This is what happens now in our household. The story time for kids has been transferred from bed-time to commuting time to school. After I finished Ramayana, Mahabharata (the great Indian epics) and Sri Krishna stories, Vikramaditya stories are going on now (in Hindi, it's Vikram aur Betal).
One such story starts off like this. Vikram comes to know about udankattai (which is Sati practice in Tamil) of a queen from a kingdom nearby. Jani, the little one stopped me and asked about udankattai, as she had never heard of it. I explained that Udankattai was an ancient practice in India where the wife, after her husband's death, climbs his funeral pyre, immolates herself and dies. I added that this was abolished during the British rule with drive from great leaders like Rajaram Mohan Roy (Oh man! I'm quoting this name after a loooong time, may be after my 8th history lesson. Guess it's time we glorify people like him).
I continued with the story as to how Vikram helped save the queen. While I was halfway through it, Adi asked, "Stop Amma, but what is this udankattai". Jani and Kavi, who didn't like the interruption because of a repeat question, got annoyed and started scolding him. Actually they were terrified of me restarting the story of spine-chilling practice. He didn't bother to reply his siblings, but asked me in a curious tone, "How come the name is in English when this practice was there even before British came here". I blinked. Where did English come in? Udankattai is a flawless Tamil word.
As the question popped out, the answer dawned on me at exactly the same moment. OMG..all this while he thought it was "wooden"-kattai. Hence, the English component. So sweet. It took whole five minutes for the laughter to die down
