Natural Language Immersion in Action

Deven is settling in, as cheerfully dealing with jet lag without knowing anything about it, as he can. He was up at 5:30 am and was full of beans, singing songs so loudly that he woke up everyone, including me (and no one was unhappy about it, excluding, er, me). And I am sleeping in 'my' room, a floor up! And just when I almost went back to sleep because his voice mellowed down, there it started again, this time only louder . . .

Now about another kind of settling in - the cultural kind. Deven has two new BFFs - Purvesh and his daughter Pooja. Pooja is a sweet 10 year old who has till about 6 months ago lived in Purvesh's ancestral village in a remote area of Bihar. My Dad adopted her as a grand daughter so she could get a good education in the big city, where she now goes to school and is really working hard to catch up with the other kids in her class.

What does the name Pooja rhyme with in Hindi? Anyone? Kharbooja - which means melon - the fruit. Well, Deven started calling her exactly that - 'Kharbooja' and then giving an ear to ear smile, making everyone laugh and be horrified at the same time. Imagine your name was Katherine and a 2 year old called you Nectarine - just because the words rhyme? By the end of the day here, thankfully he had corrected himself, and Pooja returned to being a human being from being a summer fruit.

Pooja speaks and understands maybe 10 words of English. Deven understands a lot of Hindi words, but has not liked to talk in Hindi - somewhat of a disappointment for his parents. Today we encouraged Pooja to befriend Deven and read and play with him. Within a few hours of them interacting with each using words the other didn't understand, Deven began to give way and started responding in Hindi. By the evening when these pictures were taken, he was following along with her reading a Hindi alphabets book, and even tried to help Pooja pick up some words in English.

That's our boy Deven, who, I am happy to report, is on full throttle, has generally been a good boy, eating decently well, (thanks to Purvesh's firm approach - those of you who know Deven know how much of a picky eater he is), and only extreme tiredness and jetlag is slowing him down. So far so good!

Last word: He's still ultra-cautious around his Dadaji - just testing the outer perimeter of his limits. Like father like son - I have always remained conscious of the authority and discipline Papaji carries around him.

But when Dadaji's finger comes out at him with a buzzing sound of a bee, Deven can't help but crack up, giggling to the floor ...

I am really enjoying writing on this blog for the first time. Thanks Kate for the years of encouragement!

More soon. Yogesh