Of Questions and Answers

Today, we were out in the morning doing some errands for home and Raghav was with me. Very few kids his age, would have been out on the road at that time of day! Most would be at school! On the way back, we stopped by at his Patti's house and their neighbour was asking him why he had not gone to school, whether it was a holiday and so on......Raghav just decided not to answer. He smiled and walked away. We had discussed this earlier.....what to do when someone asks which school he went to - and to answer that he was being "homeschooled". Later in the car, I was asking him why he chose to remain silent and he said "amma, they will not understand if I say homeschool!" so then, we discussed more about how to explain that term to other people.

Well, that is a simple, everyday question that every other person would ask a kid - "which school do you go to?". But to think that today, that question doesn't have a simple answer, because there are so many more options available....and options and answers perhaps just make it more convenient for people to attach labels to kids or people and create their own opinions! I did feel a bit marginalised today, but not he! He was so matter-of-fact about it and handled the situation with so much ease and diplomacy.....I thought of people and what they would think, but not he.

This is the first step I guess in this journey which does not have a road-map. We are going wherever we want to go and wherever it takes us.....living in the moment and enjoying it....and to do that I think you need a lot of courage, which Raghav showed that he had today!