Life – Page 78 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Let Children Play Outside

Please indulge me once more as I meander down the memory lane. After all, The business of life is the acquisition of memories.

Regular readers of my blog know that I grew up in a beautiful hill station surrounded by hills, forests, springs and tea estates. Obviously, I spent a good part of this time enjoying my life. I’ve tasted berries whose name I know not, played in the rain, walked through the fog not knowing whether I am heading for a cliff, I have walked and run so far away from home, but nature always guided me back to my home (well, mostly, folks who worked in my parents’ school and realized I was lost), drank water from fresh water springs, cycled on ‘bridges’ made of slender logs, ran helter-skelter after spotting wild boars hiding in bushes.

Maybe, I could have died in a hundred different ways, but I also lived in a thousand beautifully different ways.

Which is why modern parenting makes me stop and think. Do we structure our childrens’ time too much too soon to remove the true benefits of unstructured time? Are we over-protective? So many of the things this article spoke about resonated with me.

http://time.com/3005611/helicopter-parenting-chilhood-obesity/

I quote from the article:

But today, to keep our kids “safe,” we drive them back and forth to school. “Arrival” and “dismissal” have morphed into “drop-off” and “pick-up.” Kids are delivered like FedEx packages. About 1 in 10 use their legs to get to school.

Do we really need 599 cars dropping off 599 children in a school less than 5 miles from home every morning? What happened to biking, walking or taking a school bus to school? It is no wonder that obesity rates are spiking.

The fact that I don’t see residential neighborhoods filled with children playing on the street saddens me. The only way to change that is to open those doors and step outside. Let children play.

The Holy Tunnel of Lint

I am a tad spirited in expressing the way we are consumed by technology these days. I look at videos that show us how we are all peering into our phones with a vehemence that is perhaps overdone and say ‘Ha! See? I told you so.” I may have been getting a little chatty of late about the topic. Of course, the wrong gadgets got offended with my unguarded statements. The tumble dryer that has been huffing and puffing along noisily but religiously in the background shuddered and refused to dry the clothes. It still chunked and bunked about, threw its weight around like it always does. It tried to remain the General in the laundry room, but there was no mistaking the fact that no drying was being done there.

The husband and I tried all the methods of repair we know without having to consult the vast Internet. That is to say, we reset the switches, gave resounding thumps on random areas of the dryer. We have seen mechanics do the same with astounding success, but our own thump quotients yield nothing. In fact, our oven got so offended with the Thump Technique, it refuses to acknowledge our presence anymore. “I Won’t Beep! Not EVEN If You Reset The Switch!” it said and turned its LEDs off with a spectacular flourish.

That is when the husband went you-tubing and found a whole lot of things that can happen to dryers. He went into the laundry room squeaking clean one Saturday morning accordingly and within minutes we saw a mountain of lint and the husband somewhere in there sounding like an astonished frog deep in a well and saying something like ‘Holy Moly! There is soooo much lint in here.”

“Do you want any help?” I asked peeking into the room with the toddler son in tow. He might have accepted my help, but he looked alarmed at the son’s expression. He looked gleeful at all the soft lint available for a variety of projects – there was a possibility of lint fireworks, lint flakes drifting in the room, lint piles for jumping in. The husband was quick to realize that the biggest help was probably no help at all. “NO! Just keep him away. I am fine!” said the martyr and went back to de-linting the machine.

If you are one of those folks who regularly move the refrigerator so the space under the fridge is clean, you can stop reading now, but for the rest of us, here is news. Apparently, the lint does not only accumulate in the lint filter (You know that narrow piece that says, “Please clear after use!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_dryer#Lint_build-up_.28tumble_dryers.29). Apparently, the lint overflows into every inch of space the lint can find. It expands, it builds its regime. It cranks hard at tubes going out into the big bad world and it frightens rodents into leaving. It seems to me like Genghis Khan could take a lesson or two from Lint on empire building.

LLint Lint Everywhere Lint Near & Far — Lint Lint Everywhere
Lint Near & Far

A few hours in lint saw the husband emerge looking like he had been rattled by rabbits in a bag full of fur. He was clutching a large garbage bag full of lint, several portions of lint clung to his clothes, hair and feet. He looked a sorry mess. I felt a pang for the man and thought of inserting a bit of humor to the proceedings to lighten him up. “Have you been tunneling in lint?” I asked. I was shocked to hear my sarcasm was completely pointless for he was doing just that. “Yes…did you know that the tube that tunnels through the wall is filled with lint too? I got most of it out, but there is still some sticking to the pipes and I am heading out to the other side to extricate the remaining.”

