My Dear Thread

My daughter has this lovely habit of chewing thread. She is very efficient in searching the source of a thread, separating it from the main cloth effortlessly, and then placing it in her mouth with such camouflage that it’s almost impossible for us to find it. Nothing is spared from her clutches – my duppata, hand kerchief, embroidery from dresses, fiber from the diaper etc. You give her a piece of cloth and she will give that to you in shreds.

Once we had to go for a marriage reception. And so I put on her a bright ghagra choli with embroidery involving sickles. Throughout our journey in the car, her duppata was in her mouth biting the sickles and the threads that bound it. By the time we reached the destination, her duppata was half soaked in saliva and the places of embroidery weak with biting. I only thanked God that none of the sickles got stuck in her throat.

Another day, after feeding her, we got together to have own lunch when we saw her sitting next to the doormat. Suspecting nothing we went on with our chores. Five minutes passed, still she did not move from the doormat. A look at her brought out a mischievous grin on her face. Immediately knew that she was upto something. A closer examination revealed her purpose to choose the doormat as her p lace of rest. The servant maid had just left and the doormat contained the remnants of her cleanliness. It contained a colony of assorted thread and dust particles that had not been dusted properly. Happily munching on the dust, my daughter gave a proud smile to me. Dropping whatever was there in my hand, I rushed to her rescue, shocked to find a ball of yet another assortment of tangled fiber, thread, dust and hair. Now with her mouth empty, her hands itched to pluck some more garbage from the mat. A pat or her hand only made her more excited; removing her from that place made her wail, leaving us with only one option - remove all cloth mats in the house.

Yet another day, she had got rashes on her ears. While I set on cleaning it with a swab of cotton, her hands tried to reach a piece of cotton lying beside her. A mischievous yet stern warning made her remove her hand from that direction but only to repeat her brave feat again.

When I put her into playschool, I put her on a diaper and sent her for the first few days. It was not long before I got the complaint from the teachers asking me not to put diaper from then on as she was pulling the fiber from the diaper and eating it.

More recently, when my brother got ready to go out, he wore his jeans and Tees. Out of the blue, my daughter went and hugged him. Since she was not tall enough, she just hugged his legs. With excitement my brother too held her, only to realize that she was actually holding on to a piece of thread that had jutted out from his jeans. While we split in laughter, unaware, my daughter was still busy in removing the thread from the jeans.

My daughter’s tryst with threads still continues, the latest being on the eve of Pongal. As I came from office I enquired about my daughter’s routine from my parents. “Don’t ask,” jutted my mother in-between the conversation. “She just had a fist-full of cotton.” “What,” I exclaimed. I was not sure of what I heard. “Cotton!” wondered. “Yes, she just had this much of cotton now,” my mother indicated with her hand showing the size of a lemon.” “0K!” I finally replied realizing what I heard was what she told. “But where from?” I questioned still quizzed. “From the ‘Ponga Pannai’,” pat came the reply from my father. “What?” I was shocked. Unable to make any sense, I gave a very quizzical look. “Yeah, in her school they had made a Ponga Pannai and decorated it with color paper beautifully. On top of that they pasted some cotton representing Pongal. We had placed the beautiful paper on the living room table for you to see it first thing you came. But while we were having our dinner in the dining room, there prevailed sudden silence. On peeping in the living room we saw that you daughter was happily munching on the cotton after plucking it fiber by fiber. She has devoured almost half of the cotton from the Ponga pannai,“ explained my mom “Oh!” I exclaimed as I understood. I had no words to explain what I felt at that time. I did not know if I had to scold my daughter or laugh at it. “So where is the piece of art now?” I enquired. "We shoved it away when we saw her lugging at it and kept it inside, explained my father

Till now I have not seen the art piece that has been safely tucked away from my daughter. I will probably get to see it once she grows big and loses her penchant for her now dearer thread.