Based on a True Story
I hereby move a proposal that kids not be taught or told moral stories in school.
Yes. This is not an impulsive proposal, but is the result of careful contemplation over the cause of a catastrophe. This is a firsthand account of how your friendly neighbourhood kid (i.e. me) was the poor victim of the diabolical implications of a moral studies class.
Let me explain.
It was a balmy Sunday morning. And as is the nature of Sunday mornings around the world, the kids loitered around the streets while the adults worshipped their favourite gods. In my house, this happened to be the television. We did not mind, as long as no one disturbed our enlightening discussions with orders to do the homework.
So we loitered around the streets, as Isaac Newton would have said, “diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”.
The topic of discussion that day was gold. It was an aftermath of the moral studies class of the previous week. You may be wondering what gold had to do with moral studies. I can hear you asking “weren’t the two mutually exclusive?”
They weren’t. And so the discussion went on.
“Mahesh, you eat eggs, right?”
“Ya. Why?”
“Remember what the teacher told us about eggs on Friday?”
“Eggs? I don’t remember.”
“You should start paying attention in class.” I deftly swerved to avoid Mahesh’s punch.
“Remember the Moral Studies class we had on Friday?”
“You mean the time we spent in class instead of playing Volleyball?”
Mahesh had a thing for volleyball. To say that he loved it would be an understatement, but if there was any large spherical object in range, you can expect Mahesh to pick it up with his left hand, swing his right hand like a pendulum and hit it to the farthest possible distance.
“Yes, that. They told us the story about a bird that laid eggs.”
“I thought all birds lay eggs, unless otherwise evolved.”
“Yes, very good. But this one laid golden eggs.”
“Ah. You’re talking about the goose that laid the golden eggs.”
“Oh! So, you remember.”
“Yes, I do. What’s your point?”
“No point as such. I’m just wondering if it’s biologically possible. And if it is, can it be replicated in mammals.”
“Mammals? You mean, like...”
“More specifically, domesticated ungulates.”
“Domesticated what?”
“Cows.” It deserves mention here that Mahesh did not share my proclivity for using biologically correct vocabulary. Neither did he share the proclivity for using the word “proclivity” in everyday conversations, but that’s another story.
“You mean to say that cows could have golden eggs?”
“Not eggs. Cows are mammals. So golden calves.”
“Hmmm...” the thought kept him engaged for a while. It took Lakshmi’s call to bring him out of his reverie.
Lakshmi, dear reader, was a fair, well endowed beautiful female of our neighbourhood. Her lustrous, dark hair was long enough to touch her legs. She was the cynosure of the entire neighbourhood and turned eyes wherever she went. She was also an ungulate, or to put it simply, a cow. And at this point, she called, or rather, mooed.
Mahesh looked at Lakshmi. She belonged to the friendly lady, Gauri, who brought us milk every day. I liked her. Every morning I would run to the gate behind mother. After she gave the half litre of milk to mother, she would fill the small tumbler I carried with me. A pat on the cheek and then she would go. After we encountered milkmen in our Mathematics textbooks, I started wondering if she was making a loss with the milk she was giving me for free. But we digress. Lakshmi was currently, scavenging for food in the neighbourhood, and mooing intermittently.
Mahesh turned to me. “What do you have in mind?” Now, there are guys who would back out of a mission at the slightest hint of risk, like jumping from your terrace to the next one. And there are guys, like Mahesh, who would carry any mission through to the end, even if it meant testing if the road sloped enough for the military uncle’s car to slide down by itself (Turned out it was).
“Alright. You know that Lakshmi has been getting fatter lately, right?”
“Yes.”
“I asked mother. She said that Lakshmi is pregnant and would be giving birth soon. To a calf.”
“Hmmm. And you want to find out if this calf would be golden.”
“Not find out. I want to ensure that it’s golden. Remember reading about the Nobel Prizes? I want to be the youngest to get one.”
“And how do you propose we can ensure this?”
“Ok. I’ve been reading about this. There’s this field called Genetics. This has something to do with a guy named Mendel. He did some experiments with peas. The results say that tall pea plants result in taller offsprings. So, to get a golden calf out of Lakshmi...”
“But Lakshmi isn’t a gold cow.”
Ah! This was the crux of the mission and Mahesh had pointed it out.
