writing – Page 9 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Lessons From The Little Blue Train

The Article below also appeared in The Hindu in the Open Page on May 10th:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/looking-back-at-a-little-blue-train/article8576823.ece#comments

My mother ran downhill through a steep slope in order to catch her little blue train to get to school, where she taught, everyday. We lived in a small place nestled in the Nilgiri Hills, where everybody knew everybody else and even though we might not have been invited to Tea at the train driver’s house, he obviously knew my mother. He would see her pelting down the hill, practically skating on the little seeds dropped from the Eucalyptus trees above, as he maneuvered the train around the mountainside. He would wave a friendly hand to her telling her to slow down indicating that he would wait for her to board. What is a minute here and a minute there was his philosophy, and one that entirely suited the place and times.

lovedale

The Nilgiri Mountain Railways was not competing with the Rajdhani Express or the electric trains of Mumbai. The little steam engine was a joy, and intended to show people that true joy in living came from hard work with a dose of huffing while going uphill and a friendly toot and speed moderation while going downhill. The journey, it steamed, was the most important thing. Chug past the lakes and mountains, cling to the cliffs, take deep breaths of the nippy air and keep moving while you can.

Nilgiri_Mountain_Railway

From Wikipedia: Picture Credit: By Nsmohan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37242880

When people ask me about the banes of urban living, I rank not knowing the train driver quite high up on the list of grievances. I have to run up 50 stairs like an asthmatic calf to get to the platform. So many times, just by virtue of being stuck behind a set of folks who refuse to budge on the escalator, I have missed the train. More often, I charge into the train just in time to have the doors close behind me and then stand there panting and mooing for breath.

When one considers how often I have flown past steps and hopped past debris and skidded into the train, I suppose it is only fair. A matter of tempting fate long enough. One day last week, a quick look at the watch (set to two minutes past the actual time), and another look at the car clock (set to three minutes past the actual time) revealed that I have a 30% percent chance of making it to the train if it was on time and a 43% percent chance if it was a minute late. Give me a chance at something like that and I mysteriously transform into a demonized matador bull: I will lower my head and point head train-ward and charge like a demon with horns. However I was not feeling sufficiently bull-like that day, more like The Reluctant Dragon.

reluctant_dragon

The Reluctant Dragon is a marvelous children’s book written by Kenneth Graham. In the book, the villagers are keen to slay the Dragon assuming all dragons are vicious. The Dragon, however, wants no fighting or flame spewing. He simply wants to rest his back against a rock, think and write poetry.

The train doors above me opened and I looked upwards while running. I forgot about the raised platform around the 57th step. It was then that I took a toss. Now, when I say ‘Toss’ in that flippant manner, it does not truly capture how much an ass it makes one look. Well, there really is no comparison with the animal kingdom, I mean have you seen deer trip or donkeys slip on the mud? That is set aside for the two-footed I believe. The point is that the step hurled me and I fell spectacularly. My bag flew one way, my legs the other, while my knees scraped along trying to keep the bag and legs together. I lay there trying to resist a bizarre urge to laugh out loud, though I could feel the stinging pain in my scraped knees. I did chuckle to myself though – I must have looked like a prized fool sprawled there first thing in the morning when folks have important things to do and places to be. One cyclist evidently late for her own train, said, “You okay?” and I said “Yes”. She gave me the Thumbs Up and cycled off.

As I stared at the departing train to see if I could detect a smirk from anyone on the train, I need not have worried. The shiny silver train streaked off glinting against the morning sun as efficient and indifferent as ever. I did not know which was worse, the physical pain from the bruises or the indifference of the departing train. Just as quickly as laughter had come, I found much to my embarrassment, that tears stung my eyes.

No one knows whether the kind train driver who waved to my mother is still alive today, but I miss the likes of him in today’s world.

From Divine Mermaids To Almighty Dashed Cars

I have written about the pace of life in the nourish-n-cherish household before and I shall do so again. Never a dull moment about sums it up. Now, of course, there are folks who have more kids than we do, and more pets than we do (did), and yet manage their time more efficiently than we do. One can either sigh and wonder where the time went, or simply muddle along and try to throw in a lazy afternoon or two if possible and make the best of things. That is what we do.

