Picture Perfect

Age : 6+ years

While cooking dinner, I heard something - has it arrived already? Did my ears hear the correct sound, or was it just the imagination of my mind? I ran out to the balcony to check and yes, the sky was overcast and it was actually the thundering that I had heard and soon enough big raindrops started plopping from the heavens above. The first showers of the monsoon - the irresistible sight. There is something magical about the first rain of the season which brings me out to watch. So continuing with this lovely routine, I left my cooking in the middle, quickly made a big cup of tea for myself and took my easy chair out in the balcony. It didn't take long before I got completely immersed in watching the raindrops washing the dust off the leaves, landing on the metal railing, falling on the parched ground where the dry soil seemed to just hide the raindrops in its folds as if it was not ready to exhibit its possession to the world. It will do so, but not yet, it needs to soak the drops in first, to quench the thirst of the innumerable creatures inside its layers that have been waiting for this day.

While sitting on the easy chair, umpteen memories of such rainy days went through my mind and I was just relishing everything - the time, the tea, the thoughts and most of all the rain.
I was so deeply absorbed in listening to my own thoughts that it took a while to register that a big group of little children had come in front of my balcony and were dancing and playing in the rain. Their loud peels of laughter interrupted my chain of thought but nothing seems to bother me when it is raining and soon I found myself relishing the sight of little children getting drenched in the first showers. These were the same children who occasionally came to me to ask for some help in their studies when their parents were not around or to just talk, or if nothing else some of them just came to sit on my computer chair - the big chair which gave them an emperor kind feel, the wheels gave the mobility and spin, in short - a mini merry-go-round thrill. But that day none of them wanted to be indoors. While completely soaked up in watching them, suddenly my eyes fell on a window of a home which was in front of my balcony, normally the doors and windows of which are closed, but that day, there was somebody sitting near the window and watching the dancing children. It looked like a small girl of 5 or 6 years. I saw some from the group of playing children waving at her while dancing in the rain, which meant they knew her. Then why was she not joining her friends in the rain? This thought crossed my mind but did not bother me and I soon forgot about it.

All of a sudden the playing children made a circle and joined their heads together as if brainstorming on some issue, perhaps thinking about a new way to make their playtime more interesting. But I saw them running inside the building and I heard a loud knock at my door. I opened the door and saw all of them standing in front of me. And together they started requesting me to allow them to take the computer chair out - the big chair with the wheels. I was not happy with their demand of giving them my chair in this kind of weather and I was wondering why even they asked for such a thing. But something (the rain I guess), made me not decline their peculiar request and to my own surprise I permitted them to take the computer chair for a little while. I thought they would take turns in sitting on it and the others would spin the chair to have more fun. But they actually did not come back in front of the balcony and disappeared somewhere else. I was silently scolding myself for having giving in to the irrational demand of the children and was a little apprehensive that I would get a spoilt soggy chair which would not be usable for many days. But once again I was startled by even louder cheerful cries of the children and what I saw was unbelievable. The child sitting on the chair was the girl who was sitting in her window watching the playing children a little while ago. But this time she had a lovely bright smile on her face. After looking closely at her, I noticed that she had a very heavy boot on one of her feet and some metal rods were going up from that boot. The purpose of earnest need of the computer chair now dawned on me.

The scene was complete and the picture was perfect now! No yearning in any heart, no guilt in any heart and I thanked God that He did not make me think miserly while agreeing to the demand of the children. And my computer chair found the best use that day.

new addition in scrapbooks...

emotions...



cricket world cup 2011 mascot

more cartooning and thumbprinting by kids...

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thumbprinting...

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Tale of a Tail

Age : 4+ years

Do you have any idea how difficult God's job is and that God also gets tired doing his chores the whole day!!! His chores include - deciding about what to place where , what structures and figures to be assigned to all living things, same for non-living things, how to differentiate between various organisms, to decide about the life spans of living beings, their activities while they live on the earth, their aging process, how will they function and so on the list goes on and on… I think, you got an idea...

One day in the very beginning of the formation of earth when all living and non-living things were created, he was resting peacefully very happy with his origination of natural things - mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, oceans, forests and plants. But regarding the living beings who can move, God was still deciding about some of the finishing touches to be put on them. He was still deeply thinking about the finer details, but while thinking and deciding, he got really confused between all the creatures and was not able to remember how do some species exactly looked. So he called one representative of each kind for a special meeting at his place.

A messenger was soon sent across to inform all the living organisms about the special meeting that was scheduled. On the designated day and time, one representative from each species arrived and all were very anxious to know the purpose of this meeting with God, all of a sudden.

Many of God's helpers were inviting and directing the guests to a big guest room and making them comfortable in their seats. After having made them sit, the guests were given God's message that he will be deciding about some of the final features for each tribe and one of those features would be a tail. Till that time no living creature had any tail. All the guests were surprised to hear about tail and they wondered why to have a tail - another burden to carry somewhere on the body.

The messengers left leaving the guests talking in whispers amongst them. In the guest room, there were large number of huge tables and a grand feast was organized on those tables - all kinds of fruits, vegetables, sweets, sour things, salty things and all possible kinds of everything that is available in the world. But the guests did not have the courage to eat anything without the permission of God so they were sitting and waiting for the God.

