Tom and Jerry

Our 3-year-old boistrous son, Chuvai and 1-year-old sweet daughter, Choti, bring ‘Tom and Jerry’ alive in our house every day.

Today in the car, my son wanted to tell stories. His stories are generally a mish-mash of the ones we tell him. This one was original and needed to be documented. So here it goes:

Chuvai: Ma, I will tell a stoee[story], OK. Which two animals?

[standard procedure to tell a story: ask the animals you want featured in the bedtime story. My husband started it and is now an expert at spinning tales around any combination of animals. ]

Ma : Hmmmmm…a cat and a mouse.

Chuvai : Once upon a time, in a BIIIIIGGGG forest, there was a cat. His name was Chuvai and mouse called Choti. They were playing and then Chuvai wanted to take bath in the yive [river] and SPlash and all that. There was a yive [river] there, Ok? a Biiiiiiiggg yive [river].
One Biiiiiggg elephant came there, his name was Gajyaj. He saw Choti and said ‘Ha ha ha, I am going to eat you’.

Ma: [Not liking, the way the story is going. Especially considering his current fascination for gore involving cokadile, shaaks and big teeth ]. But elephants don’t eat animals. They only eat leaves and rice and bananas…

Chuvai: But this elephant, wanted to eat..

Ma: Noooo. No, elephant eats only plants and leaves and …..

Chuvai: Ok. A lion came there, Ok? His name was Sheysingh. He came and saw Choti and said ‘Ha ha ha..

Ma: [thinking: Ok let me see where this goes]

Chuvai: I am going to eat you. Lions eats other animals, no? Then he yoayed [roared], and [lowering his voice to a tiny one] Choti said ‘No, no , don’t eat me’. That time, Chuvai came there and said [big voice again] ‘Sheysingh, I will not let you eat her ‘, [yes, temporary suspension of pretense] , then he took a stick and gave sheysingh a big WHACK [big eyes now]. Sheysigh went a fell in the yive [river] and yan [ran] off.

Ma : Wow ! Good story, sweetie.

Chuvai: So the moyal [moral] of the story is, if someone scares Choti, then Chuvai will beat them away.[A swish of hand to emphasize]

[Another standard procedure: every story has to have a moyal..oops moral]

Ma: [Lays to rest all doubts of sibling jealousy]. {And can now appreciate the requirement of the third scary animal in the story. Every hero needs a villian, right?}

Note: He still cannot pronounce ‘r’ and uses ‘ya’ instead, but is oh-so-protective of his little baby sister.