The daughter’s school had put up a truly marvelous play. The children were fabulous in their roles and it was heartening to see how the props were changed, the lines memorized and the whole play was worthy of the standing ovation it received.

To my mind, with out her (the daughter), it seemed the play could never have gone on. I mean, she played a half dozen roles in the same play. There were a dozen sailors on the stage, and sure enough, there she was: The sailor with the curly hair, which was hard to spot as the daughter has straight hair. The next minute, it was a school of fish (the orange one with black stripes for the critics). There a sea-gull, here a sous-chef, elsewhere an unfortunate soul. The play was titled ‘The Little Mermaid’ and of course enthusiasm for the production ran high in the daughter’s mind. She has always liked the mermaids.

drama

In fact the Mermaids may once have saved us – read on in this thrilling tale:

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/the-white-tiger-stops-at-gray-part-1/

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/the-white-tiger-stops-at-gray-%E2%80%93-part-2/

There were rehearsals to attend, costumes to try on, back stage friends to rib, camaraderie between scenes, forgotten cues, not yet perfected dialogues, and much more excitement. I was really happy that she had an experience like this, for performances form a bond forged of nervous anticipation that is difficult to simulate elsewhere.

I quizzed her about how she came to play this many roles later, and she said that when she joined the Drama club, she had auditioned for various parts. She was selected as only a sea-gull at first. However, the Drama Club had not quite expected a steady stream of folks to leave over the following months, and she was given more and more roles to fill. I had no idea the Theatrical industry worked so much on Corporate lines.

Between Drama productions, Science Fairs, Basketball games lost, tied and won, life has been a series of waves. The past Saturday was probably the first one this year where we did not have anywhere to rush off to, and the son lay belly down on the mat blissfully arranging and re-arranging his cars, while his mouth was set to ignition-on. The fond grandparents looked at him playing with his cars on the floor, and gingerly picked their way through the pile lest they take a spin like Lightning McQueen in the Cactus patch.

Vroom! Vroom!

Looks like it is a ‘No’ on the tires for Lightning McQueen again

Vroom!

Every-time the ignition sounds died from him, a running commentary started up telling us all about that blasted tire of Lightning McQueen that burst during his final lap in the Piston Cup race.

Cars_2006

I yearned for an afternoon nap that Saturday. How delicious it is when there is no plan other than to take a walk and read? The mother, a relentless cook, was already thinking of the evening meal, but I shushed her with a smart, “We’ve just had lunch – relax!” and went upstairs singing to bed.

In case you have missed the narrative thus far in the blog, the son is somewhat singularly focused in his interests. He plays with Lightning McQueen or Dusty Crophopper loyally ever since he knew how to hold a toy:

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/lightning-in-the-butterfly-grove/

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/the-car-test-of-colors/

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/the-car-chase/

When one comes up to bed yearning for a nap, one wants to take a nap, does one not? Does one want to spend time clearing the bed to make it look less like a freeway and more like a bed? One does not. After the fifteenth car was removed from under the blanket, I felt justified in swearing: “I swear to the Almighty Car Lord that I shall kick Lightning McQueen if I find him in my bed again. ” Even if it stubs my toe, and I have to hop around holding my big right toe in my left hand for a few minutes.

P.S: Please catch a good nap when you can folks. It is wonderful.

The Happiness Machine

In one story track of the Dandelion Wine, one of the characters, Leo Auffman, sets out to create a Happiness Machine after listening to low-spirited conversations among the old. Grandpa Spaulding, does let us know early in the process not to wait for the thing with bated breath, but we do.

Leo sets out to make his happiness machine imagining all the things that will make us happy. One quiet evening when he asks his wife what she thinks of it, she is stiff in her response, but Leo is too excited to notice that she doesn’t approve of the project. He spends more and more time creating the machine much against the wishes of his wife. He grows increasingly fond of what he is creating and neglects his family, too busy to notice the discordant strings starting to play out among the children. His wife tries to get him to see reason, and tells him that he is better off with his children, and spending time with them, but the excited Leo can barely wait to unveil the beautiful Happiness Machine to the world so there will never be discontent among the populace again.

