‘Mommy, google has six letters just like my name’ – said my 4-year old son one day while the always-there google.com idled on my laptop monitor. Thus, started his love-affair with google, the common ground being the six letters as in his name, Ishaan. I guess, living with ignorant and sceptical adults like us has taken its toll on him. Ignorant- because we seek so many answers always that it looks like we know so little and sceptical because of our distrust in each others’ li’l knowledge – are you sure they have a lunch buffet on weekends, let me double-check – are you sure the daylight savings come to effect this weekend, let me verify. So all streams of statements – monologues or dialogues, converge into google. And its most useful in the kitchen, we have guests coming in- how to make palak paneer, how to use the curry leaves you bought from the Indian grocer last Saturday.By the way, the Indian grocer you found on google last Friday is no good, search for another one.
And when we were househunting , all are searches were maneuvered by google. That time, the 6-letter word was on all the time. And while talking about it, the kiddo can read the floorplans better than me- whether it has 3 full baths or two full and one half-baths, whether the garage entry leads to the
foyer or to the kitchen, whether it has a full basement or not. So he could actually help us select or eliminate based on his child-instinct, untainted with any kind of bias. Anyway, that is how we lost in our own pursuits are bombarding this abecedarian with information, which he is imbibing by his observation – so, he keeps his eyes and ears on us all the time. They say like parents, like child. So a singer’s kid will be a singer , a painter’s kid would be a painter, but I am sure that is said for experts at their trait and not for the perpetually raw ones like us.
Coming back to google, it has made a special niche in this insatiable 4-year mind and soon as he reaches home he rushes to the desktop and brings up google.com and searches for superman, spiderman, Bob the builder but I dread the day these innocent searches graduate into what not, given the fact that he is a boy. And his most recent favorites are maps.google.com and googleearth where he searches for airports and train stations.
And my favorite respite of checking the mails-my personal legal excuse from the daunting chores- has also creeped to his mind. And yesterday , he told me- mom,how can I check my mails.So soon I will have to create a gmail account for him too. Wonder at what age I first heard the word computer, when I wrote my first e-mail.
Sara, my six year old daughter is an ardent Google user too. She too probably thinks her dad is dumb as wood, because for every question there is Google.(‘Can you google some animal pictures for my assignment?’) And trust these toddlers, she has been on email for about a year already. Infact she is in Delhi right now from where I get emails such as ,”Hollo dad, when are you buying my skats”(She means roller skates, about which I have been talking for months, but did not have the chance to Google about a good brand!).Another ocassion she sent me email saying she wants a paint box. While saying goodbye to her Standard I teacher recently she even scribbled her email id on a card that she made for her!!!!
Tanya has inherited her love for google from her dad, I’m sure.
By this time, I’ve made a gmail account for Ishaan too and he writes toota-phoota sentences.
He has given signs of a prodigy right from the chidhood