V is for Victory, Vygotsky, and the Vedas
Vinod's problem is that he is frozen up inside. He knows perfectly well that soft means mulayam or naram . When I say "find something soft/ mulayam " he looks out into the distance or at the sky or clownishly scratches his head. Then I say, "Well, what's the opposite of soft/ mulayam/naram ?" He again looks at the expanse, the sky, scratches his head. To be Frozen-Up-Inside is a common problem for village children and city children, poor children and rich children if they have, as Vinod has, been scolded and beaten as children for doing or not doing things that were never properly explained to them in the first place. A Frozen-Up-Inside child cannot learn because the simplest thing told him which he knows well cognitively hits against the wall he has erected in his head and does not permeate into his consciousness. So with Vinod you go back still further to the basics and adopt humour. Is a cow soft or hard? A
