The other night, sitting on the porch watching the floodgates of the sky open and pour down, crashing thunder punctuating the rain.
The boy’s eyes open wide and he exclaims, “Mommy! I know who’s sending us all this rain!! It’s Indra!”
I reply, “No, I think he’s the sun god.”
“No, he’s the thunder god! I know he is!!”
I pull out my trusty reference guide, The Little Book of Hindu Deities, and dammit if the kid isn’t right.
Often, when he is upset or has been in a screaming match with me and gets sent to his room, I will go up a few minutes later and find him surrounded by his books on Ganesh, Hanuman, and the Ramayana. He calls these his “God books.”
“Mommy,” he says, “I’m going to ask Ganesh to help me calm my body.”
Wouldn’t you know, it works.
The kid’s a better Hindu than I’ll ever be.
fretzes on the loose 
not too long ago, when we were having a huge storm, the girls asked me, “Papa, if Thor makes the thunder, who makes the lightning?”
well, I admitted that I didn’t know and explained that I wasn’t a very good viking. Instead, I chose to explain the scientific reasoning behind lightning as best i could, but i would have much cooler if i had just known that Thor is the god of BOTH thunder AND lightning. figures.
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You’re a terrible Viking! Just like I’m a terrible Hindu. 🙂
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That is amazing. Next time I will teach Atticus how to pray god and he will not fear anything. Last time when he was scared, I told him that mom is like a god because god does not have time to go to every house. He said to me that my mom is not a god she is a goddess!
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