“Mahesh! Let’s go back to the story. Was the goose golden? No. Only its eggs were.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we need to take steps to motivate Lakshmi to have a golden calf.”
He repeated, “But Lakshmi is not a gold cow.”
“Not yet. And that’s where we come in. We can ensure that Lakshmi thinks she is a gold cow and therefore is morally obliged to have a gold calf. I think the positive mental reinforcement can stimulate Lakshmi to make sure that she delivers a golden calf. And when she does...”
“We claim victory! Yaay! I see it now. But... do you think it would work? This positive mental reinforcement, thing?”
“Without a doubt. I’ve been reading up on it. There have been experiments, successful ones, on how positive reinforcement influences behaviour, making the test subjects think that they are better than they actually are and ends up making them actually better. Anyway, you don’t worry about the theory. I’ll take care of it. We need to get to the specifics. Lakshmi needs to begin thinking that she’s a gold cow.”
The object of all this discussion was quietly munching on the movie poster of “GoldenEye”. It was the re-release and dubbed version of the James Bond movie. Lakshmi had eaten the “Eye” and Pierce Brosnan was on the verge of entering her digestive tract. The two “00”s and the word “Golden” were hanging from her mouth. We took at as a divine sign that a Nobel Prize was in our destiny.
Mahesh got to work. He went about finding ways to procure the key ingredient for the mission. Gold paint.
A day later we had twenty tins of paint at our disposal. I was all admiration for Mahesh. In fact, in retrospect, I think Mahesh would have made a good Supply Chain manager for Apple. I asked him where he got it from.
“You know the place where they sell doors? On our way to school?”
I knew the place. We had once planned to play a game of dominoes by pushing one door and letting the entire chain fall. It didn’t come to pass, but Mahesh had taken the paint they use for door handles.
“It was smooth. Those tins were just sitting there and these fellows were busy sawing wood. I asked twice if I could take them. They didn’t respond. I took the silence as approval and brought them all.”
It was a small victory. I patted him on the back. The mission still lay ahead. We had to wait for the right moment. This came the following Friday. There was the temple festival and all the people went to pull the temple car. I wanted to too, but mother said that I was too small and would get trampled in the crowd. Suited me fine, I had the morning all to Lakshmi and myself. She stood in the shed, munching on dry hay. The shed was dark and slightly musty. It was smelling all cow. We decided to brave the smell.
The bucket they used to give her water was lying by the side. Mahesh and I arrived on the scene. I had brought a brush which my father used to dust off old furniture. Mahesh brought the gold tins with him. They were waiting like eager jewels staring at you from glass cases. We didn’t make them wait. One after the other, they all came out and the paint was poured into the bucket. The gooey coagulate was diluted with water. Lakshmi was calmly watching what was happening. It was quiet all around. Even if Lakshmi mooed, nobody would know. The sounds from the temple were loud enough.
Mahesh took a stick from the shed. Lakshmi opened one eye. He put the stick into the bucket. She relaxed and continued to chew the hay. The stick turned round and round as the glittering gold paint swallowed water and grew thinner. I added water whenever Mahesh asked me to. He seemed quite experienced in this sort of stuff. When he was satisfied that the mixture had reached the right texture, he asked me to bring the brush.
“Do you want to give her the hay or do you want to paint her?”
Lakshmi had strong legs, but not sharp teeth. I chose the hay.
“Thought so. That’s alright. I’ll paint her. Just keep feeding her and rub her forehead from time to time.”
This was a problem. Lakshmi had horns. They were not that sharp, still, one has one’s fears. But I did not complain.
I picked up a handful of hay and brought it to Lakshmi’s mouth. She opened it nonchalantly. She was used to being treated like royalty. I was a little startled as I felt her warm tongue on my fingers. Mahesh glared at me from where he sat. I dug in. I was not going to let him down.
He dipped the brush into the bucket. It came out, its black bristles glistening with gold. With his left hand running through the vibrations on Lakshmi’s stomach, he began to paint her body. He started with the spine. He kept talking, to cover his nerves I think, as he painted. He said if you paint the upper body, the paint would drip down to the legs and you wouldn’t have to touch them. I was done with the hay I had in hand and bent down to pick up some more, all the while not breaking eye contact with Lakshmi.
