Toddlers are nothing if not quick to learn how to get what they want, when they want it. In Jasper’s case, this means that he has learned to whinge in Hindi.
I first noticed a few Hindi words making their way into his vocabulary a few weeks ago, on one of the many occasions when he was sick. In between the snuffles, I could just about make out the word ‘chahiye’ or चाहिये. It is pronounced ‘cha-ee-yay’ and it means ‘I want’.
“Mama chahiye”; “water chahiye”; “bunny chahiye” he would whimper over and over. At first, I thought he was delirious and even included this ‘speaking in foreign tongues’ in my description of his symptoms to the doctor. But after a few days, when the fever subsided and the Hindi remained, I realised that he had well and truly duped me.
The words, the tone and the hang-dog expression are all borrowed from his closest friends (most of whom speak Hindi with their nannies) and under Jasper’s masterful deployment, work in harmony to achieve the desired effect - namely, that I give him absolutely anything he wants, whenever he wants it. Even since deciding that he isn’t confused or possessed, I find myself well and truly under the spell of his linguistic talents. His little sing-songy voice lingers on the last syllable of chahiye - dragging it out while he drops the sides of his mouth and fixes his cornflower blue eyes on me. I am powerless to resist because I am so proud of his confidence in speaking a foreign language. I am also told that his pronunciation is not to be sniffed at.
Besides chahiye, Jasper also knows pakka (पक्का) which means ‘for sure’. As he stands in his high chair at the end of every meal, his nanny will check that he is finished by asking “tummy full? pakka pakka?” He also knows the foods that he likes, such as dosa and thepla and paratha, three of his favourite round, flat accompaniments to a sabzhee or vegetable, all of which he pronounces with their Indian consonants - none of which appear in English. My dosa is his dosha. My tepla is his dhepla. My paratha is his parattha (with a half-rolled ‘r’). His nap time is his ni-ni, and when he really doesn’t want to do something, he will tell us a colloquial ‘nay nay’ in Hindi slang, instead of ‘no’. And every time he does it, I am so distracted by his adorable little command of a second language that I cave and give him what he wants. Like I said, it’s masterful.
And it’s not only foreign words that Jasper likes to play with. His cheeky sense of humour shines through when he deliberately says that something is yellow when it’s red; or calls a dog a panda; or tells me resolutely that ‘Japper not say penguin, Japper say peng-WUNG.’ He has come up with an ingenious solution for when he disagrees with me as to whether we are looking at a picture of a turtle or a tortoise: he calls them all ‘tortle’. He has also perfected his impression of me pretending to be sad when I fib about something not being open for us to visit right-now-this-minute. With a huge sigh, a tilt of the head to one side and his eyes wistful, he will let a sombre ‘not today’ hang in the air like a cloud of regret. Except in his case, he is usually talking about whether or not he needs the potty, or whether we should brush his teeth. ‘Not today …’
While I love his ability to manipulate language (and to a lesser extent, me), I do worry that come July this year, when we start to apply for schools, his sense of humour is going to hold him back. The private school system in Mumbai is a masterclass in elitism. Schools only want the brightest and best and in order to filter out the rest, they hold ‘interviews’ for children as young as two. Interviews. For two-year-olds.
From what I have been told by other mums, these interviews (or auditions) involve the child being put in a room with some carefully selected educational toys, on their own without a parent or guardian who might help them cheat, and then they are expected to play with the toys ‘correctly’. If they don’t build the right tower, or use the right colours on a picture, they aren’t allowed in. Knowing Jasper’s propensity to play around, I can already tell you that he won’t pass these interviews if he’s in the mood for mischief that day.
Jasper’s current pre-school held a meeting with parents this week to share some ideas for how they can help their children prepare for these interviews during the summer holidays. I skipped the meeting because I am a terrible parent … not really, I was busy packing for our upcoming trip to the UK. But the notes I was sent by another mum were nothing short of overwhelming:
Sequencing - like what comes next in the story/nursery rhyme/ sequence. Use sequence cards and ask them to arrange them. Daily routine sequences, colour sequences, shape sequences, patterns.
Story time, pretend play, messy play, making things
Puzzles
Sorting, lacing, building, colouring (the right colour in the right place)
Letting them make choices and help around the house
Familiarity with traditional fairy tales like Goldilocks and Jack and the Beanstalk (none of which we own)
By contrast, my plans for his school holiday in Jersey involve trips to the zoo with his Granddad, muddy mornings at somewhere called the Sheep Shed, eating as many fresh prawns as we can and trying to impose a ‘No Ball Games in the House’ rule at my mum’s. I have at least assigned Jasper's Aunty La-La (Liv) to help with puzzles, which he loves.
What I find baffling, beyond the fact that two-year-olds are being skills-tested to earn their place in one of these elite schools, is that the parents of older children in our compound are constantly on the lookout for extra tuition for their children who are studying at these very schools. And by tuition, I mean ‘someone who can help with school projects’, ‘a handwriting teacher’ and ‘personality development classes for my nephew who is 14’ - to quote but a few. I see a disconnect somewhere. The schools only want to work with geniuses, and the parents want perfection to come out at the other end, but it seems that nobody wants to do the legwork - besides an army of tutors.
Once he joins the academic rat-race, I am more than happy to put the hours in to help Jasper, especially with his school projects because, let’s be honest, I’m mostly in this motherhood thing for the arts and crafts. I just have to hope that his foreign passport (and our willingness to allow his image to be used in school brochures) goes a long way to helping our preferred school to overlook his inevitable failure to ‘play correctly’ under pressure. I have so much empathy for the mums of Jasper’s friends, none of whom can avoid their children being assessed and compared and undoubtedly, rejected as they fight their way into a good school. It is a terrifyingly competitive school system, which can make or break their child’s entry into an even more terrifyingly competitive job market.
We don’t expect to stay in India long enough for Jasper to need high school here, let alone University or internships or an entry-level job. We simply need him to be educated to a standard that will be compatible with Australia somewhere down the line. And so, with the luxury of knowing that a few places do tend to be kept aside for expat children in all of the schools we are considering, I can continue to focus on being proud of the things he can already do - like successfully asking Alexa to play Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. Because that’s what he is - a cheeky, mischievous, highly energetic little monkey who is still only two and a bit years old.
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