I suppose this is often the case with technology. You never know which one will truly grow into epic proportions.Who knew The Vortex of Lint Terror or the Holy Tunnel of Lint would come from that small lint opening?

Thanks to the awesome skills of the Lint Remover, we are now wearing dry clothes again.

When the Stars Shine Down

You know how William Blake said something about Wonder? I had forgotten, but luckily the Internet is there for souls like me who wonder vaguely what was it the bloke called Blake said about Wonder and Voila there it is.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.”

― William Blake,

You can use your sense of wonder for a great many things: To marvel at the bunk beds as the daughter and her friends did, or at the restrooms as the son did on our recent camping trip.

The husband and I fulfilled our sense of wonder by watching the night sky. Where we live, the stars are dimmed out by the lights of civilization, but even then, we set out every now and then to star gaze. Every time, we are a little farther away from the lights of civilization, we look up and admire all those generations before us who studied the skies and named the constellations. What a gift it is to us! One truly realizes the value of accumulated wisdom when one gazes upon the limitless night sky, does one not?

On that warm summer night, as we sat around the campfire after an exemplary meal, it was with that feeling of humility and gratitude that anything to do with the stars brings on, that we gazed. As we sat there, every now and then, we would detect a satellite moving across the sky. We even saw a few shooting stars in the sky. Conversation turned to how even the campfire’s lights can mask the true glory of seeing the Milky Way.

Time wore on and we turned in for the night.

We may have retired, but the son’s mind was still reflecting subconsciously on the wonders of the automatic flush or the blinking red light in the bathroom, I would never know. What I do know is that he got up enthusiastically every few hours to get a whiff at the wonderful restroom. It was at his 3:15 a.m. marveling session that I decided to make the best of it.

Maybe, this was nature’s way of granting me the joy of seeing the true beauty of the Milky Way. I slipped out and stood under the stars inhaling the grandeur of it all. The mortal sufferings, the pain humanity goes through, the agonies we endure everything seems to stop for that moment when the stars shine down. It is as beautiful as it is therapeutic.

I came back yearning to see the beauty of the night sky again and found this trove of beautiful pictures of the night sky:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2664460/Our-amazing-skies-Beautiful-pictures-astronomy-photography-finest-competition-attracts-record-number-entries.html

Everybody should get themselves a dose of the night sky every once in a while, even if it means visiting the restroom fifteen times with a wonder-filled toddler.

The Polite Goggles

The summer heat beat down on the grasslands, the ranches and the river flowing nearby with a kind of fierce energy, determined to show us both how hot and long it can go on, on the summer solstice. We were out on a camping trip, and I cannot imagine how it would have been had we been pitching up tents and hitching it in the heat. As it turns out, we went in for cabins with full blast A/c and bunk beds that provided hours of entertainment to the bendy amongst us. The children want to climb something. If trees are not available in the searing heat, the bunk beds were just fine too.

Reminds me of this cartoon I saw at http://www.afuntab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Funny-Quotes-about-Camping-2.jpg

Source: http://www.afuntab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Funny-Quotes-about-Camping-2.jpg

The campsite was near a river and the thought of flowing fresh water nearby is always a calming influence.

We played by the river for some time.

Then someone suggested that we beat it to the swimming pool instead. So, we did. I had brought along a pair of pink and blue goggles and the children were remarkably well-behaved around them. When I had the extra one in my hand, one child asked me politely whether they could please use it, “By all means!” said I beaming. A few minutes later, another mermaid swam up to me and said, “Could I have the pink ones please?”

I beamed again and gave the pink one. This is when things started getting complicated. The mergirls and merboys were having a go in the swimming pool and every now and then, one of the merfolk would splash up to me and ask, “Aunty, can I use the pink goggles?” I’d say ‘Of course’ and go on chatting with my friends. A few minutes later, another merchild would ask “May I use the blue goggles please?” and I’d nod my consent to that too, little realizing what my little assents were causing inside the pool. It turns out that there was a fierce war raging around the goggles. One group wanted to use them and the other did not. The game had me fogged when the details emerged. So, every time somebody came up to me and asked me whether they could use the goggles and I said ‘Yes’, the folks went to the opposing lot and said that I had allowed them to use the goggles and the rightful owner of the treasure was their team. Then, another one would come up to me and I would nod again and the drama would start all over again.

