The identity issue

Yesterday I taught my 4 year old nephew how to write his name. Watching his excitement as he went over the A H M E D mantra over and over again, especially considering his initial unwillingness to sit still for even a few minutes and do something worthwhile with the pencil he had picked up from somewhere, I felt elated at being a part of his first sense of identity. Ofcourse he knew his name, he could recognise it and all, but there must be a special something with being able to put it down on paper where it remains or is atleast more permanent then the "uttered". I dont remember the first time I learnt those four letters that spell ME but wonder if my teacher (whoever it was) had nostalgia creeping over him/her as I jumped around with the excitement of having MYSELF in my grasp, literally at the tip of my fingertips.

I thought I was over-individualistic. God put it in all of us. That 4 yr old's world still revolves around his mother. He is scared of the Jinn-baba. Even his ambitions for tomorrow are filled with his mother and sister-Lolz ("mama and maryam will sit with me in my aeroplane and we'll fly off"). But, despite all that he has a very assertive choice in clothes , in food and ofcourse the future. He has plans ("I am going to buy nana abbu's car (here's the funny part)-when he asks me to"). He has his own personality-he's an individual in his own right and the name probably signifies that liberty from mama and maryam, from nanaabbu, from the domineering khalas (hehe-that's me). He is the son of a man (/woman-sexist ideals of an almost gone by age don't wear off that easily) and all sons (and daughters) of Man are INDIVIDUALS.

These days, I am having a go at disciplining young, impressionable minds. Do I see some faces going up in knots, sarcasm spilling out of some mouths-*GRINS* Lolz...I know it's funny, disciplining and me-I am not that bad though ;)