16 Illustration by Angela Kirkwood
In kindergarten last school year, my son
received an assignment to draw a portrait
of his family. He sketched an abstract
shape, to start. It vaguely resembled an
elephant, and I told him so. ‘‘It is,’’ he said,
and then his expression grew naughty —
he had an idea, just then. He drew a little
form in front of it, which he said was him-
self. He and the elephant were both pink,
his favorite color. The elephant appeared
to be shouting with joy. He uploaded the
image to the school’s online learning plat-
form. ‘‘This is me and my elephant,’’ he
said in an attached recording. ‘‘I rode on
him once. It’s so fun!’’
This tiny gesture toward nonconform-
ism — I admired it. As a child, I used to
be the one who complained to the teach-
er when others broke with homework
orthodoxy. My sister and I, children of
Indian immigrants, were raised in a small
town in Saskatchewan; achieving the
professional and personal greatness for
which we were destined, according to our
mother, would require absolute adher-
ence to the rules of the academic game.Mischief
By Vauhini Vara
That approach served me well enough in
the years that followed; now here I am,
a mortgage-paying, child-rearing adult,
great enough. But watching my own son,
I recognized something I didn’t as a child
— it was original, this willfully mischie-
vous reinterpretation of the assignment.
There was some artistry involved.
Mischief has a reputation for caus-
ing destruction. The word itself derives
from the Old French ‘‘meschief,’’ which
refers to misfortune, harm, injury. The
Cat in the Hat turns up and makes a mess6.12.On the value of a
misunderstood art.Letter of Recommendation