Choppu Time

This is strictly not the choppu set that we were given as kids... But this is what's available in the market for kids of these days. For me, choppu means those colorful wooden toys which came in this special handwoven bamboo leaf carton. The toys were all made to match the south-indian kitchen and were the typical Chennapatna handiwork. I remember there used to be this cool ammi the grinding tool of the olden days, pots n pans, plates and ladles, a whole young girl's dream, all wrapped into that cute bamboo box. This choppu set was the quintessential cooking set that every south indian girl in India must have gotten as a child. Look what they have these days - a microwave, a coffee machine... all evidence of everything having gone hi-fi. The reason I am writing about this all of a sudden is that I dreamt about it last night... About the times we girls sat under the lift room on the terrace in Sai Dharshan, all equipped with out respective choppu samaan... Some girls had it in steel... some in plastic, complete with a mixi... But I loved mine best and we would always buy it when we went to Tirupathi and such... We would play house-house and sometimes our moms used to fill our pots with a few grains of daal and rice to make it feel more real. Indeed during Navarathri, these were the vessels we kept in front of the Chettiar-Chettichi bommais as if these were the goods they sold.

With generations changing... with new and more technologically advanced games for children, its a little surprise that the kids these days seem to do things either way faster than we did or way slower. With PS3s and Wiis haunting every household, I hope some of them pick up the Wii Fitness too... something that seems a refreshing change from the mundane sit-down brainlessly violent games that have become common for preteen kids as well. The best bet? Everyone go out to play.