slow

This post is inspired by Geetha’s posting of one of her childhood stories (one of many to come, hopefully). I really don’t remember too many stories from my childhood. So I’ll post a moment I had with my niece mid June this year.

It was some time in the afternoon and the rain was falling steadily. I climbed up with both knees on the couch, held the curtain to one side with my hand and started to just watch the rain fall on our front lawn and on the road ahead. Erum walks up behind me (in that style that she walks in =D) and asks, “du mama, kya kare aap?”. Du mama, what are you doing?

“Baarish ko dekhre”, I reply. I’m watching the rain.

“Hum bhi dekh satke aap ke saath?”. Can I watch with you too?

“Ji jaanu, aajao”. Yes jaanu, come on.

So we start to watch the rain. She held her side of the curtain, and I was holding mine. I began to notice a snail that was climbing up the fence in front of us. I immediately pointed it out to Erum, however she had some difficulty locating it. When she finally found it, both of us started to watch the snail. We spent a few good minutes in silence watching the snail with the rain falling in the background.

“Yeh snail bohut slow hai”, she said. This snail is really slow.

“Can you imagine how long it took for the snail to get up that high?”, I ask her. Hoping to plug at her imagination.

She says nothing, and we continue to silently watch the snail for a few more minutes.

“It’s really slow, it’s getting boring watching the snail”, she says in a slightly irritated fashion.

“Is it because it’s so slow?”

“Yes”

“Well, what would you rather do?”

“I don’t know”, she pauses a beat. “Let’s watch the snail.”

I burst out in laughter and she walked out of the room, in that style that she walks in.