No Tricking Kutti

Cooozzzz... Cooozzzssss.... What is this strange noise? Is it the sound of the red car racing towards me or the new big train making its rounds? No.. Over Amma's high pitched voice, it was the milk boiler and pressure cooker singing a tune together! It could only mean one thing. It is morning already!!! “Kutti wake up! It's getting late for school!” I heard amma's voice from the kitchen. Kutti opened his eyes unwillingly to a bright room. He searched for the bed sheet his mother had carefully removed, forcing him to wake up. “Kutti, Head to the bathroom before amma discovers you are still in bed!” said appa.

As Kutti headed to the bath room to brush his teeth, he tried to makes sense of how it can be morning so soon. “Appa, how many minutes are there for evening to become morning?” asked Kutti slowly sipping his milk. Before appa could explain, amma frisked him away to get him ready to school.

On the way to school, Kutti met his best friend Cheenu. “Cheenu, you remember the day when Mottu promised to let us play with his video games as long as we wanted? But he took it away from us as we were about to win?” Asked Kutti. “Of course... Bad Mottu.. Wait till I bring those ghee murukku's that Mottu is so fond of!!” planned Cheenu with a mischievous grin on his face. “Listen da, Cheenu. I think someone else is also playing similar tricks on us” said Kutti sounding worried.“Only it is someone big and powerful”. “Who, da?” asked Cheenu looking serious. Kutti whispered unsure of his answer “Hmm. You know, someone who has lot of power and can do magic.. Someone like God....”

All evening, kutti felt restless. Is God really tricking me? He remembered going to bed the previous night and having a game of racing cars over his pillows. Then started the tickle fight with appa, until amma switched off the lights. He then remembered listening to the funny story of the donkey and the fox. “What happened next? How could it be morning so soon after going to bed?” he wondered. That night he declared that he was going to sleep with thatha unmindful of the protests from appa and amma. As expected, thatha helped him win the battle and he settled down to get cozy in thatha's warm bed.

“Thatha, like appa and amma listen to you, does papa God listen to Grandpa God?” Asked Kutti. Thatha somehow found all of Kutti's questions to be funny. After a big laugh, he said God must be pretty sure of things God does and may not need supervision unlike us. “But thatha, explained kutti, God has got his timings all wrong. He is not calculating the change from night to morning well”. With a warm smile and reassuring nod, thatha said that this is one place where Math skills will help. He explained the concepts of seconds, minutes and hours to Kutti. He also told Kutti to take note of the time in the night and check the clock the first thing in the morning. Reassured, Kutti slept happily.

The next morning before appa could snooze the alarm which was ringing loud, Kutti was on his feet rushing out of the bedroom. He ran to the clock and to his surprise noticed that the clock's hands had moved and were pointing to different numbers since the previous night!! Thatha was right! Kutti felt happy and reassured that God was not cheating after all! He was busy planning his next move when he heard appa say “How does he know to wake up so early on a Saturday!”