Midday Musings

The other day we went to pick up Chinese food from a nearby restaurant and we took our 4 year old nephew Orko along. (He spend the weekend with us sometimes.) As long as he’s not in the house he’s very happy. And when he says he wants to go home that means he’s really tired. It was a Friday night and the downtown was abuzz with people and the neon lights from the restaurants beckoning them to their station. Sitting inside the car, peeking from his car seat Orko told us that he wanted to eat in that restaurant with the purple light or the green light or whatever light caught his attention. I explained to him that we were taking food home and the next time he came over we’ll eat at a restaurant.
While walking to the restaurant he kept asking me, “Amra kon restaurant e khabo?” (In which restaurant will we eat?) Once inside the shop he started looking around, searching for a good place to sit while we paid the bill and picked up our food. Then it was time to go. “Come on Orko, let’s go.” I told him. “But I want to eat in this restaurant,” he told us in his childish innocent voice looking at his Kaku (uncle) and Kaki (aunt) very hopefully. “Come let’s sit here,” he said and started pulling my hand. In response I pulled him back and we walked out of the restaurant distracting him with the discussion of all the yummy food we were carrying with us. Pizza and noodles are his favorite food, and any time of day you ask him what we wants to eat, “Pizza” pat comes the reply.
What struck me in this entire episode was the fact that a four year old wanted to eat at a restaurant in addition to the fact that he could pronounce the word ‘restaurant’. A couple months back he couldn’t pronounce his own surname. When I asked what his name was he would say “Shreyaj Pal Chudhuri”, totally ignoring the ‘a’ in the Chaudhuri. (I admit Pal Chaudhuri is a long and tough one for a kid to pronounce. He’s able to say it right now.) And that sent me into a thinking mode.
When I was a kid eating out was a rare thing. For one there was a dearth of restaurants. Nowadays in my hometown, eateries, English medium schools and engineering colleges have popped up everywhere like mushrooms. Our eating out meant having outside food -- the occasional phuchka, egg roll or the shingara and alur chop. This changed though during my college days as I ate out more and more frequently with my friends. Much as I ate out with friends we never ate out as a family except for one or two rare occasions. This was primarily because my dad isn’t much of a culinary explorer (he likes his meals home cooked) and my mom isn’t much into food. And then there was the cost factor too. Back then the restaurants that were there were not meant for middle class families. Times have changed now. What was once a luxury has now become something of a standard (albeit for a selective group). India is developing fast now and with development comes a change in people’s lifestyle. The consumerism bug has bit the Indian society and each day businesses are devising new ideas on how to make people spend their money. And need I say they are succeeding. But I digress.
The point I am trying to make is that even a four year old now knows the concepts which we acquired at a much later stage. And he is not responsible for it. We, adults are exposing him to a whole different world. Not only could he say ‘restaurant’ before he could say his name, at age three he could click photos on a digital camera, and it’s not that he kept clicking randomly. He focused on people and then clicked. He is now the primary photographer of his parents when they go on vacation. And by the time he was four he could play songs on my ipod, was an expert in browsing his Kaku’s iphone, and seek out the games he wanted to play, and even taught me how to browse folders and play a movie of his choice on the Sony Vaio. The times they are really a-changing!