When did I catch on, you ask. Well, to tell you the truth, my school teacher parents would have detected the war a mile away, but I was so intent on chatting with my good friends and it had been such a long time since I spent a summer teaching children, that it took a large-scale splash party in the pool to make me stop and think. What helped was that two folk were swimming up to me in great speed clearly trying to get to me first. The moment I had nodded my assent to one, child 1 whipped up a victory splash and whooped in joy. I saw the crest fallen Child 2 and only then realized what was going on.

This poster should have come to my mind a little earlier, but it didn’t.

Well, if anything, despite their struggles to get all the goggles to their own teams, they had been exceedingly polite and had maintained the quorum of splash-envy, and so deserved a goggle each whether they wanted it or not.

The waters don’t always show the currents and depth, do they?

Pictures: Courtesy one of our friends

How to Pack, Write and Other Things

The world is full of nonsense if you will just open your minds up to it. For example, one of my news feeds once thought it relevant to show me an article on how to pack when you have children and are going on a flight trip. Now, that is a nice title, knowing how we travel with children, and how often we have done it in the past with our own brood.

Maybe an example would help here. If you see us go on a week-end trip somewhere close by, you know drive for a few hours and get back sort of place, you would understand why I clicked on this link to read what novel piece of advice it had to give me. You see, once we had the car packed with the following among other things like suitcases and books:

1) Shoes (1 extra pair each for each member of the family)

2) Jackets (1 for every member)

3) 2 strollers (We only have one stroller rider, but I packed one in and the husband packed the other.) Both of us looked extremely proud of ourselves and told the other, “Ha! I packed something very valuable. The stroller. “

“What?! I packed it too. The red one.”

“I packed the blue one.”

I know what goes through the brain at this point in time. The stroller isn’t exactly a button. How then, does such a large thing get lost in the trunk? Well. Now, you know how we pack. If the place we are going to, has an attached kitchenette, the trunk gets fuller. Suddenly, rice cookers are jostling for space beside shoes and the curry powder is nicely sprinkling its aroma on the jackets.

Flight trips are another saga altogether. (https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/never-awaken-a-sleeping-tiger-cub/) For, we manage all of this and more within the prescribed baggage limits.

We are planning on a small trip again and I wanted to gain the foolproof method of compact packing. I had enough of the “pack everything you need, may need or may one day need during the trip” doctrine.

To be honest, it astounds me that tripe like this gets clicked on, read and paid for. There isn’t a single thing of note here.

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/things-parents-forget-plane-trips-kids/story?id=23102623&singlePage=true

But, such is the world of news and writing. The unimaginative jostles with the trite, the run-of-the-mill nudges the novel aside, while a few pieces of inspired writing sprinkles its splendor on the web.

PS: I read this wonderful article a while ago, on how story telling is the best method to activate our brains. (http://lifehacker.com/5965703/the-science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains), and another one on how the brain relates the linguistic with the musical (http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6091974/computers-classics-and-cadenzas-making-math-music-from)

Maybe we need a story around packing while traveling with children and background music to match the process.

Happy Science Days!

There are some mechanics whose work I admire. They have an orderliness about them. They take out things packed in 30 mm space, spread it out over 100 sq metres and put them back in 30 mm with minimum fuss and mess. I have always admired such souls of toil. So, when the father and daughter were pandering upstairs with a laptop lying open on the desk, I went up a couple of times partly out of curiosity and partly to keep the toddler son away from the table. (The son thinks he is helping out on the task and gets sorely disappointed when told that he can’t place his toy cars on that convenient hole inside the laptop where the hard disk used to reside. ) Halfway through the task, I saw the pair of them chattering about something and come downstairs. “Commencing after lunch!” said the mechanics. “But you just had coffee and chocolate milk!” said I. This was received with a chuckle and no retort. A moment later, the pair of them switched on the Television.

“Going to watch Television? “ I asked in that tone that mildly encourages one to finish up the laptop work. Among other things I was worried that a small thing will go astray and I will be called upon to get down on all fours and search.

