Ishi And Her Learning Ability

As it was S's day off from work....we were just lazing around and decided to head somewhere out for a breath of fresh air. Happened to go to a nearby mall. Ishi usually keeps asking throughout the week for 'Game Ball'. Game ball is nothing but a kids play zone where she gets to play in a net full of plastic balls. She calls it that way. She also has a liking for the new gaming zone come up in a mall in our locality. Everyday while getting her ready to school, we have to keep bribing her that we'd be taking her to 'game ball' during the weekend. And we always want to keep our promise.

As soon as we were in the mall, we headed straight to the Gaming Zone. There is this game where a joker face with a small hole in his mouth keeps turning left and right. There are few vertically positioned tubes with points. Game is.......we have to put the ball in the joker mouth such that the ball rolls down and goes into the tube marked with highest point. That is the aim. We get 6 balls ot do this. Ishi does not understand this points funda and just likes 'feeding him laddoos'. Thanks to 'Chota Bheem' on TV....she now knows what a laddoo is :-) Once your turn is over you get to collect the tickets. She likes this too and pockets all the tickets we get in every game.

Me n S played basket ball later. Ishi also played a miniature version of basket ball arranged for kids. Though she managed to put not a single ball in the basket :-), she enjoyed it a lot. We then collected two items for our ticket points and came out. As soon as we came out, Ishi pointed out the food court and said, "Will Ishi eat something here? "......meaning, 'Can you get something for me :-) " .......So clever she has become. We laughed at her innocence and said we'll pick up something in HyperCity.

We shopped for our monthly groceries while Ishi sat in the trolley and picked up things of her choice (read chocolates and chips) when she ran into that aisle. She opened one pack of chips and started eating. Her dad noticed it and explained her why we should not use anything until it is billed. This she took very seriously. So when we were in the billing counter, she pulled out things from her bag and asked me to bill it. They were actually things we got at the gaming zone for our tickets. We told her its already billed and were happy to see her prompt reaction on her dads class about getting things billed just minutes before. We even billed the half eaten pack of Lays chips.

Lately I observe, Ishi is very much quicker than we thought in learning things. The other night I taught her a sloka which is meant to be said before going to sleep. That was the first time ever that I read it out to her. Second time as I said it, I told her to repeat after me. Even before I started saying that, she rendered the whole sloka without any mistakes. I was spellbound. If only we could help her use this virtue of hers......she would grow up to become someone extraordinary. Hoping we would.....Amen.