Twenty- five Seven

Football and snail poop

August 17, 2016

Did you know that snail poop is bigger than the snail?

I didn’t either till yesterday when Wow Dinga discovered a snail family under a flower pot.

The children were playing football in the garden, enjoying a clear sunny day after two months of almost incessant rain. The ball went into the flower beds and Wow Dinga chased after it.
Suddenly, he came up to Anna Shetty, carefully carrying something in his little hands.

“Look Aaie! It’s a snail!” he said excitedly. ” I found a snail family” and he proceeded to bring out four snails from under a flower pot in the garden, quickly forgetting the ball. One by one he carried them from their hiding place and placed them on a low wall.

A snail in the garden? So what , I hear you say.

But, for urban kids like my grandchildren, this was a unique experience. So far, the only animal’s they’ve seen are the stray cats, pet dogs, cockroaches and mosquitoes. From time to time they shoo crows and pigeons who insist on making my verandah a public toilet and warily watch the kites swooping down. Occasionally they see a squirrel scurrying by. Once in a while they see moths and butterflies.

In mid-June the little ones enjoyed swatting flies. But this by far was their most adventurous ‘wildlife safari’. They spent a good five minutes watching the snails crawl along the wall and were fascinated by the huge amount of poop that came out of one.

We were surprised too!

Not only did I find that snail poop is bigger than the snail, but I also realised that I was so involved in my daily life that I failed to see the wonder around me.

Don’t you think we all need to see the world through the eyes of little ones?
Free write #MondayMusings

August 15, 2016

So today I thought I’d take a cue from Suzy Q’s #FridayReflections’ post last week and do a free write.

Free to write a free write

Today we celebrate our 70th Independence Day and I’m amazed at how these celebrations have changed over the years. I remember as a school girl not particularly enjoying this day because it meant a holiday that want really a holiday. We had to get up early as usual, go to school as usual and Winn the national anthem as our Chief Guest unfurled the flag . Then would follow some speech that was supposed to be inspiring but more often than not , just produced some barely concealed yawns. Then of course came the best part which was the announcement of the holiday for the rest of the day.

As the years went by we began to appreciate the significance of this event and actually reacted with more patriotism and fervour than before. By this time our schools had begun producing plays to commemorate our freedom and many of us got a chance t display our talents – singing, dancing or making speech making.

I remember one year our school celebrated this day as Hindi day ,something which came as quite a shock to some of our Anglo Indian and Parsi teachers. Miss Irani’s words still ring in my ears even today ” I can’t speak this language . What do I say “Mai batata who?”

This was in the early days of our Independence when celebrations were pretty low key. In fact all celebrations were austere – birthdays at school meant that you could wear a coloured dress but your hair still had to be neatly tied. Earrings had to be small and discreet and bangles were simply unheard of. And all that we were supposed to give was two boiled sweets per child in class and two for every teacher who came to take different classes throughout the day.

Today, birthday celebrations at school can be a bit more elaborate with chocolate cake and wafers distributed quite generously in class. This same exuberance of celebration has extended to other areas of our lives as well . We celebrate days like friendship day, teachers ‘ day, children’s day and a hundred other days that are driven by mere commerce most of the time.

This morning while going down to buy some bread, I saw a whole parade of motorbikers revving down the street waving Indian flags. On the way back, I saw a cavalcade of expensive cars zooming down the street .

It was a different mood of celebrations. A celebration of freedom to live the way we want to live .

Happy Independence Day my fellow Indians .

That’s quite a bit I managed to write in just 15 minutes for #MondayMusings a weekly blog hop
Reaching out #The Daily Post

August 13, 2016
Why can’t I reach out to more people?

Obviously I’m doing something wrong out here. I just I read Annette’s post where she describes her blogging journey. She also reveals how in just a short span of 7 months, she already has a following of 440 and more!

That’s amazing . And to put it mildly I’m more than a bit jealous. I’m actually beginning to see everything through green glasses. What is it I’m doing wrong?
- I’m following all the blog gurus to the T
- I’m using images with Alt tags
- I’m following prompts/memes/ facebook groups
- I’m commenting and sharing posts on social media
- I’m putting up posts regularly
So what is it that is going wrong?

This is my response to today’s prompt REACH at The Daily Post. Incidentally I responded to yesterday’s prompt too but my post wasn’t listed ……..

Reaching for the stars

Sitting in Algebra class as a 14 year old, I remember Mr. Lewis walking around looking at us working out problems. He would talk to himself though he wanted all of us to hear his proverbs and homilies. One of his favourites was
“Reach for the moon and you will reach the stars.”

This came second to his mantra – the more I practice, the more I score and score I must.

Having been conditioned to try till you succeed, I am not going to give up blogging and see if one day I will get off the ground . Maybe one day I will reach half way to the stars.