Rick is only five years old and studies in KG. His elder sister Srijani , who is about one and a half year older than him, studies in Class I. She has started learning to write small paragraphs about people and objects around her. Rick, in his stance to imitate whatever elder sis does, also tried his hands in writing paragraphs - about himself and about a cow. At his mother's instruction, he showed me his notebook proudly and I was quite impressed at seeing his efforts. He had written five/six lines each for both the topics, in Bengali, and my friend told me that he wrote everything himself, except for asking a few difficult spellings.The first topic about himself was something like this :My Name is Rick Ghosh.My sister's name is Srijani Ghosh. My father's name is Vikash Ghosh. My mother's name is Sonali Ghosh. I study in ABC School. My school is closed for winter holidays.The next one was about "Cow". It went like this:A cow is a pet animal .A cow has four legs. A cow has two eyes. A cow has two years. A cow has a tail.A cow has one nose.[ He didn't know the Bengali equivalent of the word "pet", which is a quite big and tough word for a five year old kid, so he went as asked his mother]I was quite impressed at his endeavour and in my effort to spark and test his imagination a little more, I told him "OK, you have done a great job, and now let's try out something more!! Why don't you write five lines about me??" Let's see what you think about me!!"He remained silent for a few moments and then said "I don't know what to write". I assured him, that he will write very well, and also told him that he could think of about the things that we do together, and write them down.He started writing , and the very first line shocked me quite a bit :), but i encouraged him to write whatever he felt. He was sitting facing me , so I could see whatever he was writing. Both of them call me "Maani" instead of "Maasi", and this is what he wrote about me :Maani has two legs.
Maani has two hands.
Maani has two ears.
Maani has one nose.
Maani has two eyes.By this time a wholesome laughter was trying to burst out of me. I was simultaneously happy and a bit disillusioned. I had expected him to write a couple of sentences about how much I loved him, or at least a mention about my pair of glasses. We asked him if he didn't have anything else to write about me, and he simply declared "I cannot remember anything more !!" I was sitting in front of him, yet he had to try and remember about me just like the cow!!! This was something that I really was amazed at - I was trying to understand his way of thinking, and couldn't quite fathom whether he was thinking of me or the cow:) while writing about me.Later his mother told him that he should write things like "Maani loves me very much ..." and he added another 2-3 lines after that. But the first five lines where his genuine description about his Maani . I told him, nobody has given such a good description of me till now, and that I would like to take the writeup home.I have brought back the sheet from his notebook. It is proudly stuck on the door of my fridge.