The Sixth Ones: Arianna Joshi and Reyhaan Joshi
I only want good vibes 'round me tonightNo negativity in my lifeJust good vibes, that's what I likeSo I don't need you raining on my paradeThrowing shadeBe on your merry wayI only want good vibes 'round me tonightNo negativity in my life
-HRVY and Matoma
"When I was young, I used to be obsessed with Van Gogh's sunflowers, so I did 30 versions of it."
She is 10. Honestly, I am a little intimidated. But a lot more curious. And absolutely delighted that she agreed to a firefly chat with me. Meet Arianna Joshi, voracious reader, painter, recipe inventer, playdoh sculptor, lover of the sea and anything sweet, greek mythology enthusiast, and thankfully for me, a delightful conversationalist. We spent some time chatting about her creative life, deconstructing some of her creations, unearthing her inner life and agreeing that Turquoise is just much better than pink. Most of the time anyway.
Speaking of Turquoise, one of the first things she wanted to show me was the memory box that her mum had started for her. She continues the fine tradition of collecting all sorts of firsts. She pulled out something that contained all her teeth. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets I am sure. She remembers decorating little jars for her tooth fairy. That is until she realized that the tooth fairy was none other than her mum, and that the teeth were in the drawer all along!
Moving along quickly from the teeth. The memory box is her very own little collection of stories that she kept pulling out one by one. The rakhis she has collected over the years each one carefully dated by her, her bus identity cards, little wooden knick knacks (she loves wooden things she tells me), the first bow she ever tied, bangles that didn't fit her but ones she treasured. She also tells me she has a lot of friends and they make bookmarks for each other and treasure those too. So lovely, this habit of treasuring.
We then talked about her biggest passion, her art. She has been taking art workshops which makes sense given her mum is an artist herself. Having been exposed to art at an early age which includes conversations around it, she has an impressive vocabulary, as you will see.
She is also a voracious reader, and more often than not, you will find her curled up on her favourite sofa by the window with a book. It is the same building her mother grew up in and the mango tree is still there, a witness to the antics of the next generation. Her mother remembers staring out of that window and today she sees her daughter do the same and that is quite special. The mother is due for a firefly chat but let's focus on the kids right now.
Apart from multiple school projects, and the art workshops and classes she takes, there have been other more important compulsions for Arianna to create art. She tells me that her room looked very boring so she decided it needed some pictures. And she drew some. With her mother, she has studied artists in detail and so much of her art has been inspired by the big guns. Two that stood out were a self portrait inspired by Frida Kahlo, a painting called 'feelings", inspired by Matisse.
She also loves to experiment with different techniques. Flipping the brush to create dots, creating flecks of paint, dipping a marker in water, using her fingers to make lines and dots, diluting the paint, adding glitter, mirrors and all sorts of sparkles. Her repertoire of ideas and techniques seems to be growing along with her. The level of detail even in her playdoh sculptures is something to admire.
I marvelled at these techniques as she described them in detail, but what struck me even more are the conscious choices that she makes in her art and her ability to explain each choice. Take for example, the way she talks about this piece she created,
"I love my skin colour but for this piece I left the white canvas for the face because then you can use other colours for contrast. Lots of people don't use a nose, but I did. And the orange hair was fun. And even though I don't like pink, I thought it contrasted amazingly with green."
We talk about some of her school projects. From creating her version of the underwater world to depicting landforms, each of these projects are a source of immense pride. And I can tell why- they look elaborate and really hard work! When I ask her about the underwater project, she tells me she loves the sea so much and she doesn't even know why. I love that, loving something and not even knowing why. Such an innocence about it.
Her reading has helped her discover her love for greek mythology. And it even inspires her art. While creating a piece, she wanted the outfit to look Greek, she had a white tunic in mind. but it ended up like a Japanese kimono.
And then she reveals what I thought was one of the most insightful glimpses into her process of creation,
"There is one thing that happens to me whenever I plan a painting, it never goes as planned! So I have decided I am not even going to plan, I just start using brush strokes and it ends up being awesome."
I love the confidence. It has clearly come from a lot of practise and love for the medium. And then she follows it up very quickly with this gem about her process,
"I have learnt to love it, it's strange, it is not perfect, I don't even like perfect."