“TV Amma. Not television. Television sounds so formal and then you don’t feel like relaxing with it.”

“Well, what happened to the laptop?” I asked.

“We watched a you-tube video on how to do it Amma. Relax. So, I know everything. We just could not do it because Appa wants to take another backup of the disk now.”

I launched into what I call my Science Teacher mode. “You can learn more by doing than by watching you-tube videos. “ I went on in this vein for a few sentences, and then let the thing rest.

A few days later, I caught her again and told her about the Science experiments that the President lauded, and how these children had taken simple problems and solved them.

http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/article_5de64612-f01a-11e3-afbe-001a4bcf887a.html

It was a lovely afternoon chat, and I asked her what I could do to help her along in her ambition to become a biologist.

“You can buy me a pet!” said she before I had completed my sentence.

“WHAT?!”

“What amma? You just said that I will learn more by doing than by reading books or watching documentaries. So, in order for me to become a biologist, I think a pet would help me nicely. Maybe a dog, or a duck or a parrot.”

“I like snake.” said the toddler son playing with his toy cars.

“Or how about some fish?”

“I want bumblebee Amma” said the son.

Pets : Bumblebee, Butterfly, Parrot, Dog, Duck, Snake?

I want respite.

Happy Science Days to all of you.

Fantasy : A Necessary Ingredient to Living?

The list of things that keep us up at night has become more bizarre as the days go on. I chronicle what was the state of affairs about a week ago because I just let time slip by me.The son had a spot of a cold. He spent a few nights sniffling and having trouble taking in those deep, fulfilling breaths so essential to sleeping fitfully through the night. The humidifiers have been called to action and Herr Mozart has been making his nightly appearances to induce sleep in the child and mother to poor avail. After the third night of this grand party, I was looking for ways to get the husband to gallantly step forward and take on night duty and made a few pitiful noises. But it was sadly lost in all the noises around the home, and elicited no response whatsoever.

I looked around to see the husband sticking to his laptop like a frog to its lily-pad. You see, over the past few weeks, I have been noticing the sincere man bent double over his laptop with a serious, worried expression on his face. Me being the supportive w. and all that, I decided to give him the time to think and delve or whatever it was he was doing. I obviously assumed it was something to do with his work. You know? The noble task of putting food on the table kind of work. Slowly, however, I noticed that this mysterious work had a way of popping up during after-dinner dishwasher time or the before dinner all-hands-on-deck time or getting-the-daughter-to-school in the mornings time. Very shifty the whole thing was.

“I have an early meeting tomorrow morning – a fitful night’s rest is necessary I think.” said the husband before I could beat him to it, making a point of stretching his arms in that tired manner that induces sympathy. If I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep myself, what of it? I bade him a good night’s sleep and sent him to the guest bedroom and sought the assurance of the humidifier and Eucalyptus oil. It was about 3 a.m. when the son woke up sniffling again and cried for the 6th time that night. Thinking that a hot cup of milk will probably do the trick, I set out amid the mists of sleep enveloping the night air that was thick with sleep to the kitchen downstairs. It was when I was creaking up the stairs again that I saw a faint light emanating from the guest bedroom. I went in to see what happened. I mean, the important-meeting-goer needed his sleep right?

There he was, squinting into his girdle-shaped phone with that same mysterious expression. It was too much for me. I asked him what the matter was. There was a sheepish expression on his face and I caught on like a blood hound and said, “Confess now, my friend! What is going on?”

The story came tumbling out. Apparently, the husband had been playing in the Fantasy Leagues of Indian Cricket and since the matches take place in Indian Standard Time, he has been getting up at all sorts of hours and checking his players, switching out his teams and what-not. He evaded the glare on my face and said, “You should be proud of me. I have come up to the second position from the 8th position solely by strategic planning and thinking.”

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to summon pride at 3 in the morning at a man who is proud of his victories at the Fantasy League matches. But I bravely reminded myself about Dr. Seuss’ words : Fantasy is a necessary ingredient to living. I smiled at the husband and told him as much.

I then, did some strategic thinking myself and gave him the warm milk to take to the crying toddler. My fantasy was to get into the snug bed in the guest bedroom to catch a few hours sleep.

