A wet Sunday.

My nephews and a niece had come down from Thiruvananthapuram, to spend the weekend with us. Madhavan(class IV), Kripashankar(class V) and Kirtana(class IX) had also wanted to spend a day at the water theme park nearby. With continuous rains out here, that was one outing that I was not enthusiastic about but with the children egging me on, I did not want to be a spoilsport.

We entered the park by a half past 10 and I really didn't know how time flew as I was without my watch! The time spent with the kids was invigorating and full of fun. They wanted me to do everything alongwith them and I saw some of the bystanders with an amused look at this 'overgrown' kid. It all ended abruptly, as I perceived, when we'd to leave the park at a half past 5 as the children had to return with their parents to be back at school the next day.

The kids opened up quite a lot of their 'secrets' to this 'maman' of theirs and some of them really amazed me. Madhavan and Kirtana call their father, 'Hitler Qureshi' and their mother as 'witch no.1' just because they're strict with them and do not brook any nonsense - they'd to be gently conveyed the message that I too was with their parents, on that score, because they enforced discipline to ensure that their children were likeable to one and all, as they grew up. Kripashankar was technically oriented and he used to get busy on his 'playstation port' in between the themes. He needs to accept the 'nays' from his parents because they're very, very indulgent.

All in all, a wet Sunday but a thoroughly educative one at that. I was once again reminded of the harsh fact that I was a dumbo at their age and learnt quite a lot in the process!