In ten minutes, Mahesh was done with the left side. He picked up the stool and the bucket and moved to the right. The shed was dark, but if any light had shined on her, Lakshmi would be shining like midday sun. Another ten minutes, another handful of hay, and Lakshmi was glowing. Mahesh wiped the sweat off his brow. The brushwork was done.
“It’s not done yet.” He dropped the brush and delicately dipped his right hand into the bucket. “I can’t put the brush on her face. The bristles may hurt her eyes. He took the hay from me. He fed her while gently rubbing the paint on her face. I took a walk around Lakshmi. The paint was cascading from her back onto her legs, covering her in gold. I had to admit, Mahesh was a master painter.
“Mahesh”
“Sshhhh. What?” He asked in a hushed tone. I sprang back as Lakshmi raised her leg slightly.
“Her tail.”
He had forgotten about her tail. He raised his hand and signalled that he’ll take care of it.
Lakshmi’s face was also golden by now. I wonder if she knew. The big eyes certainly couldn’t see that close. If she squinted a little bit, maybe she would know that her dark nose was surrounded by gold, providing a great contrast. Mahesh pointed the hay at me and I took it. Lakshmi opened her eyes to notice the change of guard. He collected the paint from his palm to his fingers and did a swish. The paint flowed down Lakshmi’s tail, covering her dark hair in gold. She was now a golden goddess.
Our job was done. The temple car would also be covered in similar gold paint, we thought. It was time to leave. Mahesh fished out something from his bag. A big mirror. He turned to me, “Didn’t you say this required positive mental reinforcement? How would Lakshmi know about her golden nature?” He put the mirror in front of her as I stood beaming at him. We packed up all residual signs of our presence, paint tins, brush etc. A silent high-five. Lakshmi would have a golden calf, and we’d stake our claim to the Nobel Prize once the calf was out. Not a word until then.
We exited in silence but victorious. The weekend would be spent in remarkable glory.
Or so we thought.
What followed was one episode of epic thulping. When the elders returned from the temple festival in the afternoon, smeared in turmeric and vermillion, they found a peaceful pair of kids watching TV. All hell broke loose as Gauri came running to our house. She did not come to our house in the evenings. So, when I saw her at the gate, I knew something was wrong. I slyly slithered towards the backdoor, jumped to the sunshade and from there to the terrace and crossed over to Mahesh’s place. He was not at home. I had no choice but to return. My silent retreat was blocked by father guarding the backdoor. I couldn’t quite read his face. Anger, surprise, pride, it was all mixed up.
Mother spoke, “What are you still looking at him for? Move. You! What did you do to Lakshmi?”
“Lakshmi! I... I didn’t do anything. What happened to her?”
“I will tell you what happened to her.”
At this point, my right ear was rudely yanked out of its comfortable socket. I still maintain that my right ear is slightly longer than my left because of the trauma of that day.
A thrashing was to follow. In between, I could hear Gauri asking my parents to stop. She said it wasn’t that big a thing and she’ll take care of it. She came just to inform, not complain. Mother relented. I looked at Gauri sympathetically. She pulled my cheeks and gave me a peck.
“You! It’s people like you who have ruined him. You pamper him so much that he goes around thinking that the entire world is his playground. All this mischief has to stop. Gauri! He will come over tomorrow and clean Lakshmi. You don’t have to do anything.” Mother was staring sternly at me. Father knew that things had cooled down and went back to his newspaper.
I went over the next day and saw Gauri scrubbing the paint from Lakshmi’s back. The water tank near the shed was empty. She smiled when she saw me, Gauri did, not Lakshmi. I merrily went to her. She gave me a tumbler of milk to drink as she finished scrubbing the rest of the paint.
I do not know to this day how when Gauri met her golden cow, her first guess was that I had done it. Perhaps my reputation in the neighbourhood was bad, owing to previous track record. As a true friend, I accepted full responsibility for the incident. Mahesh was sorry and grateful that I hadn’t snitched on him. It was my idea actually, so it was ok. What happened to the calf, you ask? Well, it was a male calf, born in pure white. When mother pointed this out to me, I argued that it was because they had scrubbed the paint off Lakshmi and removed the mirror too.
In between the thrashing that followed, I blamed her for denying me a shot at the Nobel Prize, a deserved honor that continues to elude me.
And yes, I hereby propose that kids not be taught or told moral stories in school.