Taking the ABCD Approach

“Amma! How can you say that? Three is a very important age!” says the daughter riled up and agitated. I now recognize that tone of voice as the one she uses when she is standing up for someone or something. There is a sincerity to it that is refreshing. Maybe, one day that voice will help her lend her energy and actions to more noble causes than celebrating the third birthday party for her brother, but for now, I appreciate the thought.

“Really? Tell me all about your third birthday party dear.” I ask her. I can see her tumbling about in her brain with a look on her face like she is rattling a box of metal keys to look for the key to the treasure chest.

“There was a .. a cake?!” she says hesitantly.

“Nice try. What else?”

“Amma, see all I am saying is that I will take care of everything for the party. All you need is A.B.C.D and we are set.”

I was gearing up for a small party among his friends in his day-care and much singing of the birthday song, but the daughter wanted to have some of her own fun in our house with a larger group of her friends and her brother’s on the occasion. Hence the discussion.

“What is A B C D?”

She picks up a marker and heads to the white board in true Teacher’s-grand-daughter fashion and writes:

A: Apartment/House

B: Buddies

C: Cake

D: Decorations

“We already have A, I’ll invite all the Bs, you order the C and I’ll take care of the D too. I’ll even clean up before the party. “

She ignores my question about cleaning up after the party.

So, I am settling down to the myriad tasks that come with pulling off a birthday party at the last minute. None of this is helped by the fact that my sister sitting half a moon away is pinging me on progress. The daughter has looped her in for support I see.

Lightning McQueen Cars Cake (Image from Safeway)

The little brother, in the meanwhile, is basking in all the attention. When people wish him a Happy Birthday, he glows and wishes them Happy Birthday too. Sigh.

Jean Karma

My grandfather seems to have understood early on in the journey to parenthood that naming a child was a huge responsibility. He understood clearly that while naming a child, one must choose a name one likes, for one cannot get around the fact that the name shall be bellowed out by the parent in desperation, exasperation, and god-knows-what-a-ration. He was also a pious man. Consequently, his children were named after various gods and goddesses of his fancy. Every time, my grandmother blew a fuse or bust her gasket with tension at her progeny, he would calmly tell her that she was accumulating good karma points by invoking the names of the Gods. I am not sure what my grandmother invoked against her husband in retort to this (some things were hushed up during story telling). Anyway, here is a post on some naming strategies the older generation seems to have used.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2006/01/27/whats-in-a-name/

A few days ago, I volunteered at the daughter’s school to be a parent chaperone on a field trip to a Science Exploratorium. I strapped myself up with a large bag of goodies, knick knacks and water bottles and hurtled off to take charge of my wards for the trip. I was in-charge of the daughter plus four others. We chatted easily and I did my best to memorize their facial features (it was not helped by the fact that one of them kept tying and untying her hair, one put on her glasses on or not at will. One child I thought I had nailed in the identification department with a mole on her cheek, only to find halfway through the trip that it was a chocolate smudge that was promptly wiped on a white t-shirt). Anyway, the journey to the exploratorium was unremarkable enough. Things only heated up nicely once inside.

You see, we walked in and saw that it being an Exploratorium, the children were meant to be let loose to explore. There was no point in saying, “Stand behind me in line and every child gets 2 seconds to explore the sound gong wave magnetometer.” That simply would not do, but the problem was not an easy one to solve. It was like taking a couple of butterflies to a meadow swarming with butterflies and saying, “Remember, you are in charge of the yellow butterfly, the blue one and the orange one with red stripes, and of course the rainbow-colored one.” My knees were knobbly. Within minutes, our butterflies had flown to different flower patches and I had no idea how to keep them together.

I turned around in desperation only to find that my fellow chaperones were in a similar state. It was then that one of them had an idea, she plopped herself on a chair in the middle of Area A and took her wards’ snack packs. She proclaimed that was going to be home base and the children would just gather around her every few minutes so she can keep an eye on them. That seemed like a brilliant idea and before you knew it, I had asked everyone to deposit their snack boxes at our feet and let them loose. I was still meandering around them, keeping an eye on them for I am paranoid that way.

