Re-learning the ABC with Mamma

By Cynthia Rodrigues

A is for Apple and B is for Ball, C is for Cat and D is for Dog. This is how we learn to read and write the English language as children. One alphabet at a time. 
Now here is another primer that invites us to re-imagine the English alphabet, while building our toolkit of values.
And so we have A is for Awe and B is for Beauty, C is for Courage and D is for Discipline, and many more besides. A total of 106 values spanning the 26 alphabets, now ready to be re-learned by children of any age. Each of the value-able letters has been written by Cynthia in the form of letters to her children.
The values are paired with a simple object that children can relate to, as they try to understand the intricacies of the complex value. Packed with personal anecdotes and life lessons that Cynthia gleaned from her own parents, not to forget her children, this is a book to be savoured and shared. 
One value at a time.

•The proceeds from the sales of this book will go to the Missionaries of Charity.

Print length: Approximately 229 pages

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cynthia Rodrigues
• Release date: Jul 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393676980

Cynthia Rodrigues

Cynthia Rodrigues has a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from St Xavier's College, University of Bombay, and a diploma in Social Communications Media from Sophia Polytechnic. A mother of two, she lives and works in Mumbai as a writer and editor with a reputed Indian corporate group. The proceeds from Re-learning the ABC with Mamma, Cynthia's first book, will go to the Missionaries of Charity.

