'Do you know why you're going to Achan's office today?'
"Yeah because he'll miss me."
'Ah ! That is a nice way of putting it.'
But not quite, I told my self.
It was a school morning and I knew I'll be holding on to the last straw if the usual talk around 'going to school vs not going' came up.
I've given it all I can. I listened and listened, talked and talked, hugged and hugged.
And finally, in order to acknowledge her words, pleas and sometimes the spoken poetry that slides out of her tongue, I went ahead and had a very satisfying talk with her principal.
We spoke for half an hour, in which time I presented her concerns and my understanding of her case for her and for me.
'Does she know that 6 1/2 year olds are still little. That they're not different from Sr.kg / Jr.kg children? Does she know that?', I mimicked my girl while paraphrasing her to the principal.
I also went to the extent of sharing her heart's wails from another night :
"Teachers don't know we are alone in pain when they yell at us. When these teachers yell at my friends, my heart burns and my eyes have fire in them. We're alone and we cry in our hearts in class."
I tried to identify with the teachers for P. I told her just because they yell at your class, they aren't that one person. They're so many people on the inside like she is.
She listened, silently, to my words and said nothing.
Empathy is self-taught. I realised.
I bared it all to the principal.
She was a very attentive and patient listener. She promised to convey what'd then said to her teachers. To allow them to learn to yell less and talk more.
I promised her time. Time for the teachers. Time for P.
But that night, like all the other nights before, we talked of school again. I didn't want it to go in circles. Oh no, not again.
"But I don't like sitting like that in class, Amma ( gestures folded arms). You know that? And talking silently. You know that?"
'But your teachers are ready to try. Why don't you give them a chance?' I ask her.
But the real questions wailing in my head were, 'Why aren't you grateful that I had this talk with your principal? Why aren't you tolerent enough to let your teachers a chance? Why don't you try along with them?'
All that effort seemed to be going out of the window.
"We can make schools in our houses. I can learn at home. You can teach me. Achan can teach me. I can teach myself. You know that, Amma !"
Her words were muddling with the very idea I've been silently endorsing. Homeschooling.
But all I say is, 'You must give your teachers another chance.'
"You know, when I have a child I won't send my child to school. We'll both learn at home !"
Why does she have to defeat me with a child's conviction?
So concrete.
I was silently amused at that reasonable, moral voice.
The benefits of childhood as I know it : You mostly always know what you're supposed to be doing and you do it.
The benefits of adulthood as I know it : You very rarely know what you're supposed to be doing but it is good to do what you're supposed to do even if you end up not doing it.
Although we reconciled with a story reading and sleep, the morning after seemed to have changed nothing.
I've had my fill of this talk which has been going on for six months now.
I decided to give it an ultimatum.
'You can stay at home but this will be the last time you'll be missing school. And you won't talk to me the entire day, today. I'll be in my room working. Ok?'
Kid seemed pleased and worried at the same time.
I felt jittered on the inside. As much I loved to spend time with myself, nothing seemed more significant than her running footsteps thumping across the floor boards, her squeals, her little animated talks while her Barbie waves in the air. Nothing seemed more significant to me than a child's unadulterated happiness.
Surely, Achan (the father) offered a solution I'd been begging in my heart for him to give.
