Explaining Death

Last night my daughter asked me about death. She was wondering why she had never seen 'ajja' , my father. I explained he wasn't feeling well, his body functions stopped, he stopped breathing, went into a never waking sleep. Not sure how much she understood.

Convention

The other day, my daughter had dictation of numbers. She wrote eight out of twenty, that were given, in reverse. She used to do it once in a while but not to that extent. I went through the articles online dealing with this and few of them mentioned that children's ability to distinguish between left and right wasn't developed fully until they were five to six years old.

That took me to the conversation I had with my four year old few days ago. She asked me to confirm her left and right hand (even though  she's generally correct with these two directions). I showed her. She wanted to know who told me that or how I knew that. I said it was a 'convention'. Our conversation was in Kasaragod Malayalam and all of a sudden I had to use an English term which she had no idea. She just repeated my word and kept quiet. I had no idea how to explain the term 'convention' in Malayalam and let it pass.

Here comes my limitation with the language. I made a point to talk to her in Malayalam even though my grasp over the language was only passable. My intention was to gradually switch over to English which I thought wouldn't be possible if I were to speak to her in Kannada, which I speak with mother-tongue fluency, from the beginning. Also, exposure to multiple languages from childhood hasn't given me any kind of advantage and on the contrary I always felt I lacked the proficiency in any single language because of it. There could be other reasons for my lack of complete grasp in any single language but I didn't want to take any chance with this respect too.

It seems children imitate their fathers' speech until they are four years old. I suppose it was something to do with limited vocabulary and simple sentences that males use as compared to females. I'm not sure whether that was a credible study or not but  I read it in the National Geographic's Geo magazine. Nevertheless, I'm afraid that's more or less true in my family as my daughter's fluency in the language appears to match mine and not my wife's who is a native speaker of the language.

Oblivious Realization - 2

It has been nearly five years since I wrote about them. The father, the mother, and the daughter who spoke Kannada. Their regular presence on the street next to my house has been my regular observational ritual. It's as if nothing has changed in the last ten  years. However, in the last few months I didn't see them for very long. I thought it's strange since they were like people who would disappear from that locality only upon their death. Their presence has made my presence on that street ancient. I wondered if one of them would be permanently missing when I see them next time. The other day, I saw only the mother and daughter(as I'd identified them). But nowadays I don't see them regularly. Will I again become new to that street as they fade away?