I hereby move a proposal that kids not be taught or told moral stories in school.
Yes. This is not an impulsive proposal, but is the result of careful contemplation over the cause of a catastrophe. This is a firsthand account of how your friendly neighbourhood kid (i.e. me) was the poor victim of the diabolical implications of a moral studies class.
Let me explain.
It was a balmy Sunday morning. And as is the nature of Sunday mornings around the world, the kids loitered around the streets while the adults worshipped their favourite gods. In my house, this happened to be the television. We did not mind, as long as no one disturbed our enlightening discussions with orders to do the homework.
So we loitered around the streets, as Isaac Newton would have said, “diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me”.
The topic of discussion that day was gold. It was an aftermath of the moral studies class of the previous week. You may be wondering what gold had to do with moral studies. I can hear you asking “weren’t the two mutually exclusive?”
They weren’t. And so the discussion went on.
“Mahesh, you eat eggs, right?”
“Ya. Why?”
“Remember what the teacher told us about eggs on Friday?”
“Eggs? I don’t remember.”
“You should start paying attention in class.” I deftly swerved to avoid Mahesh’s punch.
“Remember the Moral Studies class we had on Friday?”
“You mean the time we spent in class instead of playing Volleyball?”
Mahesh had a thing for volleyball. To say that he loved it would be an understatement, but if there was any large spherical object in range, you can expect Mahesh to pick it up with his left hand, swing his right hand like a pendulum and hit it to the farthest possible distance.
“Yes, that. They told us the story about a bird that laid eggs.”
“I thought all birds lay eggs, unless otherwise evolved.”
“Yes, very good. But this one laid golden eggs.”
“Ah. You’re talking about the goose that laid the golden eggs.”
“Oh! So, you remember.”
“Yes, I do. What’s your point?”
“No point as such. I’m just wondering if it’s biologically possible. And if it is, can it be replicated in mammals.”
“Mammals? You mean, like...”
“More specifically, domesticated ungulates.”
“Domesticated what?”
“Cows.” It deserves mention here that Mahesh did not share my proclivity for using biologically correct vocabulary. Neither did he share the proclivity for using the word “proclivity” in everyday conversations, but that’s another story.
“You mean to say that cows could have golden eggs?”
“Not eggs. Cows are mammals. So golden calves.”
“Hmmm...” the thought kept him engaged for a while. It took Lakshmi’s call to bring him out of his reverie.
Lakshmi, dear reader, was a fair, well endowed beautiful female of our neighbourhood. Her lustrous, dark hair was long enough to touch her legs. She was the cynosure of the entire neighbourhood and turned eyes wherever she went. She was also an ungulate, or to put it simply, a cow. And at this point, she called, or rather, mooed.
Mahesh looked at Lakshmi. She belonged to the friendly lady, Gauri, who brought us milk every day. I liked her. Every morning I would run to the gate behind mother. After she gave the half litre of milk to mother, she would fill the small tumbler I carried with me. A pat on the cheek and then she would go. After we encountered milkmen in our Mathematics textbooks, I started wondering if she was making a loss with the milk she was giving me for free. But we digress. Lakshmi was currently, scavenging for food in the neighbourhood, and mooing intermittently.
Mahesh turned to me. “What do you have in mind?” Now, there are guys who would back out of a mission at the slightest hint of risk, like jumping from your terrace to the next one. And there are guys, like Mahesh, who would carry any mission through to the end, even if it meant testing if the road sloped enough for the military uncle’s car to slide down by itself (Turned out it was).
“Alright. You know that Lakshmi has been getting fatter lately, right?”
“Yes.”
“I asked mother. She said that Lakshmi is pregnant and would be giving birth soon. To a calf.”
“Hmmm. And you want to find out if this calf would be golden.”
“Not find out. I want to ensure that it’s golden. Remember reading about the Nobel Prizes? I want to be the youngest to get one.”
“And how do you propose we can ensure this?”
“Ok. I’ve been reading about this. There’s this field called Genetics. This has something to do with a guy named Mendel. He did some experiments with peas. The results say that tall pea plants result in taller offsprings. So, to get a golden calf out of Lakshmi...”
“But Lakshmi isn’t a gold cow.”
Ah! This was the crux of the mission and Mahesh had pointed it out.
