Custard apples and dancing

A serious little face for the serious pursuit of dancing

Maya came out with two priceless comments today. The first one was when she was about to have tea and said 'Mummy, I have to do my studying.' Studying? I ask. Is it really possible that my three year old daughter is saying this? 'Yes Mummy' she says, and pulls over her school books, opens them and starts pouring over pictures of Indian vegetables like brinjal (aubergine), bitter gourd, ladies fingers, guava, amla and custard apples, and other pictures of regional Indian costumes. Ah, we're going to miss this country with it's weird and wonderful fruit and veg and colourful outfits.

The other thing that made me chuckle was when I put a wonderful Madeline Peyroux's song on (click here to listen to it and just ignore the bizarre images of ocean liners). Maya loves this song and started swaying around and dancing to it and when I joined in, she stopped dead in her tracks, fixed me with a glare and said 'Mummy - stop that NOW!'. Rather taken aback, I asked her why I wasn't allowed to dance too, to which she gave me a withering look and said ' You're not allowed to dance in trousers, you have to wear a dress, Mummy.' Well, that told me. Anyone would have thought from this comment she'd grown up on a diet of Strictly Come Dancing, but the poor deprived child's never even had a TV in her life.

Sad really, to think she'll be eating plain old aubergine, not brinjal soon. And she'll probably forget what an amla fruit is. But at least there'll still be Madeline Peyroux.