But God was still not sure what should be the criteria to decide about the tail, he was deep in thought and hence was getting delayed to go in the guest room. Just to see what all of his guests are upto, he took his invisible form - in which he can watch everything and entered the guest room.
I am sure you are aware of his invisible form as this is the form in which he watches us all the time.

So he was there yet unseen by all. He watched how the creatures started whispering to each other when his message about the tails was read out to them, and slowly they were getting restless just waiting and waiting. They all had the grand feast in front of them and they all were getting hungry also. This gave God a brilliant idea for the criteria to assign a tail and specific size of the tail to the creatures. He started watching them very closely and witnessed their increasing restlessness every minute.

Initially all the guests were displaying self-control but then some started getting extremely hungry and hence restless. Slowly some of the animals started nibbling on the their favourite foods which were in front of their eyes. Some were still trying to control the hunger pangs and temptation of delicious food and were waiting for the permission of the God. Some animals like cheetah, tiger and lion were very smart, they secretly grabbed some very small animals (who were among the guests) , silently slipped out of the big guest room and gobbled those small creatures up.

After having watched everything that was going on in that guest room, God appeared in front of them and everybody could see him. He greeted all the guests first, then he wondered aloud that a major portion of food was already eaten and also some guests were missing. So he asked them who ate the food and his tiny guests.
The guests were too petrified to confess, some creatures totally denied having eaten anything, some lied about the amount they ate whereas some told the truth.

Suddenly something strange started happening with some animates. Some of the guests started getting tails on their backs. For some, the tails grew little and stopped shortly but for some it grew and grew and grew. But there were some who did not get anything on their behinds.

Then God explained to all his guests the reason behind the appearance of tails and the burden which they will have to carry from now on - the burden of own deeds. Now it was not difficult to understand - no tail means no lie, shorter tails mean less lie and longer tails mean big lies. One human representative was also there and he had displayed great self restraint and did not lie when later asked by the God. Thanks to him, we do not have any tails. So is true about those tiny animals (like bats and frogs) which were secretly wiped out by seemingly very smart lion, tiger and cheetah. But these same animals - tiger, lion and cheetah got very long tails.

So using this criteria God assigned tails to the moving living creatures.

Since God is present everywhere all the time, do not make him change his decision about us humans. Because who knows some day he may notice you telling lies and then he may want to put a tail on your behind too and then that tail will tell the story of your deeds to everybody.

Love Increases by Giving

Age : 4+ years

Sumi and Renu are not talking to each other, everyone in the community seems to be talking about just that. It is indeed a surprising event because as far as people can remember, they have always seen Sumi and Renu fondly playing with each other or talking or studying together. Since the time when the two families moved in this community, Sumi and Renu have been inseparable, they both were 4 years old at that time. They are in the same school and in the same class too. This Diwali, they will complete 5 years of their friendship and moving in their current homes. It seems, the time has just flown away or may be all good times do.

But the two best friends are not to be seen together any more. What could be the matter? Parents in both the homes want to ask them but at the same time they want the girls to solve the matter amongst themselves. But this is not destined to be. Three days have passed and still they are not acknowledging even the presence of each other. Where have the happy faces of both these friends gone?

Now Sumi's mother cannot wait any longer for things to come back to normal as it is obviously disturbing Sumi and Renu both too much. She decides to talk to Sumi after she comes back from school.

In the evening, she calls Sumi and asks her, "Sumi, is something the matter between you and Renu? If something is bothering you, talk it over and try to sort it out."

Sumi says, "Mummy, it all started when two weeks back, a new girl - Sudha, took admission in our school and in our class. Sudha is a nice girl and since she has joined in the middle of the session, so she needed help to cover up the portions that we have already done in the school. Our class teacher told me to sit with Sudha so that she is able to understand the things easily and during the free time, she can copy the previous work."

Mummy says, "That is good, you should always help others. But how is this related to problem between you and Renu.?"

Sumi says, "Mummy, Renu does not like that I am sitting with Sudha all the time and even in the free time I am helping her instead of spending time with her. She thinks that I am doing it on purpose and I want to avoid her to be with Sudha more. I have tried to make her understand many times that our friendship does not get affected by my helping anybody else or she doing the same for others. But since last week she has stopped talking to me and that made me also angry and now I also don't want to talk to her or be with her."

Now Sumi's mother understood the whole problem. She asked Sumi to get ready to go to Renu's home for some time. Renu's mother was very happy to see them. When all four of them were sitting in the living room, Sumi's mother asked Renu and Sumi both to bring a rose flower from the garden. They both did as they were told

and brought a beautiful rose. She told Renu to keep the flower in one corner of the room. She kept it in one corner, behind the door and came back. Then Sumi's mother asked, you have kept the flower in one corner where you cannot even see it, but now can you keep the fragrance of the flower also restricted to that corner. Both Sumi and Renu said no as the whole room was filled with the fragrance already. Sumi's mother told them, love and affection are like fragrance of a flower. It has the ability to give joy to all. Love does not become less by sharing, on the contrary, it increases manifolds by giving and sharing it with more and more people. Why do both of you want to keep your loving and helping nature to just two of you. Let others get benefit from it as well. Sumi and Renu both understood the point and then Renu confessed that she was getting jealous of having to share her friend's time with Sudha. But now she realized that she was trying to hold the love and affection tightly to herself. When she started thinking on these lines, all of a sudden all the anger which had accumulated in her, vanished and she was happy again. From next day in the school, they both tried their best to help Sudha catch up with the school work.