“Mahesh! Let’s go back to the story. Was the goose golden? No. Only its eggs were.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we need to take steps to motivate Lakshmi to have a golden calf.”
He repeated, “But Lakshmi is not a gold cow.”
“Not yet. And that’s where we come in. We can ensure that Lakshmi thinks she is a gold cow and therefore is morally obliged to have a gold calf. I think the positive mental reinforcement can stimulate Lakshmi to make sure that she delivers a golden calf. And when she does...”
“We claim victory! Yaay! I see it now. But... do you think it would work? This positive mental reinforcement, thing?”
“Without a doubt. I’ve been reading up on it. There have been experiments, successful ones, on how positive reinforcement influences behaviour, making the test subjects think that they are better than they actually are and ends up making them actually better. Anyway, you don’t worry about the theory. I’ll take care of it. We need to get to the specifics. Lakshmi needs to begin thinking that she’s a gold cow.”
The object of all this discussion was quietly munching on the movie poster of “GoldenEye”. It was the re-release and dubbed version of the James Bond movie. Lakshmi had eaten the “Eye” and Pierce Brosnan was on the verge of entering her digestive tract. The two “00”s and the word “Golden” were hanging from her mouth. We took at as a divine sign that a Nobel Prize was in our destiny.
Mahesh got to work. He went about finding ways to procure the key ingredient for the mission. Gold paint.
A day later we had twenty tins of paint at our disposal. I was all admiration for Mahesh. In fact, in retrospect, I think Mahesh would have made a good Supply Chain manager for Apple. I asked him where he got it from.
“You know the place where they sell doors? On our way to school?”
I knew the place. We had once planned to play a game of dominoes by pushing one door and letting the entire chain fall. It didn’t come to pass, but Mahesh had taken the paint they use for door handles.
“It was smooth. Those tins were just sitting there and these fellows were busy sawing wood. I asked twice if I could take them. They didn’t respond. I took the silence as approval and brought them all.”
It was a small victory. I patted him on the back. The mission still lay ahead. We had to wait for the right moment. This came the following Friday. There was the temple festival and all the people went to pull the temple car. I wanted to too, but mother said that I was too small and would get trampled in the crowd. Suited me fine, I had the morning all to Lakshmi and myself. She stood in the shed, munching on dry hay. The shed was dark and slightly musty. It was smelling all cow. We decided to brave the smell.
The bucket they used to give her water was lying by the side. Mahesh and I arrived on the scene. I had brought a brush which my father used to dust off old furniture. Mahesh brought the gold tins with him. They were waiting like eager jewels staring at you from glass cases. We didn’t make them wait. One after the other, they all came out and the paint was poured into the bucket. The gooey coagulate was diluted with water. Lakshmi was calmly watching what was happening. It was quiet all around. Even if Lakshmi mooed, nobody would know. The sounds from the temple were loud enough.
Mahesh took a stick from the shed. Lakshmi opened one eye. He put the stick into the bucket. She relaxed and continued to chew the hay. The stick turned round and round as the glittering gold paint swallowed water and grew thinner. I added water whenever Mahesh asked me to. He seemed quite experienced in this sort of stuff. When he was satisfied that the mixture had reached the right texture, he asked me to bring the brush.
“Do you want to give her the hay or do you want to paint her?”
Lakshmi had strong legs, but not sharp teeth. I chose the hay.
“Thought so. That’s alright. I’ll paint her. Just keep feeding her and rub her forehead from time to time.”
This was a problem. Lakshmi had horns. They were not that sharp, still, one has one’s fears. But I did not complain.
I picked up a handful of hay and brought it to Lakshmi’s mouth. She opened it nonchalantly. She was used to being treated like royalty. I was a little startled as I felt her warm tongue on my fingers. Mahesh glared at me from where he sat. I dug in. I was not going to let him down.
He dipped the brush into the bucket. It came out, its black bristles glistening with gold. With his left hand running through the vibrations on Lakshmi’s stomach, he began to paint her body. He started with the spine. He kept talking, to cover his nerves I think, as he painted. He said if you paint the upper body, the paint would drip down to the legs and you wouldn’t have to touch them. I was done with the hay I had in hand and bent down to pick up some more, all the while not breaking eye contact with Lakshmi.
