More Than Words

I was going to write something else, but remembered I had two prompts, Mi. One is — the post must contain ‘One thing he/she/they didn’t know that they were being watched’ and the second is 55 fiction with the picture below as the prompt.

I love this picture and spent a delightful half hour watching the little girl jump from bean bag to the puffy to skipping from bookshelf to bookshelf before she finally settled down to read, with just a part of her showing charmingly. She kept rustling the pages. I am always enchanted to see how children never pick just the one book, they always have to have two. One thing she didn’t know was that she was being watched. Quite avidly. By me. Trying to get the perfect shot.

Here is my 55-fiction, combining both prompts.

She loved visiting this bookshop with Mom. Pretending to pick a book, she’d playfully hide. One thing she didn’t know was she was being watched by her Mom who’d grab and hug her, laughing. Except for this time. Today, she was here with her Uncle. Her Mom had gone to visit God, he said.

♥

Okay, now that we have that under way, sigh, tomorrow’s Deepavali, Mi. I didn’t go on a house-cleaning rampage. I am okay with the way it is. Instead, I am planning on doing a lot of writing this month, with NaNoWriMo and all the other usual routine stuff. If only you’d been here! What fun it would be, that gentle iron hand in velvet glove push, those endless coffees, all those little things that make my heart sing just to think about them, fantasize about them. So I’ll just pretend.

What am I doing for Deepavali then? I scrubbed the bathrooms and the kitchen. Good enough eh? We didn’t specifically go shopping for new clothes – I have plenty to wear and after exploring Vidur’s cupboard, he found a new Tshirt to wear. A couple of weeks ago we visited Big Bazaar and he bought a smart orange cotton kurta.  Perhaps he’ll wear it tomorrow. He’s quite the expert at wearing a dhoti, but you already know that.

Of course we’ll have our traditional oil bath.

As for the eats, I am not fretting over it. I saw a recipe for cornflakes mixture in a microwave and went crazy after three hands full. I think I’ll just buy some. I plan to make our dear old seven cups sweet in the morning after I get the coffee going.  Look at what I made the last time:

Gosh, do you remember how that Jayalakshmi’s Mom turned up one evening in a frenzy and insisted I make this sweet for her because she was having guests over? The moment I mixed everything and got it on the stove, we had a power cut and had to do it by candlelight – we didn’t have our emergency lamp at the time. Somehow we managed to pat it down on a tray, cut it and give it to her. I met her some months ago on the way back from my walk. How the kids have grown! Wish you could see Jayalakshmi now, she looks nothing like how you knew her.  I laugh to think of how she wanted us to teach her a song for a singing competition overnight – a Kannada song she sang to the tune of Aye maalik tere bandhey hum. And now, I must listen to that song, Mi. Let’s, together! Yes, I have the tissues handy!

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