‘But how will your son cope with the real world?’ I’m asked.
(I’ve let slip that I’m unschooling my little boy.)
I struggle to respond. I play with words.
Finally, I swipe and open my phone calendar.
The month is populated—largely with things my son has chosen to pursue.
Over the next few weeks, he will visit countless car showrooms—little and large; uppity and rundown—and speak to the attendants there; ask if their cars can manoeuvre rough terrain; if they have a sunroof.
He will tinker with a ukulele, make sense of how the instrument responds to touch.
He will travel to a farm and ask the farmer if he can steal a tractor ride. He will pluck fruits ripe for the picking. He will sniff the soil and tell me, ‘This is the smell of summer.’
He will sense a new season as he cycles. The trees will blur, it’s as though he's flying, but he knows them now, these trees, their names, their life stories—this one, home to a Brahminy kite.
He will make his way to an animal shelter. He will look for the tortoises and donkeys. He will inform a volunteer that he wishes to hold a worm. He will hold a wriggly worm and laugh. He will ask the volunteer when they can meet again. ‘Soon.’
Soon. He will paint. Under a large tree in an even larger park, he will dip his brush into watercolours and let the yellow trickle. A drop of sun. He won’t be alone. By his side, children, other children, all homeschooled, some beating drums, a few crocheting. A group attempting to build a tree house. My son will join them.
Suddenly, he’ll stop. A honeycomb. It seems to have dropped off a tree. But when? And how? Each hexagon, so perfect.
My son and I will speak of bees on the ride back home. Of how they dance. Of how they save a planet by being.
The next day, my boy will dream of bees. Bees and buses. Always buses. So, we will ride the bus. We will pay a conductor. We will go someplace far or maybe near.
We will speak of the places we are yet to visit together — the places I miss — Paris or perhaps London. My son will tell me he will take me in a bus to London. He will be the driver. Firm.
But first, food. We will go home, we will cook a meal. He’ll cut a baby potato in two with a knife. He’ll sauté it. He’ll knead the dough and roll out a roti.
After lunch, he will head to the library. Return a book. Borrow another. This one on moss. ‘Shall we hunt for moss?’ But of course. We must.
‘Can we grow moss at home?’
Not far, a school. High walls. Barred windows. A child at a desk. A voice in the background — it must speak of something, of three plus three, or of M for moss or D for door — but the child, he isn’t listening.
He is thinking of a time when he is older, maybe eighteen, a grown-up. He will step out of the door. He will catch a bus. He will pet a wild horse. He will paint the sky.
Maybe he will paint the sky.
‘But how will your son cope with the real world?’ the voice presses.
How do I explain — he lives in it.
Dharini Bhaskar is the author of These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light. She is working on her next novel and can be reached at dharini.b@gmail.com