It is only when he discovers his son weeping uncontrollably after taking a spin in the Happiness Machine that he fumbles. He is confused and cannot see where he went wrong. He pleads with his wife, Lena, and she too tries it out. At first, he hears her laughing, but slowly a deep wracking crying emerges from within the machine. Poor Leo – all he wanted to do was make people happy.

Lena comes out, and tells Leo that at first it was beautiful and she thoroughly enjoyed it. There was Paris, and all the wonderful places to see, right there in her backyard, but slowly a discontent set in. Hitherto, Paris and Greece were wondrous places, but not ones she ever dreamed of going to, and she was happy with her chores and the family. But now, the happiness machine had shown her everything that was possible.

Happiness_Machine

What’s more, she goes on to say that she truly started crying only when the Happiness Machine took her dancing with Leo again. They hadn’t been to a dance in twenty years. Leo says he could take her dancing that very evening, but she says that is not the point, since all the Happiness Machine did was remind her of those golden times and foolishly wish for it again instead of treasure the memory. The children have to be fed, chores need doing around the house. Who wants a sunset to last forever? The sunset is only beautiful because it does not last forever. The whole time I am thinking I have my real life to get back to. My children to feed, my home to clean, my work that awaits me. Oh Leo, how could you forget that real life can never match up to what a Happiness Machine says my life should be like?

The story finishes with Leo realizing that a Happiness Machine was there with him all along – he was just too absorbed to notice it. One that doesn’t always work, but will do – his family.

A book written in 1957. Brilliant.

Dandelion Wine

I used to eat wild berries. This is the kind of statement that gets folks today squeezy. Were you really okay after eating wild berries? Yes. You sample one and then another if the first felt okay. Leave it at that and then a few days later, if you haven’t spent the preceding few days heaving up your insides, go for it again. Yet, every time I try to eat one, the husband grabs my arm and looks at me accusingly. The daughter twirls her eyes at the rebellious mother and berry eating becomes another adventure that is reflective of my wild youth.

In other news, I read an excellent book, Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury. Dandelion Wine is essentially a book of a boy’s summer in a small sized town. The first time he realizes that he is alive. Alive in a way he can observe the smells of summer, relate to the activities the hot sun brings with it, deduce what relationships mean, deal with the pain of seeing a childhood friend move, and how we need a sense of community. In this short book of related short stories, there emerges a brilliant, simple narrative of a 12 year old boy, Douglas Spaulding.

In one story, Grandpa Spaulding realizes that Bill Forrester, their young gardener, who is training up to be a journalist one day, buys a particular variety of grass that only grows to a certain height and then stops, thereby making a lawn mower redundant. (Luckily, no such grass exists to this day.) It is just a pretty lawn requiring very low maintenance. Grandpa is shocked at Bill for considering buying something that inches out the clovers and dandelions which means there will be no bees or butterflies in the garden. He goes on a tirade saying that this is the problem with the younger generation.

7B35B2B0-F446-4A6C-B797-88D7DA9EEE8F

He tells a stunned Bill that he wants nothing to do with the grass till he dies, for he likes mowing the grass. He likes the joy in small things. The problem with the younger generation, he says, is that they hop from one big thing to another and find methods to get rid of all the small things that fill the day. He tries to explain to him that one day he would go crazy trying to find little things to fill his day.

“Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you’re all to yourself that way, you’re really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the best excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are. Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is akin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said, ‘Dig in the earth, delve in the soul’. Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. End of lecture. Besides, a mess of dandelion greens is good eating once in a while.”

I haven’t eaten Dandelion stems though – time to try some freshly washed ones from the backyard. I like the way Grandpa Spaulding thinks.

garden

I just need to remind myself of Grandpa Spaulding’s wise words when I am moaning in the kitchen doing the after dinner cleanup.

Published in 1957, this story’s theme resonates on multiple levels. Today, we find other distractions to fill our day. We graze on Facebook, we try the pulse of Twitter, we farm with the flick of a finger on Farmville. Which brings me to the next lovely topic on The Happiness Machine in Dandelion Wine.

For Poignant Reading

I finished reading When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanidhi a few days ago.