I asked her about other interests and she tells me about inventing recipes. She reminds me rather matter of factly that she is a kid and so cannot use the gas. I had been listening to her simple yet profound wisdom so intently that I think she guessed I needed a reminder that she was 10. I ask her favourite things to make and without a moment of hesitation she says,
"Indian coin pizzas. Take papdi, put ketchup and cheese and put it in the microwave."
Voila! She promised she would make me some but unfortunately we ran out of time. Another thing she has discovered is that if you put loads of butter on cocktail buns and put them into the microwave they taste like croissants. This I have to try.
She admits she has a sweet tooth. Sigh, don't we all, I said. She discovered that this mish-mash of peanut butter, nutella and strawberry crush tastes out of this world. I look at her like she is a genius. And she looks back at me confident that she is.
In the middle of the chat she decided she needed to have some hot chocolate. But not just pour, mix and chug. It was an elaborate process. Choose the right plate, a complementing mug colour, heart art on the plate, drops of chocolate details, and marshmallows for extra joy. And then enjoy it spoonful by spoonful. There is clearly an art to everything and a joyous, slow savouring of anything worthwhile.
Settling back into our chat, we talked about sugar some more. In a poignant moment, she tells me,"When I feel down, I have sugar." I ask her what makes her feel down and she shrugs,
"Somedays I wake up and don't feel happy. And if Reyhaan( her little imp of a brother, more on him in a bit) is annoying me, then I don't feel happy."
I nod in agreement, little brothers can be very annoying indeed. What else has made her unhappy in the recent past? The handling of Covid. The sensitive little girl that she is, she couldn't bear the suffering all around and she wrote a fairly stern, open letter to who she believes is accountable, as the Prime Minister of this country. A few lines from that letter,
"Dear Mr. Mody,I am sorry to say but I don't think you are the best Prime Minister around. I mean I know you love power, respect, money, family and all the other things. But you don't have two things every prime Minister should have- a heart and empathy for others."
She goes onto giving him suggestions from her generation about educating children. He would do well to listen to voices such as these. And I have to be honest, she is politically more on point than a lot of adults I know.
We moved onto things that made her happy."Making stuff" she tells me. When she discovered Canva and designing rooms, it brought her so much happiness. Her words. It struck me that it is a wonderful thing, this ability to express her feelings, her likes, her dislikes at such an early age. She has been encouraged to say exactly what she feels, express her opinions fearlessly and state her truth as it stands in the moment. In a startling moment of self-awareness and clarity, she tells me,
"I used to dream of being an artist, a singer, a fashion designer but now I realize I like interior design. And interior design is also art."
Apart from her parents and brother who are clearly some of her biggest champions I ask her who else matters. Shanaya, her best friend. She tells me about the fun they have together, reminiscing over the days they used to play with dolls until they found it boring. They fight a lot, they sulk in their corners and in two minutes, they are running towards each other. I smiled remembering my own besties and the passion with which we did friendship back then.
"You are so tall, sometimes I wonder whether you are a hybrid giraffe."You are so short, I wonder if you are alien from under earth."
I fell off laughing. And quickly sat up straight when she looked at me with an earnestness that defied her age,
"I love her, I feel I am so lucky to have such friends and I want to treasure them forever."
Oh you darling girl, and so you shall.
She also clearly treasures her little brother, despite the constant teasing that is the fundamental right of every elder sister. When Reyhaan stepped out for a minute, she admits to me, "He is a sweet guy." I smiled at that reluctant but real confession. Just then he walked back in and they were back to bickering. I quickly announce that it is time for a baby firefly chat with him.
But before that I asked her what song she would choose for herself. She went through a list of 5-6 songs that I had never heard of and finally settled on Good Vibes by HRVY and Matoma. I loved it! Have a listen.
We exchanged gifts. I got her some loot from bath and bodyworks, her favourite, which she has generously sprayed all over and her mum tells me the house smells like an orchard. What did she get me? She had gone for this birthday party and her return gift was a chain with a little bee like pendant. She remembered fireflies and decided that I must have it. I nearly cried I swear, and wore it for the picture we took.
"Hey can we be friends?
Yeah
Do you promise
Uh huh
Friends for ever right
Forever
Awesome"
- Rainbow friends by Funnel vision
For starters, Reyhaan and I fought. Early in the morning. Over a game called sequence.He kept making up the rules as we went along and I took exception to that. When I called him out, he insisted that this was how the game was played. Yeah right. Anyway, he showed me some dance moves after that and we made up because gosh, the cuteness overload. He agreed to do a firefly chat with me and we sat down for a tête-à-tête. I mean I sat down and he pranced around.
