And they lived happily every after

Abhiram, my 5 year old brother, has now gotten over his love for my bangles! "I have grown up aka", he says in his perfect English! But he now has another hobby - forcing his storyteller aka read stories to him! Alas, I have no choice but to heed to his requests. After all my mama tolerated me during my growing up years.

So, at bed time, I pick up a book that I grew up with - Walt Disney Classics. And he says in his perfect Kannada "I know Cinderella, read this...". And so it turned out that moi had to read "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". And when I read to him how her stepmother didn't like Snow White and made her live in rags, his instant question was "Oh, she does not like Snow White? ". "Yes, she does not like Snow White." But Abhiram, was not satisfied with this. He needs more clarification, and so he asks again "is it because the queen is not her real mother? Does the queen hate her because she is not her child?" Imagine a five year old asking you that! I asked him how he knew this and he said even in Cinderella the step mother did not like Cinderella. Abhiram just does not cease to shock me, he then says "aren't all step mothers are bad aka?". I just blankly look at my mom and she explains to him that not all step mothers are bad.

Its not my kid brothers grasping power that interested me. What interested me was how we reinforces values and cultural notions in children right from childhood. All those stories where step mothers were bad; Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel etc.... It never occurred to me that we in knock values deep down since childhood! Pinocchio goes with the maxim "Do not lie". That marriages are made in heaven and what not....Only when you grow up and look around do you realize that not everything is right and only circumstances are right.... That its just people that are bad, not step mothers, not humanity; that sometimes you have to lie; that circumstances are bad and not the people present in those circumstances and finally that happily ever after need not be so...

"Strange fruit" eh?