Peppered throughout the slim volume are references to literary works that appealed to the author during his life. Dr Paul Kalanidhi was a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist. He double majored in Biology and Literature from Stanford University. His love for literature and the underlying angst to understand the question of ‘where morality, biology and philosophy intersect’ are evident throughout the book. His experiences with living and dying as a surgeon only deepened his yearning to understand the truth and he eventually seemed to learned to view his illness as a method of finding out what that very question meant in the face of death.

At one point in time, his oncologist, wanted to start keeping tabs on his mental acuity as tumors spread to his brain. His wife started recording him reading something everyday. One evening, he started reading with his infant daughter seated on his lap. A few seconds into the reading, he put down the book and recited the whole passage from memory. His wife and mother exchange smiles that clearly say, “How typical of him!”. Little glimpses like that made the human being who comes through the pages a very like-able person. A good son, friend, husband, brother, friend, father and doctor.

The book finishes abruptly as time accelerated and Dr Paul Kalanidhi died before he could finish the book.

You can easily skip the prologue. It adds little value to the book or to the personality of the author. But the epilogue written by his wife, Dr Lucy Kalanidhi, was incredible and wrapped up Paul’s story. I read it twice back to back. I loved how beautifully she wrote about the place they chose for his final resting place. A serene place in the Santa Cruz mountains overlooking the coast, and where deer eat the flowers, and gentle rains make the grass grow. It is also the place where the natural elements rage. Much like his life.

There is one particularly moving passage where Dr Paul Kalanidhi writes to his baby daughter, Cady, that there will come a time when she lists her accomplishments and weighs her contributions to the world. At that moment, he tells her never to forget that she made a dying man very happy. I teared up every time I read that.

I felt the same when I read Dr Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. Both these people may have written their books when they knew they were dying, but both books are incredible pieces on how to live.

Nose in Books & Feet in Socks

As an immigrant to the United States, there are things I will always cherish. Lovable quirks such as “Water no ice please” or “Aww..”. Things like different reading fare is marvelous. Growing up in the misty mountain valleys of South India, we had access to good children’s books, and I relished every moment spent with my nose in books and my feet in socks.

Enid Blyton lifted all of us children into clouds above The Magic Faraway Tree or whisked us away on the Wishing Chair. Tinkle comics & Champak took us for a spin (I am trying to remember some of the characters without the aid of the Internet – a cheap thrill in the current times – Kalia, Chamataka, Doob-Doob, Tantri the Mantri, Suppandi, Naseeruddin Hodja, Vikram & Betal and of course, that vague huntsman who should be the mascot for gun control laws, Shikari Shambu).

tinkle-collage

Later, Nancy Drew, Bobbsey Twins, R.K.Narayan, and Alexander Pushkin were the in-things to read.

As more serious fare gradually replaced this wonderful array, I never expected to be revisit that wondrous feeling of picking up a children’s book where you know not what magical world opens up to you, and when. But that is exactly what happened when I had children here, and we journeyed into these marvelous worlds together. I had never read the Thomas Train series or the Curious George series or the Beranstein Bear series or any of the books by Dr. Seuss as a child and I got to experience all of this with them for the first time. Oh! The simple pleasures of reading a book like any of these for the first time is gift enough, but to be blessed to be able to read it for the first time as an adult is surreal. It was like growing up all over again. To that, I am eternally grateful.

Walking into the children’s section of books is such a treat. Dr Seuss’s birthday gave rise to a number of excellent articles and I relished them almost as much as the books.

What Pet Should I Get?

Seuss-isms

Just as Dr Seuss promised, the nonsense woke up the brain cells that were sluggish due to lack of use and life became an adventure again.

dr seuss

It even makes me think nothing of making a fool of myself publicly and putting out things like:

Do you want to be a Sailor?
Or do you want to be a Tailor?
Maybe we need to be a Failor
Before we become a Winnor.