Right off the bat he announces that he wants to become a chef. His favourite food is Sushi from Foo. It tastes great and is also very healthy, he tells me.
"I like cooking. I really want to make stuff. My sis is starting to make stuff, I am learning."
His favourite is baking. He grasps that once he bakes something properly, he will be able to bake it again. Right now he says, he needs some help from an adult. Sure, of course. When I ask him why he likes it, he keeps it pithy,
"I just really like it."
Can't argue with that! I tried remembering the last time I just simply liked something without overthinking the nuances and layers. Naah, nothing came to mind.
Does he only want to become a chef? Of course not. He wants to become a police officer so that he can help people. He also wants to be a race car driver. And oh a dancer. They have dance classes in school and at the moment they are learning dandiya for the festive season. His favourite band is Funnel vision and he has some moves. Watch this.
I asked him his favourite colour and he reels out a long list. Green, blue, red, orange and purple. Also jade and turquoise, just like his elder sister. Though he didn't admit it of course.
His favourite games are pakda pakdi, catch the ball, dodge ball, basket ball, football, cricket. And he wants to play basketball to become stronger and fitter.
But his biggest dream is the olympics. And his ambitions are high.
"I want to win first place in the Olympics races, rock climbing, hurdles, swimming, boxing, gymnastics, frisbee, arrow shooting and something called rock throwing."
His most serious passion at the moment is jumping. And I literally mean at that moment because in my last conversation with him a few days ago, he told me that he is bored with it. But just a few weeks ago, it was worth showing off. So back then when he did still like to jump, he was practising in the living room. His playground was the sofa, recently purchased, used to be white and with all that jumping can no longer claim to be. He proudly announced his achievement,
"Everyday my jumps become higher."
Atta boy!You must watch his video in the end for a glimpse of his practise sessions which he was gracious enough to let me watch.
I ask him about his dreams and he tells me that sometimes he gets scary story dreams, evil dreams with demons.
"Sometimes in the middle of the night I get up crying. I get scared that there is a monster under the bed. Mumma makes me feel better. She tells me to be quiet and I forget about the monster."
He quickly adds, it only happened once though. Brave you are, I tell him. I still wake up dreaming of monsters sometimes. His mumma is his world and he makes sure she knows it. At breakfast, she was cutting his toast for him into bite sizes and he quietly kissed her hand and told her he loved her. The moment was sweeter than any mish-mash of sugar treats his sister could've made.
His memory box came out as well. The collection of rakhis includes a batman one. They have a lovely tradition of exchanging rakhis. The protection on offer runs both ways, from brother to sister and equally from sister to brother. They have been doing this for the last 6 years, which is how old Reyhaan is. And the tradition continues irrespective of all the teasing, bickering and honestly hilarious exchanges. He also took out the butterfly and the kite that he made "long ago" when he was in KG class.
He loves playing with his toys especially robotics. When I look at him cluelessly, he explains that he builds stuff with lego which becomes a machine. Ah. So far he has built a tractor. He will keep me posted on what he builds next.
And then suddenly in the middle of the conversation he tells me that he has seen fireflies. He takes my full heart with that one.
When I asked him what he likes to do the most, he grins cheekily,
"I really like irritating my sister."
We talked about his favourite song and he confesses it is a tough one. In fact he doesn't really have one. He has created three playlists called Reyhaan, Ray Ray and Rockstar. All of them have different kinds of songs. He listens to rock often. But he finally zeroed on his current favourite, by which we mean for the day. Rainbow friends by Funnel Vision. Have a listen here and do not miss the olympic practice.
I ordered sushi for him from Foo, but I wasn't sure if it was the right one. He made sure to tell me the next day when I saw him, that it was his favourite. His present to me was this picture. I am over the moon, I tell you.
This piece would be incomplete without a shoutout to the clearly extraordinary parenting by Heetal and Kunal. You can't follow the kids anywhere thankfully, but here is a link to an article that Heetal recently wrote on National Son's day. It should give you a sense of the kind of parents that Heetal and Kunal are. More power to them.
https://www.adgully.com/my-son-s-inheritance-heetal-dattani-123411.html
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