It was easy enough to scoop them back and head to the next area. I had asked them all to come to our home base around lunchtime and was waiting patiently for them to come, when I realized one of my butterflies named Jean was not coming. She was mesmerized by some exhibit no doubt and her friends and I went looking for her : JEAN! JEAN! Jean …

We had used the Jean-you-come-here-right-now-young-lady tone

We had used the Jean-honey-please-come-now tone

WE had used the Jean-we-are-really-hungry tone

Jean-where-are-you? Jean-do-you-hear-me? JEAN! JEAN!

Any inflection of Jean you can imagine, we had used. Finally I saw Jean sticking her head into a gong-like thing and hitting the outside to listen to reverberating sounds that echoed through her head. She looked like she had a bubble around her head and was enjoying the experience too. She had spent the past half an hour inside that infernal gong and did not hear 50000 decibel worth of her name being shouted out. Oh well!

I rounded up my remaining butterflies and headed out to lunch, only to find Jean had frittered off to a play structure by herself. When I started calling for Jean again, one lady came up to me and clutched my arm. She was a kindly old thing with a warm, round face and greying curls. “Dear, how many times you have called me today! Every time, I turned to answer you, you were gone. I am Jean. Nice to meet you.”

My grandfather would agree that I attained positive Jean-Karma.

Honk, Pip or Beep: Listening is the Key

To fully chalk up my story of honking, I must take my readers back about 15 years. In those days, I was a proud owner of a two-wheeler: a slender, sleek thing maroon in color. Imagine a maroon banana slug with wheels and you have my Hero Puch. The father had his own bulky, husky two-wheeler that he unleashed noisily on the streets ( you may read our two-wheeler chronicles here) . He thinks he has not done his duty of conscientious driving if he does not honk every few minutes. Obviously, it was a lesson he sought to teach us all. Every time I remembered his advice on the two-wheeler, I would honk and redeem myself as the good daughter in his eyes.

One time, he took my Hero Puch for servicing and had the horn changed on it. He told me over dinner that day, and I nodded absent mindedly. The next day, I started off on my Hero Puch looking like a weasel on a banana, and made off.

I was nearing a bend where everybody honked and thinking that I better do my duty too, I honked. What happened next surprised me so much, I almost fell off my own vehicle, and I caused a number of folks in front of to trip over themselves too, and they cleared enough space for a bus to pass through. The honk that the banana-shaped slip of a thing emitted was that belonging to a truck. A long, loud trumpet of a sound signaling a mammoth tusker on a high speed monster truck. I still remember folks giving me an annoyed smirk on what they clearly thought was a low trick. I must say I was rattled too. There is, of course, a story behind the horn change. Something to do with the-father-trusting-the-mechanic. (The last time he trusted a painter, this happened: https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/the-colourful-house-by-the-daughter-of-the-colour-blind-father-2/)

The point is, in the intervening years, I have not used the horn as much. Sometimes, I fumble to see where it is when I do have to use it on the person backing out without seeing me. Imagine then, that of all the new experiences that I got to enjoy in Hawaii, honking was one of them. There are many road trips in this beautiful place that have one lane paths and turns. I read a blog post that warned us about sharp curves, and many places in which it is prudent to let fellow drivers know that you are coming. This is one of the places in the US where you can lean out the car window, wave enthusiastically to your fellow drivers, and give them a thumbs up sign and honk and let them know you are coming on the bridge. I was one enthusiastic but not very effective let-them-know-er. Gone are the years of my ambitious honking, what is left now is an apologetic honker. I go h-h-ho-honk and a pip of a honk emanates from the car. You need to have the honking attitude and I had lost it.

I was telling the husband and kids all about this and my dear Puny Puch sounding like Superman while driving along merrily peering into some canyons on the way.

Up ahead, was one of those infernal turns again. My head full of my Puny Puch’s horn, I honked to let folks know I was making my way through and kept going. I had my windows rolled up and wondered why it sounded like the bull-horn my Hero Puch let out all those years before. Funny how the memory of a thing can bring so vivid a recollection huh?

I rounded the corner and only just had the sense to step on the brakes like my life depended on it (well it did). There I was face-to-face with a bull-dozer sized bus on a ribbon bridge. The problem was that I had thought so much of letting others know, I had not taken the trouble of listening to the bus driver’s honk.

That big honk was the one belonging to the hulk of a bus. Valuable lesson learnt: Honk, Pip or Beep, the key is to listen.

Who says there is no joy in honking? Sigh. Continue reading “Honk, Pip or Beep: Listening is the Key”

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