Book preview

Contents

With Love, From Mamma

A is for Aeroplane – and Awe

A is for Anchor – and Attachment

A is for Ant – and Ability

A is for Antenna – and Attitude

A is for Arrow – and Aspiration

A is for Award – and Appreciation

B is for Beaver – and Boldness

B is for Butterfly – and Beauty

B is for Bread – and Belief

C is for Cake – and Courage

C is for Camel – and Caution

C is for Candle – and Confidence

C is for Canvas – and Creativity

C is for Caterpillar – and Cares

C is for Centipede – and Choices

C is for Chain – and Community

C is for Chessboard – and Character

C is for Chocolate – and Cheerfulness

C is for Clay – and Childhood

C is for Clock – and Change

C is for Coal – and Common Sense

C is for Coin – and Compassion

C is for Comb – and Communication

C is for Compass – and Conscience

D is for Desk – and Dreams

D is for Diamond – and Discipline

D is for Dice – and Destiny

E is for Echo – and Empathy

E is for Egg – and Experience

E is for Elbow – and Effort

E is for Elephant – and Earth

E is for Engine – and Education

F is for Fan – and Forgiveness

F is for Fire – and Freedom

F is for Flint – and Friendship

F is for Flute – and Faith

F is for Footstool – and Feminism

F is for Frost – and Failure

G is for Gate – and Growth

G is for Gift – and Grace

G is for Glass – and Gratitude

G is for God

H is for Hammer – and Hate

H is for Hammock – and Humour

H is for Handkerchief – and Holiness

H is for Hearth – and Hope

H is for Hedgehog – and Humanity

H is for Heel – and Humility

H is for Hole – and Habit

H is for Horse – and Health

I is for Ice – and Intuition

J is for Jail – and Jealousy

J is for Jam – and Joy

K is for Kite – and Knowing

L is for Ladder – and Leadership

L is for Laundry – and Love

L is for Lock – and Loneliness

L is for Lodestar – and Legacy

L is for Lotus – and Life

M is for Matchstick – and Mortality

M is for Mirror – and Manners

M is for Mortar – and Marriage

M is for Museum – and Miracles

N is for Nail – and Non-judgement

N is for Nut – and Non-conformity

O is for Octopus – and Opportunity

O is for Onion – and Open-mindedness

O is for Ox – and Obedience

P is for Paper – and Perfection

P is for Parade – and Popularity

P is for Passport – and Privilege

P is for Pearl – and Problems

P is for Pedal – and Prayer

P is for Pepper – and Passion

P is for Perfume – and Pride

P is for Piano – and Peace

P is for Pie Chart – and Productivity

P is for Piggy Bank – and Plenitude

P is for Pressure Cooker – and Patience

Q is for Questions – and Quietude

R is for Rain – and Relaxation

R is for Rainbow – and Restoration

R is for Raisins – and Rejection

R is for Razor – and Responsibility

R is for Rocking Horse – and Regrets

R is for Rubik’s Cube – and Relationships

R is for Runway – and Respect

S is for Salt – and Sincerity

S is for Saw – and Sensitiveness

S is for Scales – and Self-worth

S is for Seeds – and Strength

S is for Shadow – and Stress

S is for Sparrow – and Simplicity

S is for Steam – and Silence

S is for Sun – and Success

T is for Tea – and Thoughts

T is for Thread – and Trust

T is for Tongue – and Truth

T is for Trinket – and Temptation

U is for Uniform – and Uniqueness

V is for Vinegar – and Vows

W is for Well – and Wealth

W is for Woodpecker – and Words

X is for Xylophone – and Xenodochial

Y is for Yearbook – and Youthfulness

Z is for Zip – and Zest

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to the four people who hold their places on either side of me, on our family tree.

Mum and Dad, Celia and Gastao:

For loving me when I needed it the most and deserved it the least.

For bringing me up not to let you down.

For giving me deep roots and wings.

––––––––

And to my kids, Rhea and Rishabh:

For making my life so fulfilling and worthwhile.

With Love, From Mamma

My darlings,

Because Chilean author Isabel Allende said, Write what should not be forgotten, I am writing this down.

For you. For me.

You are both God’s masterpieces in the making. And I am at once grateful and fearful for the responsibility that is mine.

You are still young, and I sigh as I see the adulation in your eyes. You think highly of me. My chinks haven’t begun to show as yet. But as you grow older, you will see the faults in me, my failings as a mother, as a human being. Even now, I am mindful that your little eyes and ears are watching me, listening to the things I say and don’t. That unworthy as I am, I am your role model, and that I must strive to be the kind of person that I exhort you to become.

Life has changed a lot from when we were kids. We were able to hold on to our innocence (your generation might call it our ignorance) for much longer. I strive to keep your innocence alive, but the challenges I face are many. The TV brings the filth of the world into our drawing room. As you grow older, you will learn of other things that I wish I could hide from you. The Internet has erased whatever boundaries remained.

I watch you with a strange mixture of pride and sadness. How fast you have grown! In your own little spheres, you are making your own friends and opinions. I wish I could watch over you always. Since that is not possible, here's the next best thing: the alphabet, with a difference.

The world teaches us, sooner or later, how to do wrong. Learning to do right is harder, and that’s why these are lessons we must learn at the earliest. People who build houses know well the value of laying a strong foundation. Your Papa and Grandma did that for me and my brothers, using their words and their lives. I hope to do that for you.

These lessons that I want to teach you are lessons that I saw your Papa and Grandma live. These posts are not all there is to know about life and living. We will continue our lessons in the real world. 

I hope these lessons don’t give you the impression that Mamma’s perfect because she’s not. She’s also a work-in-progress, and prone to making mistakes. This is a refresher course of sorts for me too. We grownups tend to look all self-assured and put-together, but more often than not, we are teetering on the edge, slowly unraveling.

And maybe that’s the point of this book. I need the ABCs too, so my own life will not be tested and found wanting. So I can be the best I can be, because that’s the kind of mother you deserve.

I have always striven to be fair and loving to both of you in equal measure. If ever my love has failed to peek through the disciplining and the daily grind, I am sorry. If you need me, whenever you may need me, I will be there for you. Standing in the gap, praying for you, urging you on.

I have so much to share with you. You may not read any of this until many years later. But I am anxious to get started. And so, without any fanfare or drumroll, here we go.

PS: This isn’t an ‘unputdownable’ book. I encourage you to put it down occasionally, so you can think about what you’ve read. For best results, read one value at a time. Nothing good happens instantly, and slow and steady is how we learned the alphabet.

A

A is for Aeroplane – and Awe

The ABC book says, A is for Aeroplane. In my book, A is for Awe. I remember the first time I sat in an aeroplane. How awed I was at the fact that this huge contraption with me and so many others in it was actually going to fly through the air over long distances. The sense of awe occasioned then diminished as I flew more regularly.

