Just then we finished cutting a picture of a whale shark from the recent Young World magazine and pasting it in a special notebook. And as I was helping the wife in her kitchen work by talking to her soothingly about life, along comes the kid and declares

Kid: I am going underwater to take pictures of whale shark. And I am not taking you.

Me: (peeved) OK, let me go to Pazhani and see Lord Muruga. He also has a Vel (Tamil for javelin or spear and pronounced as whale) with him and let me see that one.

Kid: My whale is big. Bigger than your murugar vel.

Me: Lord Muruga can get bigger whenever he chooses to. So will his Vel, along the way.

Kid: My whale will be underwater.

Me: If Lord Muruga throws it, this vel will also go underwater.

Kid: My whale can travel. It can go even to Australia.

Me: (where does this kid learn all this) OK, I can ask muruga to drop it real fast so that my Vel also can travel to Australia underwater.

Kid: (by now almost shrieking, not realizing I am also on the verge) My whale is a mammal. It can have babies...

Me: !@#^&

(the last I overheard, the kid was busy instructing all of mom's paint brushes that she is taking along with her underwater to stay inside her back-pack as they could get wet and dilute their "color"...)