The Normal Family

Srihari is annoying

Two years later

Narrator's POV

It has been a couple of months after Srihari's second birthday. Sathya was now 4 months pregnant. Srihari was being as annoying as ever and he never failed to get on everyone's nerves, except his mother's  of course. Akhila found everything her son did as sweet, adorable or plainly something every other child would do.

Having dinner together lied in the past or at least that rule did not apply to Akhila and her son. He would have dinner only while watching nursery rhymes.

Sriram's POV

I know my life has never been that great, but now it has taken a turn for the worse. people around have started to ask me what I want to do in life. I know I am in grade twelve and have to take things more seriously but still people fail to understand how stressed out I already was , besides I had all year to think about this and what mattered the most right now was the new Netflix series everyone was talking about.

When I went down to watch TV, guess who and what I saw in the living room. Srihari was watching Coco melon rhymes on the TV. I swear, this is what goes on the TV every night, nowadays nobody else gets a chance. The Coco melon baby haunts my dreams these days. If I try to take the remote from him, he starts crying and throwing a tantrum, and his mother comes and shouts at me. She says I should not be watching TV anyways as I have exams coming up. Srihari behaves as if he owns the world even though he has been in it for only two years. I would have surely not got away with that behavior, I never watched TV when I was his age. I think Shiva officially gave up on him. 

Sathyavati's POV

I left my 100 shade color pencils in the hall, and went looking for it. I was speechless seeing what was going on. Oh god, why me. Srihari was scribbling on the wall, but he had not damaged the color pencils so I did not mind, I mean what could you expect from a two year old. He was coloring the sky brown, and the tree bark blue. I could not help telling him to use the correct colors. 

Gopal came and was shocked he told me "It does not matter what colors he is using, he shouldn't use colors on the wall." Hearing the commotion everyone except Akhila came, she was talking seriously over the phone. Krishnan was very irritated by this. "Do not scribble on the wall." he said. He looked at his older brother expecting him to stop his son. Shiva too tried to reason with him.

"My, dear do not scribble on the wall I will give you paper, it will be better." he said calmly.

"No" he whined and continued scribbling, despite having coloring books he scribbled on wall only to piss off others.

Sriram, happy that someone other than him was in trouble, said "When I drew a single flower on the wall in my own room, in a corner with a pencil, I lost all my color pencils and I still did not get it back. Where are my color pencils?" He turned to his oldest brother and said, "I know you were the one who ratted on me that day, now at least try to stop your son."

Akilandeshwari's POV

I had an hectic call with a senior, over some legal complications, I had to work overtime due to that already, and now he is bothering me with calls. I went down to feed Srihari, and saw everyone crowded around a wall. I saw Srihari drawing on the wall.

"Oh what's going on" I asked. Everyone pointed to the wall. "Oh, my son is displaying his artworks on the wall. I am so proud of him, he is able to sketch such wonderful designs with his small fingers." I exclaimed. Srihari dropped the color pencil and walked towards me. "See my drawing" he exclaimed. "It looks great, I was tensed up due to work, I feel relaxed only after seeing you" I said happily.

"We are getting tensed only because of this." Krishnan stated.

"Its normal for children to scribble on the wall, if we stop him now, his creativity will go waste, A piece of paper is not enough to express his creative mind. Besides haven't any of you scribbled on walls ever."

"At least let him scribble in his own room." Shiva stated.

"Its ok, let him do whatever he wants, he will get upset if we stop him right now, besides none of these walls are well painted, we can repaint it after he is older." I said sensibly.

The others gave no reply.