attack”, where an (un)lucky member of the household gets ‘pounced’ on (yes, a Tingu original) or combat a bout of Mexican Wrestler Syndrome that often strikes at 7:30am:

Strange Attractors

Sometimes chaotic systems demonstrate interesting dynamics on what is known as an attractor. For the sake of this little discussion, that attractor will be Nana. As with most things in our household, reactions are all the more amplified when the Nana is involved. I can imagine the conversation went something like this:

Nana, standing two feet away from Hunie sternly noting,“ Put my phone down!”

Hunie would look at Nana, peer into his benign eyes which belie his stern voice, and with sparkly eyes & a charming smile put his phone down….the toilet.

Nana would race to the toilet, eyes bulging, mouth agape, fish his phone out, shouting in Gujrati at Hunie, phrases that translate to things like, ”Go oil yourself,” (Tal mar ou) or ,” May your caste get beat-down” (thra jat na maru). Words that in either language have little relevance to a 3 year old. Hunie would run away while his Nana dried his phone muttering away and musings on where Hunie gets it from, seemingly forgetting every childhood story we ever heard about him.

Hunie is typically not this naughty but on the subject of strange attractors, Nana’s was also the only bed that stayed dry through the potty training days.

Another identified attractor in our chaotic system is any public forum. Hunie clamors for attention and typically gets it any way he can. Once he was found standing on a chair in the midst of a group of random eight year olds singing some crazy song while stuffing cake in his face much to their amusement. Another time, while standing in a long customs line, after a 22 hr plane ride, started singing at the top of his lungs,” My mommy w-e-a-r-s, dirty under-w-e-a-r-s.” I was hysterical -  laughing, admonishing and trying to denounce the chant all at once. It was a classic parenting moment. For the record, I later learned, this fabulous tune was not based on actual observed practices but memorized while watching the highly acclaimed Chipwrecked – Alvin and the Chipmunks Squeakquel multiple times on the flight.

Sensitivity to initial conditions

All this being said, Hunie is so not the child of nightmares. He is astutely aware of the initial conditions within an environment, he knows what degree of ‘antics’ are tolerated where and by whom. Granted, he still pushes the envelope. Hunie knows, he watches you and looks into your eyes to gage latlitude.

You cannot just wear sunglasses and yell at Huns or pretend that your laughing fit due to something he did is really a case of odd sneezes and sniffles. You have to really be mad at him which typically I am not as he is just pushing boundaries that I, perhaps unfortunately, find amusing and interesting. It is quite hard being mad when he looks like this:


Sounds like this:

And usually has Tingu lobbying his case, “ Mom, don’t make him cry (usually just loud shouting). He is just, you know, three.”

And what a three it is! Hunie is an architect and demolition man. He oscillates between these extreme realms of precision and order to disturbance and noise. He is quite the solo singer - don’t join him in chorus. He will loudly ask you to stop and then start over his performance until he can get all the way through it by himself.

When reading, he sometimes confuses the number eight as a snowman : “I live at one-two-Snowman (128) Mainstreet”. He secretly loves trains but because Tings says they are for babies, Hunie only indulges in this pastime when his bro is away.


He knows a lot but pretends like he doesn’t. He takes very good care of little kids especially babies. He is good at foreign languages, math and coloring but will do nothing, nothing upon command.

You have to spy on him to hear his elaborate stories when playing. Unlike Tings, he could care less about his clothes but loves his light-up shoes.

He preferred mode of transport is anything on wheels, his tippy-toes or jumping from place to place with the afore-mentioned shoes. He has also been known to run around dinner parties in his underwear and a cape.

He has developed very selective hearing stimuli such that I have to shout random snack words to get his attention. Popsicle & Marshmellow have been most effective lately. Oh and his smile, his smile gets him the moon.