"Bapu & The Ball"
______________
Babies can communicate pleasure or discomfort from the moment they’re born. But they learn to actually talk through interactions with their family and other social contacts. By listening to words and observing people’s actions, children come to understand that words have meaning and they develop a sense of how words fit together. It is especially amazing to see how babies learn to speak. The transition from "ga-ga - Boo - Boo" to "Mamma" is a rewarding and exciting aspect of parenthood. However, what is more interesting is watching a child learn two languages at once.
I guess almost all children born in India face the challenge of learning and picking up more than one language, one being their regional language and the other being either Hindi or English or more often both.
It's about time that my little Prince is learning words and is trying to use them where ever and when ever possible. He is still not sure which language to use and tends to pick up any word that he hears around him. Recently, we were off to USA and as a natural course of action, he picked up many words in English from his cousin there. To compound his confusion, it so turned out that at home there Punjabi was used a bit more than Hindi and now when we are back home, my multilingual champion is rowing his boat with oars of English, Hindi and Punjabi all at the same time. He is picking up words and phrases from all sources, be it interacting with his Da Ma and Kapa (read previous posts, if you want to know about Da Ma and Kapa) or TV shows .. and tries and 'parrots' every syllable he hears.
One of these days we paid a visit to one of our neighbour's house and as any other child, he pounced on everything around... they had kept small round candies and the only thing that Shaurya could think of was a 'ball' and he had just one thing to say.. 'Gimme ball' and when we paid no attention to his soft demands, he started speaking in Punjabi.. 'Ball Laina' .. and I was flabbergasted at this change of language.. may be his little mind worked really hard and he deduced that we were not able to understand what he was saying and he resorted to use a phrase in an alternate language. 
A child’s behaviour can really take you by surprise and you really never know what his small mind is keenly observing..
Just yesterday, he was trying his tantrums on his dad.. Shaurya wanted his wallet and tried all possible means to take it from him. Naturally, one would not hand out a packed wallet to a kid to be used as a toy and so Shaurya's requests were put down too. Incidentally, the TV in the room was on and a commercial was playing wherein the word ‘Bapu’ (meaning: father) was being called out.
My little one was quick enough to grab that word and started whining.. "Bapu Bapu.. " the only thing we could do was laugh at his quick attempt of using every single word that fell on his ears
I must say kids can give you a run for your vocabulary. He still happens to call me ‘Maiyya’ instead of mummy, whenever he wants something desperately..and strangely though, none of us have ever used this word in front of him.. I really like it when he says this and I do give him a hug whenever he says so..
Hmm I guess “A mother would be a mother no matter which way you call out to her and I believe nothing is more satisfying for a mother to hear your child say 'Mamma' for the first time"
