My mother calls my five-year-old Kaarbaaru. It is in colloquial Kannada and difficult to translate into English. But loosely, it means someone who is constantly “doing” something. The something is not maleficent, not even mischief but usually ends up in substantial work for the parent and some destruction of property.
After I pick up my son from school he usually busies himself with a project. I don’t contribute anything to his idea. It just comes to him. Maybe from something he saw, something his brother did, something he heard about at school. I don’t know where the spark takes root. But he has the vision to start with. Then he gathers his tools which is in itself a stressful activity because the tools never get back to where they belong from the previous project. So I will be scurrying around looking for scissors, tape, pipes, bottles just to get respite from the “Mamma, Mamma, Mamma please”s. Then he is a picture of concentration cutting, pasting, joining, tearing. And voila the end product is proudly displayed. He has made kites, planes, tornados, telescopes.
His current project is making a vacuum. He had seen the vacuum at a friend’s house from a summer camp project. I don’t know how the idea resurfaced again months later, but two days back he was itching to make a vacuum. He had a conference call with Ajja, his grandfather, to learn the basics of circuits and switches. He looked for switches and wires in the garage, he made us play youtube videos and tutorials and coerced us into buying a motor kit from Amazon.
Yesterday we tried to hide the fact that the motor had arrived from Amazon, but seeing how eagerly he was waiting, we relented. We put a switch, motor, and wires together to actually move a plastic fan. I am dreading this evening though. I am going to be tasked as chief assistant in the putting together of the final product, the grand vacuum. The empty plastic bottle was already procured from a neighbor last evening. Now we need to insert the motor into it and get the thing to suck something off the ground. If things don’t go as planned, my Kaarbaaru is not going to be pleased. Wish me luck, folks!