Was out walking at 8 p.m. last evening in the semi-dark. I am always admonished by everybody for not putting on more lights or carrying a torch, when walking at night, because there are snakes. But I love the dark and besides I had 2 big black dogs for company.
It was a warm muggy night with a hazy moon to shed some light. But the beauty was in the different scents that assailed my nostrils as I walked--white frangipani, white lilies and jasmine flowers, all at different spots along my walk. It more than made up for the stickiness and lack of breeze.

A song

Wanted to share the song of the beautiful racket-tailed drongo (photo from wikipedia)



that lives in the trees near the house. You can't see him too well cause my phone cam wasn't up to it!

"I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world,
I think to myself what a wonderful world"

I love being with young children, especially the from the time they start talking till around the age of 6 or 7. I have been teaching pre-school children off and on for over 20 years and now I have a pre-school grandchild.
What I find fascinating is watching a personality forming. Of course every new-born has it's own personality, it's own way of reacting to the world around it. No 2 new-borns are the same in the way they react to externals. But what is fascinating is watching how these personalities develop and grow and solidify. We, as teachers, try to mould their personalities, within their preferred ways of reacting to the world, so that they grow up to be people who can face the world with an inner strength.
As we live in a small town, we often get to watch our ex-students grow up. Now many of our ex-students are parents themselves and some of them have brought their children to our pre-school. To me that is even more fascinating as we see these young adults who we knew so well when they were 3 and 4!
What I have found most interesting is that the judgement we form of the child's personality when he/she leaves our school--usually around age 4 or 5--is what that person's personality is basically like when they become adults. We have had so many of the parents and children say that they have kept their reports and looked at it much later and found how true our assessments of their personalities were. I have seen children grow, rebel, seem totally different from what they were, but eventually come back to their essence, the essence that we saw at age 3/4/5.
I don't know whether all this is making sense and whether it is interesting to anyone else. but for me it gives me great joy and is, for me, one of the reasons I love my job. I think a teacher's job, especially of the younger children, is always one of hope for the future, because even if 2 of a class of 25 have that inner spark it spells so much hope for the future and you wait with bated breath for them to be adults. Besides, it is always exciting for me to think that here are these children I love and teach, and each year a new batch and they are going to be living in a world I may never see even and I see that as a direct connection to the future.

I am in Chennai and have been for a couple of days. It's incredibly hot of course. But even so we did a trip to Mahabalipuram for lunch. Today, my husband has gone to watch an IPL cricket match. Am yet to do any shopping, which is one of the things I ostensibly came for! Hope to do a bit before I leave. Life in the city is a real pick-me-upper on an occasional basis.

I put together 3 different shots of elephants working. Hope you like it.

This is the second tag I had to do. Had been tagged by Onedia.



This is the tag:

If you could spend an entire day with any five people who are now living*
• who would they be
• why would you choose each person in the group
• how would you like to spend the day with them
• where would you like to spend the day with them
(*Note: Do not include family, friends, or co-workers, fictional characters, or deceased persons.)


The five people that I would chose to spend an entire day with would be Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama, Sir Paul McCartney, the girls Vandana & Vaishnavi of Banyan, and—I know I’m kind of not following the rules of the tag here—Onedia, Mary Ann, Mallika and Dot (you are all blog friends, and at present I don’t have any chance of spending time with any of you.)

With Oprah I would like to be able to be part of the audience at one of her shows, spend part of the day with her, so as to see how she spends her day and to get to chat with her. I do not watch the Oprah show (not a big TV viewer), but read about things she did/said and watched her show when I visited the US in 1986. Have been watching her meteoric rise and have been impressed by the fact that she seems to have stayed true to herself through all the fame and fortune.

Spending a day with the Dalai Lama for me would mean going to McLeodganj (where he stays in India), maybe be a part of a group meeting him, listen to a discourse maybe and just be a part of the ashram he is staying at.

Spending time with Sir Paul McCartney would mean for me, to be able to watch a practice session or a jamming session. Actually it need not be Paul M himself. I would gladly spend the day with any classical musician, getting ready for a concert. What an experience to sit quietly watching a wonderful musician practising for the concert till he/she feels they are perfect!

If you follow the link to Banyan, you will see how wonderful these young women Vandana & Vaishnavi are. I would want to spend a day at Banyan to see what these amazing young women do and helping out at the Banyan.

Actually, this covers 5 people. But anyway, I would love to spend a leisurely day with my blog friends, chatting and singing and meandering down green paths.

Between two tags here is a video I shot this afternoon with my phone. It's not very clear, but it's incredible because these 2 mongooses were so absorbed in each other, they didn't get a scent of me. I was very quiet of course and therefore had to take a picture through the window with it's netting.