reach school, some are dreaming and walking and some naughty ones carry a stone in their hands to hit the fruit laden trees to taste the unripe mangoes. Beyond the road is the orchard of lichi trees. Two parrots come there every morning ..... pluck ripe lichies, peel the skin of the fruit with their beaks, eat the fruit and throw the seeds on the ground despite the protests of the bald mali.
At about the same time, I wake up, sounds and songs of the birds start. After some days, I started recognising the birds by their voice. A squirrel comes down from the tree on one side of the gate followed by her children, jump on the ledge of the gate. All of them, except one, cross the gate in a line, jump on the fruit tree on the other end of the gate and vanish in it.  The naughty one comes down and jumps on the ground, looks around and then runs to join the family. Seeds of eaten fruits start falling on the ground at irregular intervals from the tree in which the family of squirrels has vanished. The dove descends on the gate and after arranging her feathers flies away. A snail has started crossing the courtyard

leaving behind a sticky trail.
It will take him half an hour to cross the courtyard. Pink lilies had shed their petals three days ago, the seed pods are now prominently visible. Yellow lilies are open today….. white lilies will open tomorrow with all its spikes and frills. First rays of the sun fall on two butterflies, painted by an artist, hovering over two mangoes, one after the other.
It is summer. The monsoon is expected any day, because sometimes you see a small cloud in the morning sky separated from its mother monsoon cloud. This is romance season of the birds. They are choosing partners. They are selecting places for their nests. They are building their nests. Both the partners bring twigs and leaves to build the nests. They are architects by instinct.
Away from Delhi when I expressed in my creative visual imagery, all the eye’s & heart’s intakes entered my  creativity.
I also wrote my first short story for the children sitting there while recouping..

Fear creeped in me and I woke up,
switched on all the lights.
Looked into the night - a strange chill got added to my fear, the fear sticks around me.
What is foreboding?
These may be the moments before the bomb is exploded.
Are we joining the contributors to end the human race?
Mathura Buddha went east to spread peace.

Ved Nayar

In Delhi, in this age of information technology, we begin to see through the words of others. We become Dhritrashters. We need Sanjays’ to see for us. We end up admiring Duryodhans. Living in the environment of a cosmopolitan city, our eyes, our minds’ and our hearts’ responses become blurred, insensitive, selfish & selective. We stop seeing small things & happenings in our lives.
I realized it, few years ago, when I fell ill. It was summer & Delhi was polluted & hot. I shifted to the house of Gogi’s sister in Paonta Sahib for recouping. Himalayan mountains start from there, Yamuna enters the plains there & Guru Gobind Singh used to live there. In Paonta Sahib I began to see again...... even small living being living their lives on their own terms..... ants carrying a dead earth worm on the mango tree trunk, a ‘kambalkira’ holding a mango with his hundred legs.
While recouping, every morning, when the darkness of the night was about to leave and the light of the day was about to arrive, I woke up, went out of the house and sat near the mango grove