In ten minutes, Mahesh was done with the left side. He picked up the stool and the bucket and moved to the right. The shed was dark, but if any light had shined on her, Lakshmi would be shining like midday sun. Another ten minutes, another handful of hay, and Lakshmi was glowing. Mahesh wiped the sweat off his brow. The brushwork was done.
“It’s not done yet.” He dropped the brush and delicately dipped his right hand into the bucket. “I can’t put the brush on her face. The bristles may hurt her eyes. He took the hay from me. He fed her while gently rubbing the paint on her face. I took a walk around Lakshmi. The paint was cascading from her back onto her legs, covering her in gold. I had to admit, Mahesh was a master painter.
“Mahesh”
“Sshhhh. What?” He asked in a hushed tone. I sprang back as Lakshmi raised her leg slightly.
“Her tail.”
He had forgotten about her tail. He raised his hand and signalled that he’ll take care of it.
Lakshmi’s face was also golden by now. I wonder if she knew. The big eyes certainly couldn’t see that close. If she squinted a little bit, maybe she would know that her dark nose was surrounded by gold, providing a great contrast. Mahesh pointed the hay at me and I took it. Lakshmi opened her eyes to notice the change of guard. He collected the paint from his palm to his fingers and did a swish. The paint flowed down Lakshmi’s tail, covering her dark hair in gold. She was now a golden goddess.
Our job was done. The temple car would also be covered in similar gold paint, we thought. It was time to leave. Mahesh fished out something from his bag. A big mirror. He turned to me, “Didn’t you say this required positive mental reinforcement? How would Lakshmi know about her golden nature?” He put the mirror in front of her as I stood beaming at him. We packed up all residual signs of our presence, paint tins, brush etc. A silent high-five. Lakshmi would have a golden calf, and we’d stake our claim to the Nobel Prize once the calf was out. Not a word until then.
We exited in silence but victorious. The weekend would be spent in remarkable glory.
Or so we thought.
What followed was one episode of epic thulping. When the elders returned from the temple festival in the afternoon, smeared in turmeric and vermillion, they found a peaceful pair of kids watching TV. All hell broke loose as Gauri came running to our house. She did not come to our house in the evenings. So, when I saw her at the gate, I knew something was wrong. I slyly slithered towards the backdoor, jumped to the sunshade and from there to the terrace and crossed over to Mahesh’s place. He was not at home. I had no choice but to return. My silent retreat was blocked by father guarding the backdoor. I couldn’t quite read his face. Anger, surprise, pride, it was all mixed up.
Mother spoke, “What are you still looking at him for? Move. You! What did you do to Lakshmi?”
“Lakshmi! I... I didn’t do anything. What happened to her?”
“I will tell you what happened to her.”
At this point, my right ear was rudely yanked out of its comfortable socket. I still maintain that my right ear is slightly longer than my left because of the trauma of that day.
A thrashing was to follow. In between, I could hear Gauri asking my parents to stop. She said it wasn’t that big a thing and she’ll take care of it. She came just to inform, not complain. Mother relented. I looked at Gauri sympathetically. She pulled my cheeks and gave me a peck.
“You! It’s people like you who have ruined him. You pamper him so much that he goes around thinking that the entire world is his playground. All this mischief has to stop. Gauri! He will come over tomorrow and clean Lakshmi. You don’t have to do anything.” Mother was staring sternly at me. Father knew that things had cooled down and went back to his newspaper.
I went over the next day and saw Gauri scrubbing the paint from Lakshmi’s back. The water tank near the shed was empty. She smiled when she saw me, Gauri did, not Lakshmi. I merrily went to her. She gave me a tumbler of milk to drink as she finished scrubbing the rest of the paint.
I do not know to this day how when Gauri met her golden cow, her first guess was that I had done it. Perhaps my reputation in the neighbourhood was bad, owing to previous track record. As a true friend, I accepted full responsibility for the incident. Mahesh was sorry and grateful that I hadn’t snitched on him. It was my idea actually, so it was ok. What happened to the calf, you ask? Well, it was a male calf, born in pure white. When mother pointed this out to me, I argued that it was because they had scrubbed the paint off Lakshmi and removed the mirror too.
In between the thrashing that followed, I blamed her for denying me a shot at the Nobel Prize, a deserved honor that continues to elude me.
And yes, I hereby propose that kids not be taught or told moral stories in school.
