Long Long Ago…

Amongst all the vagaries of life there are some memories that stand out like lush green oases amid the parched sands of a desert. I have decided to chronicle some of them- if only to forget the ones that hurt.

Way back in the mid-90s we lived in Kalindi, Lake Town- Calcutta. My daughters aged 6 and 3 had decided to help the entire ant population in and around our home to not just survive but to thrive on sugar cubes! While dusting the windows one morning I discovered, much to my amusement and also a little chagrin, lumps of decomposed sugar cubes lined up behind the curtains. The ant families lived within the cracks on the window sill, I presumed.

I wanted to give my little ones a hands-on sermon on wastage and resource management. So when they returned from school I asked them to explain the presence of the sugar cubes behind the curtains. Pat came the response- but you always say we must help fellow creatures! We saw that the ants were struggling to get tiny grains of sugar to their families, so we gave them the sugar cubes to feast on…

Humbled by such pragmatism, I merely pointed out that some of the ants had actually died of over eating- as some dead ants still clung to the sugar cubes. I finished rather lamely, admonishing them that in the future when they decided to be generous, they might want to be less extravagant- just so their good intentions did not become the cause of destruction for the beneficiaries.

For me, this was a stern lesson in always “walking the talk” with children. If you teach children to be sensitive and caring you must also be prepared to deal with some extra chores…I sighed and went back to mopping the sticky sweet aftermath of my daughters’ charity.