How to avoid train accidents! - a 5 yr old's perspective

Raghav and I were discussing the recent train crash in West Bengal and I was explaining what happened, what was in the papers and so on......he came up with this theory - "amma, do you know why this accident happened?.....it's because there are no changing tracks for the trains......on the road, cars can move from left to right and right to left and avoid dashing into each other!.....if they had built changing tracks for trains, this would not have happened!" Hear ye.......Railway Minister!!

Houses of the future?!

Round House - It is built with round bricks, it has round windows, everything is round.....there are no corners!

Sun House - It is near the sun in space! You can live in it....it is not hot there, because it is built with special spongy bricks that have a special liquid like water in them that never dries up!

Raghav's first mind-map and story

The Little Cloud and Her Friends

One day there was a little cloud. She was white and soft. She loved to play hide and seek with her other friend clouds, the sun and the moon. She floated in the sky and had a big smile on her face. She loved her friends and herself. She was very kind, careful and never hurt anybody else.

The little cloud was in another country where it rained every day. Everyday her friend - the wind pushed her into the water gently. The cloud sucked up all the water from the sea, and the wind under the cloud pushed her up into the sky. And then the water came lashing down as rain! The cloud danced and laughed and said “I made everything wet!” She laughed so much that people could not hear what she was saying.

Then there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky. The little cloud went behind the rainbow, hugged and kissed her. She smiled at the rainbow and the rainbow smiled back. The little cloud loved her so much and they became good friends.

Thatha and Raghav go into Space

One day Raghav and Thatha called the Magic Carpet. They got onto the magic carpet with some food and some yummy, “rummy” snacks. Then they told the magic carpet – “You go into space! Aam…..eeem….oom…..go into space and shoot off! When we reach space we will all build a space station and then we can live there for 100 weeks!”
They went to the shop and got two rocket boosters for the carpet to shoot off. Then they got onto the magic carpet, wore their astronaut suits and shot off into space. They saw clouds, the sun and the moon on the way. They did not see other planets as they went another way. It was very dark in space, but they saw lots of light. The light came from all the stars.
Then they reached the moon. There they built a space station and lived there. They did lots of work at the space station. When they were hungry, they took the dry and wet food like icecream and snacks, added a little water and ate them.
They stretched their hands out and jumped and walked on the moon. They were very happy.
Then, they did not want to live there anymore. So, they came back to the earth on their magic carpet.

"FLYING FLU!" - How current events shape play!

Raghav was busy with his lego blocks creating an array of vehicles.......today he was building a "magic trailer" - that was what he called it! He built a tall structure on the base of the trailer and then added wings on either side..."Amma, it has wings....whenever the driver wants to, he will press a button and the wings will come out...and he can fly wherever he wants to..." "and this tall building has rooms for people to stay.....they can live on the trailer if they like"....."and this is the driver....he has 'flying flu'!....he has a very bad cold and cough..."

I was shocked when he said that and corrected him: "It's not 'flying flu'...it is 'swine flu'!" He insisted on the former name! Anybody wonder why?

Who is God?

Raghav and I had a discussion about God today.......who he is, where he is and so on. I shared with him both my beliefs on God and some others that I knew of. The discussion touched on religions, prayer, respect, love and so many more things. I was telling him that I believed that God was everywhere - in him, in me, in all the things around us, in nature and so on.....he promptly turned around and said "amma! then God is in the iPod!". I said "yes!" and then he said "amma.....then if one of my toys is flat and God is in there, then he would be flat!" I was in splits! and then he went on to talk about "tall", "thin", "round", "fat" Gods! I never ever imagined God to be like that!