We were down to the final round of Jenga. Whoever won would have won the night. As you can see from the picture, the game started very aggressively by removing not one but two of the blocks from the lower most layer. Nikita was a nervous wreck after that. As you can also see I took out an outer block from third and fourth layer. It was a very very unstable structure at that point.

Nikita put up a fight for over fifteen minutes extremely gingerly moving blocks and the hands were visibly shaking….

Eventually when it fell down, she came back with a prompt excuse – “I am good at games which require mental strategy and not this shaky-hand strategy” 🙂

And before I could cry foul or suggest this is grapes being sour, she immediately added “I get the mental intelligence from your side, dad!”

I weighed my options. I came to the inevitable conclusion that anything I said at that point of time would only work against me.

So, I quietly packed up the pieces back in the box. I did get beat in the final game!!!

Natasha is home from college for Thanksgiving. The mere sight of her elder sister around brings the fiesty side of Nikita out. The whole day has been filled with some hilarious comebacks and sarcasm laden comments. Moreover, when she gets in such a mood, she is an equal opportunity riposter. Anybody in the way is susceptible to getting zingers from her.

I overheard the tail end of one such conversations going on between the three ladies. I think Natasha was describing some college friend’s mom to Sharmila and talked about how funny she was. Touched to the quick, no doubt, Sharmila suggested “Hey! Your mom is funny too”.

Nikita, hitherto very quiet, piped up in a seemingly supporting fashion – “Mom, you can be funny”. And just when Sharmila was going to give Natasha that “See, I told you so” look, Nikita completed her sentence with a zinging “… but usually not on purpose” 🙂

In my defense, I was born this way 🙂

Man, when it came to hair follicles, I did not have even a fighting chance….. 🙂