I wish Casper was real…

(This is an old article I had not gotten down to posting. The

conversation took place when G was 4 years old. She’s now 6.

Nevertheless, posting it here.)

“Nobody dies in Bangalore because there are no bad people here

with guns…”
Imagine the kind of shock I got when I heard my 4-year old

daughter tell me this. Whoa, little lady where is this coming

from? Die??…bad people with guns…? After the initial shock

wore off, I had no idea how to react let alone talk it out with

her. From what I thought G understood about death was that some

people go to God and become a star in the sky from where they had

come in the first place. Just like her little cousin sister, her

aunt’s dog-Sultan, and a friend’s father. Everytime she sees a

star at night (which is not so often in a place like Bangalore)

she says Hi! to them all…so sweet and innocent. I liked it

that way. Now we will have to go through some reality check and
come up with a more realistic, though softer, explanation that

the tender souls can make sense of.
Lessons are getting tougher as the years pass.
We have battled monsters and ghosts but Death is a tough one even

for Ma. Well, let time spin its own stories and I will try my

best to hold you in my lap if its anything scarier than you can

handle, my love!