Holiday Homework

(Hindustan Times, 8 July 1983)

Friends and relatives will please refrain from calling on us this week. With the school just about to re-open, we are busy catching up with our children's homework.

We made the fatal mistake of going out of Delhi for the summer vacation. As a result, a pile remains to be completed before their school reopens. The summer vacation is the period when, in any school, a major portion of the annual quota of activity takes place. If you don't believe us, you are welcome to have a close look at the task we have to accomplish. Right now I am helping my elder son, studying in Class IV; and my wife, the younger one, studying in Class I.

This is the gist of my assignment. This evening I must visit the petrol pump with my son and find out the price of one litre of petrol and one of kerosene, and explain why the price of one is more/less that the other. I must also help to prepare a chart of the monthly consumption of household things in my home.

Last Saturday, I spent a whole afternoon at the Super Bazar with my son, helping him note down the names of articles sold there (about 243). Initially the shopkeeper resisted our attempt. But fortunately the old Sardarji who is in charge, arrived at the scene and allowed us to go ahead. (A few days back I had returned to him Rs 10 which I thought he had overpaid me),

Next, I should find out how many sweets are there in a half-kilo packet, and the number of biscuits in a pack of 150 grams. For these I see no escape from a financial expenditure. You can't, after all, ask the sweetmeat chap to weight 1/2 kg sweets, count them, and ask him to keep them back. Not when he has half a dozen hefty servants at his beck and call!

There is one question which I plan to attempt at night (during Chitrahaar, to be precise). And that is to measure the distance between my house and the nearest school in close steps. The same act is to be repeated from my house to an important building nearby. One could in fact venture this in daytime as well. Worse comes to the worst, the busy traffic might come to a standstill to watch our act, or we become the laughing stock. Who knows, that this is just the purpose intended by the school.

I must visit the American Library and collect details on spaceships. Any information provided in less than a foot's length does not constitute an answer in my son's school. Therefore transferring a common man's knowledge acquired from reading newspapers to a Class IV student is considered insufficient.

"What causes air pollution? What are the harmful effects of air pollution, and the ways in which it should be checked." This is the next question. To find the answer, we plan to visit the Ranganathans (Mr R is an environmental specialist) in the guise of a courtesy call and broach the subject casually without letting him suspect the purpose of our visit.

Last but not the least will be a visit to Dr Kurup, the indigenous medicine expert. I must remember to take with me fresh flowers and leaves from my locality, not as a bouquet, but to find out from him their botanical names and uses. If is out of Delhi, I will buy a Tamil-English botany dictionary and see what they say in English for Kolaambi Poo or Narakathelai which grow near my house.

Incidentally, please don't ask us to which school our children belong. On extensive verification, we have observed that this tale of woe is Ghar ghar kis kahani.