But the awe I feel when I see a beautiful sunset or when my eyes alight on the deep valleys nestled at the foot of tall mountains is the awe that has stayed with me. The feeling probably comes from witnessing a creation that is so beautiful and perfect only God could have made it.

I pray that you too may see many such sights that are part of nature's bounty. I pray that these sights may take your breath away, make you feel uplifted in both heart and soul. May they remind you that God exists, and that the fact of God's existence is announced to us most spectacularly every second of every day of our lives.

I don't have to remind you children to feel awe. Children, more than adults, see magic in the ordinariness of the world. The beauty of the stars, the rains, a little worm, a blade of grass, everything makes you feel awe. Your eyes are unjaded enough to feel the wonder inherent in the ordinary. 

My wish for you is that even as grownups, you may never allow everyday life to distract you from the fact that we are viewing God's art gallery, breathing in His theatre, living the greatest motion picture in the world. There is mystery, delight and poetry here. Just make sure that your sense of awe lasts throughout your lifetime.

With love,

Mamma

A is for Anchor – and Attachment

When large ships need to dock somewhere, they drop A for Anchor. The heavy weight sinks to the bottom of the sea bed and lodges itself in. The ship is now at rest, rendering it immobile as long as the anchor is held in place.

Not so different from A for Attachment.

We get so attached to the things we call ours. We go through life, gathering and collecting, assigning value to material things, but what we see as treasure is actually debris. Detritus that weighs us down, holds us back, occupies our minds which could be better occupied with other things. Junk can be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual, but it holds us back, as effectively as if it were a pole to which we were tied.

We come into the world empty-handed, and that’s how we leave. It’s only in the living that we learn to accumulate and hold on to so tightly. Let that be a lesson to us. Nothing we hold so ferociously to our breasts is going to remain with us.

As teenagers, my friends and I, all low on pocket money, used to enjoy window shopping. We used to look at the shop windows and sigh at all the stuff we couldn’t have, but then we used to walk on, the objects of desire forgotten. I hope you will view the objects of your desire in the same light.

Think about the kind of lifestyle your possessions may be forcing on you and ask yourself whether they are necessary or only so much lumber. If you find that you haven’t used something in a long time, and never will, give it away. Make room in your home and your life for something you really want and need.

Of course, it is sad when we have to give up the things we once loved, and still do. Sometimes age forces us to do that. At other times, we must make way for something else. The more we cling to what we’ve got, the more we fail to make room for something else. Sometimes we go through life never knowing the gold we’ve missed for the dross we wouldn’t let go of.

My wish for you is that you may let the right things anchor you.

That you may steer clear of the wrong kinds of attachments.

It’s a hard lesson, this one, one that I still struggle with.

With love,

Mamma

A is for Ant – and Ability

A is for Ant, a tiny insect that can carry up to 10 times its own body weight and drag objects that are 20-50 times heavier than itself. This hardworking creature lugs grains and other crumbs of food over long distances, intent only on storing food for the winter. How is this possible?

Because of a very powerful A for Ability. The ant can and therefore it does. One grain at a time towards its larger goal of food security. Its will drives it onward.

The ant doesn’t refrain from doing the little it can do because it is so little. And so it is with us. The ant’s actions teach us to do the thing we can do, the task we are capable of, no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem. We must make use of our God-given talents, nurture them and let them grow, not let them fade away from lack of use.

Muscles atrophy when left unused. Six packs give way to flab. Metal rusts. On the flip side, ability improves in direct proportion to how often we use it. If you do what you can, as best as you can, you will find that the winds and waves, and luck too, will stand by to do your bidding.

My darlings, like the ant, humans too are capable of amazing things, if we put our minds to it. Often, we limit our own abilities by what we think ourselves capable of.

And so, you must try doing different things. Don’t give up exploring the limits of what you are capable of. Ignore those who tell you that you can’t do something. How will you know you can or can’t if you never try?

Remember the parable Our Lord told His disciples, in