Happy Mother’s Day

It has been ten beautiful years since my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I remember playing with my first born and finding newer and newer methods to get her to kiss me. My peek-a-boos were becoming more grandiose. Once I twisted myself into a knot trying to get my head in between the sofa and the chair for a new angle at the peek-a-boo. Maybe, the knot never straightened itself, but it got me a bigger kiss than before. Flush with the kiss from my baby, I resolved to do what I liked to do best. Jot down all the nice things as our lives progress. I used to write things to myself in a diary that is long eaten by moths. Then I resorted to sending emails to myself. You know? So, I would not forget when the time comes. But everybody knows how that goes. First of all, the emails became shorter and shorter, terse even. Second, they started resembling notes taken in short hand. I mean what does “Kunjulie smiled 2 door.” mean? If it had not been typed, I am not sure I would know what I had scribbled. No. Things needed to change. Most important of all, I knew heart of hearts that I was not going to sit and plod through thousands of emails to find the note I had raced through.

Like the time that she first looked like a mountaineer. I can still see it fresh in my mind. She saw the peak rising before her . She knew she needed more than grit and willpower. She surveyed the mountain from multiple angles, making mental notes as to the best path available. She looked not only at the peak, but the best path to get herself up there. She also needed ropes hanging from cliffs to pull herself up on when she encountered tough and steep slopes. It was easy to see her mind gears squeezing together as she saw the rope, now all that was left was to scramble up. The rope was a thin one, but it would have to do. When one scales mountains and overcomes obstacles, they don’t stop to see whether the ropes are replaceable. They should but they don’t.

Mountain Goat: Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_goat

In many ways, she had to function like a mountain goat, but with the advantage of opposable thumbs, and the disadvantage of no horns.

There probably is a photograph of her somewhere looking proud and happy with herself at the first summit. (I can’t find it. ) She had scaled the heights of her grandfather’s tummy to plant a wet kiss on his cheek. The rope did not bear the assault very well. That was also why we were seen scrambling to find the spare hearing-aid cords. Just before the hearing-aid cord gave way, she managed to hold on to his spectacle frame and hoisted herself atop the peak.

In the ten years since, I have to say, my family and friends have been remarkable subjects of my blogs. They have shared many moments of hilarity and borne the references to themselves on the blog with grace and charm. I have grown to love writing about varied topics though family and friends play a good part of my writing, and the daughter has not become a real mountaineer.

May 2015 marks ten years since I started writing the blog. I blogged at various different places:

http://tangential-thoughts.blogspot.com/

http://am-kicking.blogspot.com

Slowly, the blogs where I co-blogged at trickled out. So, I went on at about a blog post a week on this blog. I love how writing has shaped my thought processes. When I am stranded, when in difficult times, I cling onto the high and funny spots in the experience. I must say it makes the experience the better for it, and the blogs are funnier for the mindset.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you incredible Mothers out there!

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.

Where is Mrs Lis?

The day was yesterday. I was all set to publish a piece of Fiction that my daughter had written up for her school homework. I found the narrative style amusing and wanted to boast a bit about it on the blog. Of course, before doing anything and after doing something, one must waste one’s time wandering up and down one’s Facebook feed. One must not mess with the process, so I grazed lazily over my feed.

It was then that I read a post doing the rounds on my Facebook feed about how we chip at children’s self confidence one Facebook post at a time. Apparently, we find the fact that they can’t pronounce something right when they are 3 hilarious . We then go ahead and Facebook it for posterity. But when the 3 year olds go back and read it when they are 23, they might not like it.

I don’t know where they are going with this, because I remember the first thing my uncle told the husband (my then fiancé) when he met him was that I was a lovable child. Having caught the strapping young son-in-law’s attention, he went on to regale an entertaining tale of me at the tender age of one. The uncle giggled and laughed through the tale and thoroughly enjoyed the telling of it. I saw the husband flinch (The tale had a Eww factor as most tales of one-year olds do.), but he still gallantly married me. The fact is that my uncle did not have Facebook or even access to a computer then: he just remembered. Facebook or not, embarrassing stuff from your childhood has a way of living on, often with elements of creative exaggeration added in.

