The children at the playschool next door are getting an enthusiastic education... a live band is right now playing 'Summer of '69' and other nostalgic numbers that must make a lot of sense. Too bad most of them will be deafened before they pass out into kindergarten.
I wonder at them, the people who're doing the educating, I mean. They ruthlessly cleared every shrub and tree from the place, laid down plastic turf, covered the play area with plastic corrugated sheets and greenhouse nets. Having gotten rid of the teeming birdlife that lived here, they have paper birds hanging all along one wall in the hope that their charges may be charmed and inspired. And to create an illusion of the green outdoors, they now have a large photograph of a rainforest forming a backdrop to their newly renovated swimming pool.
I'm not suggesting the children aren't happy - they are, they are! But I notice they're happiest when they're left alone, not being harangued to come inside and dance to Justin Bieber's Baby every day of the week, or plagued to put up drill displays (it's a pre-school playschool!) or indeed, being subjected to horrendous concerts like today's.
A tangent. About this cartoonist who knows a bit about kids, and dispatches regular reports on her own with warmth, lots of funny and insight.
My neighbours should take this leaf out of Oormila's book, but on second thoughts, it's probably too subtle for them.
Cartoon copyright: Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad.
Her page, Adventures of the Renaissance Mom is on Facebook. Take a look, she's hilarious!
I wonder at them, the people who're doing the educating, I mean. They ruthlessly cleared every shrub and tree from the place, laid down plastic turf, covered the play area with plastic corrugated sheets and greenhouse nets. Having gotten rid of the teeming birdlife that lived here, they have paper birds hanging all along one wall in the hope that their charges may be charmed and inspired. And to create an illusion of the green outdoors, they now have a large photograph of a rainforest forming a backdrop to their newly renovated swimming pool.
I'm not suggesting the children aren't happy - they are, they are! But I notice they're happiest when they're left alone, not being harangued to come inside and dance to Justin Bieber's Baby every day of the week, or plagued to put up drill displays (it's a pre-school playschool!) or indeed, being subjected to horrendous concerts like today's.
A tangent. About this cartoonist who knows a bit about kids, and dispatches regular reports on her own with warmth, lots of funny and insight.
My neighbours should take this leaf out of Oormila's book, but on second thoughts, it's probably too subtle for them.
Cartoon copyright: Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad.
Her page, Adventures of the Renaissance Mom is on Facebook. Take a look, she's hilarious!
2 comments:
Calvin fan? Remember the strip where he gets super super excited about a helmet with sensors or some such? finally he gets it in do-it-yourself form, abandons it and uses the carton to 'duplicate' himself? the book is called 'scientific progress goes 'boink'" i think.. if i haven't got my cartoons mixed up.
p.s: what happened to the satyamev Jayate piece? came here looking for it.
Yes, Calvin fan! *grin* I remember the transmogrifier but not that it first packaged a helmet with sensors.
About the SJ piece - sorry, da. I just talked to so many people about it, my opinions were out in the world before I could corral them into a post :D
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