Rayyan The Monkey
Before you start cursing me for the title of the first post,
stop right there! Rayyan does not take it as an offence at all. I realized this
long time ago when he was 4 years old.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Rayyan was feeling very energetic.
Since he was jumping around like a drunken monkey when my parents were resting.
I was worried he would disturb their sleep and called out, “Hey! You Monkey”.
The child looked back at me blinking his cute eyes with long lashes. The look
on his face was of anticipation which amused and surprised me. After sometime,
he crouched and said, “Call me Monkey again maa. I love being a monkey. You can
also call me donkey, deer, rabbit, dog or a crow. I love all of them”. It took
me some time to understand what was going on. So here was my son, who is not
offended by the name calling. With great embarrassment I recalled how I used to
respond to name calling with different animal names or cursing.
Something which should have ended as an argument turned into
a game. I called out animal names and Rayyan acted like them.
Even to this day, Rayyan has never been bothered by name
calling. His simple philosophy is, “Just because someone says something about
us, does it really change us? Are we not sure of who we are to be bothered by
what others say? On the other hand, who can be worse than us humans?”
Today I take pride in keeping patience with children but
most of the credit goes to Rayyan who guided me and taught me patience.
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