Saturday, September 11, 2010

NINAD MY FRIEND

Ninad is a 3 year old kid. A very cool customer, he is. Cucumbers take lessons from him as far as coolness is concerned. He is the son of a junior colleague and a neighbour as well. Nothing ruffles him.Punishment has no meaning and enticements flow off like water on a duck's back. Fooling him for any length of time is equally futile. He is his own master. I am fond of children and generally, children reciprocate my feelings for them. Ninad however was unapproachable and posed a challenge to me.

What attracted me to him was his rather high MQ. I should explain what I mean by MQ. You have perhaps heard of the concept of NARA and NARAYANA as enunciated in the epic Mahabharata. Arjuna was portrayed as NARA and Krishna as NARAYANA. Arjuna was supposed to be masculinity personified, being cast in a heroic mould. Wherever he went, he not only vanquished men in battle; he also conquered women's hearts and won himself a wife or two! He had all the masculine traits that a person could possibly have. Krishna, on the other hand, was the friend, philosopher and guide. A ladies' man, Krishna was more of a NARAYANA than of a NARA. People instictively looked up to him for advice and were never disappointed.

Now, every person has some male and some female traits in him / her. Very few persons are all male - males or all female - females. MQ is the masculinity quotient and FQ is the feminity quotient. This quotient is defined as the ratio of the number of masculine or feminine traits in a person divided by the total of all the masculine or feminine traits that are possible in an all male - man or an all female - woman.

Coming back to our story, Ninad with his high MQ, has his father as his ideal. He has no place in his life for the feminine gender. His mother is for him a weak boy who cooks for the family and whom he could order around. If to him, it appears that his mother did not behave as a boy should, she was a " ganda ladka " ( a naughty boy ). Any attempt on the mother's part to discipline him would bring him post haste to our office in whatever state of dress or undress, he would happen to be. He would complain to his father about his "Aai" ( mother ) being a "ganda ladka", describing in detail, her crime of the moment. Having done his duty, he would march into my cabin and perch himself on my lap. His favourite activity was to fiddle with the paperweights and the telephone instrument. At 36, I was promoted by him to the grandpa's status perhaps because his father took his orders from me. Thus I earned his respect.

Like all grandchildren, he took me to be his equal. He shared his thoughts and his toys with me - a thing that he rarely did with other children. We were living in a township still under construction that I was in charge of. Trucks, jeeps and earthmoving machinery were constantly at work. Ninad had a great fascination for noise making moving objects. Trucks, jeeps, bull dozers, helicopters were his weakness. Drivers of all these machines were special people on whose good side, he always endeavoured to be, bending as much as was possible for him in the process. He always managed to get a ride on the bulldozer, the kindly operator allowing him to fiddle with the control levers.

Once, as the bulldozer with the familiar operator, hove into view, his eyes attained a wistful look. An idea struck him. Said he to me : " Hey there! How about a ride on the bulldozer? If you like, I can ask Naqui Ahmed, the operator to give you one! " The words were simple but the idea was eloquent. I have never felt more flattered in my life. Ninad had accepted me as his best friend and as a proof, he had offered to share even his pettest machine with me!

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