Of manners and mischief

The fact that junior addresses me or anyone at home as “vaadaa..podaa” has always been a subject of debate. He addresses anyone outside of the immediate family as “neenga vaanga” and even within the family, even though he may call them in singular, the “da” part is respectfully mine for getting addressed. Seeing that it is becoming a eye-brow raising topic amongst guests and other people, wifey is embarrassed at best and would be at beetroot red boiling angry in such situations, on me not on junior, for never discouraging him to use a respectful way of addressing. Even though there is absolute merit what the lady says like every other thing she says, I find it funny and never really bothered about it. Last week was a “vedham pudidu” moment that resulted in this post. We had visited my cousin’s and junior was so happy that he had an amazing variety of new toys to play along with kids his age. For the next 5 hours, he hardly came near us and was constantly on the run, creating their own games and situations involving all those toys. When the toy gun was stuck, he came to me to adjust the trigger. As usual he called me and said “Appa..idhu seekram seri panni kududa”. My nephew who is an year older than junior, had such a shocked expression on his face as if someone had slapped him hard!! For a moment I thought he was coming down with something!! He came close to me and slowly spoke into my ear “uncle..ivanuku manners theriatha..en ungala da poattu koopdran”. I was the one who had the slapface reaction this time and unfortunately wifey was over hearing all this happening and gave me a look that confirmed all planets, identified or otherwise, going retrograde on kadaga raasi. On the way back I slowly told junior that, within the four walls of the house it is fine, but quoting the situation as example, tried telling him that in front of others, they may think bad about him. I even told him how he is addressing others to differentiate and stress on my point. Junior had a smiling look at me and said “Appa..they are relatives. You are my bro” and raised his hand for a hi-fi. With wifey sitting right next to us, I feared the hi-fi from her end may not be hand on hand and silently kept quiet. As a good parenting approach, I do understand that it may spoil not just our name but majorly him. As long as he understand the concept of respect, I personally feel there is no big deal about all of this. May be the reason why a third person may feel offended or taken aback could be, if the addresses the parent disrespectfully the same may apply to them as well. And to be honest I never feel any different because I see him as my kutty friend as well. Rendu perum ipodhaiku thiruntharatha illa is the situation that wifey has to bear with for a while 😊