WHAT IS A THOUGHT?

Being the first grandchild in both her paternal as well as maternal households, little Dipti at two and a half years, was a bit spoiled. Her mother, a strict disciplinarian, found it tough to manage her in the face of all the spoiling done by the rest of the extended family. The child, used to all the indulgence from the rest of us, found this act of disciplining rather repugnant. In a sort of retaliatory tactic, she had learnt when and how to irritate the parent.

Once, she wanted to wash her hands in the dish that she had partaken her lunch from. The mother forbade it. "Why", asked Dipti. "Well, it is simply not done. You should go to the washing place for that", sternly replied the parent.
"Alright, if I can't wash my hands in the plate, can I pee in it "?
This did it. The mother boiled with rage, gave her a lecture on sanitation and finally asked,
" How could you think of such a thing? Don't you get better thoughts"?
" Tell me, Mummy, what is a thought "? This simply stumped the mother. She had no ready answer. In exasperation, she did what parents are apt to do on such occasions. She punished Dipti.

As a bystander, I was myself puzzled by this question. I could find a precise definition of the word " Thought " in the oxford dictionary but how could I explain it to a two and a half year old? The nearest that I have come to is this. " Say, you are sitting, doing nothing and in your head, some 'Yum-Yum' is going on. It is called a thought ". However, by the time, I came to this solution, I also came to realize that a child at that age acts by instinct alone. No 'yum-yum' ever goes on in their head. Action being thoughts tightly wound like a spring, the stage of thinking has already been passed by a child. It can not think just as a brilliant school boy can not act like a backward boy in the class.

It would take some unwinding or dis-education for the child to be able to comprehend even the explanation of the word " Thought " that is given by me. At thirty, now Dipti should have been diseducated enough to understand all that I have written. May be, it would give a clue to some of the actions of her own daughters.

Post script:- At sixty, now, as a grandmother herself, she would perhaps understand some of her own mother's compulsions in acting like she did !