Yet, this seemed like an educational opportunity. I broached the topic with the daughter and asked her what she thought of things I write in my blog. She looked at me seriously and said, “I don’t mind, since it really is funny stuff amma. I only mind when it is something informational.” She was careful enough to enclose “informational” in double quotes. With that, she went back to reading Harry Potter, while I was left pondering on the “informational” content in my blog. To be sure, there is hardly anything informational about it, is there? Or maybe, I should try to be more informational, but for that I need to be more informed… By this time, I realized I had already analyzed this thing past its prime time, and I found my daughter had buried her nose in her Harry Potter tome once more and was not to be disturbed. After a while, she looked up and said, “By the way Mrs. Lis** came back to class today, and she read our fiction pieces. She said she liked mine. ”

Her class teacher, Mrs Lis, was out for a few days and they had a substitute teacher who asked them to write a piece of fiction on where Mrs Lis had gone. That is what I had wanted to put up on the blog, when I was side-tracked. So, here it is:

Where is Mrs Lis?

Mrs.Lis is gone. Aaaaaahhh! Where is she? Is she on the other planet? Is she on the moon? Is it a family emergency? What if an alien ate her? Is she on vacation?

I’m pretty sure she is on vacation. There’s another problem. Where did she go for a vacation? Did she go to India or Hawaii? Don’t forget Disneyland and Russia. What about Scotland, London or China? I think she’s most probably in Hawaii since its relaxing. Just what she needs after teaching us.

Hold on. I just thought of something .What is she doing? Is she lying down on the beach with a drink in her hand? Is she snorkeling or splashing in the waves? I got it. She’s doing all of that. I know where Mrs Lis is.

I asked her what the most popular theme was for guessing Mrs Lis’s whereabouts. Apparently, a good percentage of them thought she had been abducted by aliens. I am not sure Mrs Lis would like to read her welcome back packet, if half of them thought she was off trooping with aliens.

** Not her real name

Buckle Bo & The Mystical Orb

One day, I saw the daughter hard at work writing an entry for the Young Authors Contest in her school. Usually, when she thinks of a story, unicorns, horses and ponies, leap across continents and worlds to establish their roles in them. If there is a human element involved, that person would have just moved to the countryside and gotten a horse as a gift. The horse could then become a unicorn and shall reveal itself under special circumstances or continue along life as a special horse with powers almost magical to behold. I glanced at the story, and surprise of surprises: there was a unicorn, a mother unicorn and seven sibling unicorns. I was a little tired of this arc, so I asked her to try something else for a change. A dash of encouragement, and some coaxing later, she agreed to try. The tale that emerged this time, I was thrilled to see, was one where the protagonist was a duck battling an evil raven, and not only that, the duck had a noble purpose: to save all plant life. So good so far.

(Note to self: I should have taken a picture of the book title at least, but I forgot. I could have pasted it here *facepalm*)

I was mildly proud of myself. I had truly inspired her enough to try different stories. I swelled at the thought and every time I saw her working on the story, or drawing a picture for it, I would smile a little. There is something else that I should probably mention here. Recently, I spent an afternoon in her class reading out one of my stories to them, discussing the elements of writing and such. It was a golden afternoon in my mind. I had the time of my life discussing moral dilemmas, morals, plot devices and narrative styles with them. Children can be precocious and highly engaging when they want to be. In that class, it was hard to think that these children are the same ones who will double up and laugh at fart jokes. The discussions were so animated, intelligent, and lively. It was like floating in a hot air balloon above some fuzzy, golden clouds on a full stomach.

Obviously, when I met her friends at School later, I asked them whether they were going to write as well. Some eagerly nodded, while others skulked off. Her friends, who did try, told me their titles. I don’t know about the stories, but the story titles made you want to snatch a chair and settle down to read: The Adventures on Mount Whirldoom, The Mystery of the Missing Phantom, Buckle Bo and the Mystical Orb (that was the daughter’s title). Very fancy, I tell you. Very fancy.

One of them hinted that she picked up some tips from my discussion in their class the other day while writing her story. I was so happy to hear that, I beamed. Clearly fishing for more compliments, I asked them why they wanted to write: did they think it will be fun to construct a plot?

Now, I don’t know what devices hot air balloon makers use to deflate their devices, but I needed none of that. Their answers were enough.

‘Oh! That. No. Usually, there is a pizza party for participants.” said a Jane Austen.

“Hey, don’t forget we also get ice-cream.” a Mark Twain piped up.

“And brownies.” said an Enid Blyton.

My hot air balloon crash landed on the lawns nearby, and I fumbled out.

Buckle Bo & The Mystical Orb, if you please!

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