Is That So?

Driti now knows that a nod of the head in the up-down direction means YES and a movement from side to side means NO.

Ady actually taught her this. I've been trained to confuse everybody with my head bob like most South Indians. Is it a 'yes', is it a 'no', only the nodder knows. Our head bobs usually cover all the four directions.

With Driti, however, the problem is different. She sometimes gets confused between the meanings of YES and NO.

The answer for any sentence which starts with 'Do you want/ will you ...' is the vertical nod of head, even if she does not want what is being offered.

I speak to her in Tamil and she can clearly understand when I am asking her something. The questions usually start with Yenna - what, or end with appidia - Is it/ is that so. And her answer - always a YES.

Yes. I am an Engineer, I had to put my theory to test. She nodded her head in approval for anything from Do you want a slice of bread to a glass of pina colada to ... Do you want a hammer!!

Per Driti - 'A question always should be answered with a YES!' Only when they thrust something in your mouth, even if you don't want it, say NO. She is quite the positive person! :-)

What surprised us most however is none of the above.

After a triumphant pronunciation of 'cha-pa-ti', Ady and I thought of teaching her 'Encyclopedia'.
Czech does not exist anymore, so no point teaching her outdated info. We thought over the suggestion from our Senior in College, Jayadev and gave it up.

Today, early in the morning, we started with 'Good Morning' to which she responded with ''Mornin' as if to say, "that's all you deserve"

Then we tried 'Monkey' to which she responded with 'Monney' - "OK she's going in the 'right' direction", I teased Ady.

And then ... ENCYCLOPEDIA - her response startled us. She did not repeat or even try to repeat anything. Instead she nodded her head 'YES'
We weren't sure why. This is definitely not the response to Encyclopedia. Does she want it? Does she approve our usage of the word? She was confusing us.

We repeated the word a few more times - and the reponse remained the same.
Then we tried to split the word. Maybe she'll find it easy to pronounce? ENN CYCLO PEEDEEAA.
That's when Ady realized - "Hey this sounds like a Tamil question. 'Enna' and 'appadia'"
"What- cyclo-Is it?"

No wonder she was nodding her head. Baby girl felt we were asking her a question!

Aw.. She's teaching us soooo much! I hope we're able to impart as much knowledge to her as she is to us!