My weed garden

Mother gave me a patch of garden.

I ploughed it with a trowel
and seeded it with
dahlias,
geraniums,
marigolds,
and chrysanthemums.

I watered it everyday
and watched with delight
as they began to sprout.

Then one day I saw a new plant,
with tiny bright green leaves.
Mother didn't know what it was.
Se called it a weed.
She told me to remove it.
I didn't. I thought it was pretty.

Prettier still, when it had
tiny, yellow flowers.
And then there were other plants -
short ones,
tall ones,
prickly ones,
with white,
yellow,
even red flowers.
One flower had petals
that were violet outside
and yellow inside.
Mother called them all weeds.

The geraniums
and dahlias
and chrysanthemums
didn't seem to grow well.
They were short
and had small flowers,
not like mother's patch
which had big, pretty ones.
Mother said it was because
I had let weeds grow.

But I had lots of little
flowers - like little me.
Mother said I had grown
a weed garden.
So she took it away.

But it was a nice garden
while it lasted.

School Friends

School Friends

The good thing about school friends is that
you can always make fun of them,
even if you last met thirty years ago.

They may be have got a Padma Vibhushan
for distinguished service in medicine,
with FRCS, FACS after their name,
but to you they are still Snotnose,
Kombda, Gotya and Monkeybrain.

You never forget their birthdays
and their children's names
though you forget your wife's
or your own children's.

You may not attend your cousin's wedding,
but something will make you travel
halfway around the planet,
to attend that of your school friend.

At school reunions you instinctively
head for the same spot in the
school canteen, crack the same jokes,
though the others stare at you.

They'll send you the same cliched
birthday cards (rarely gifts)
but you'll treasure them above all else.

And when you have been forgotten
by your colleagues after retirement,
and your children after they move out,
it is your school friends who will come
to be your pall-bearers.

Something for you

Tanya Motwani lives in Mumbai and she likes to read books, she writes poems in her free time. She was inspired to write this poem after reading 'Chicken Soup for Teenage Souls'

When life has turned its back on you,
Just go out and see the morning dew.
Each drop has a separate job to do,
Just like there’s something for you too.

We come into this world for a cause,
And life goes on without a pause.
When you feel angry, sad or hurt,
Just punch a balloon till it bursts.

You fight with mother, brother or sister
Or even just have a tiny blister,
Just try to have a little talk,
Or just go out there for a walk.

When things don’t seem right,
Before you sleep at night,
Before you say Amen,
Just ask God to help you again.

Life has a lot in store for you,
So remember
There’s always something for you too.

- Tanya Motwani

Thank you Tanya, for sharing your beautiful poem with us.

Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

image source-google

Do you watch Sesame street? Do you like it? Did you know that it has celebrated its' 40 years of telecast? That means that even your mom/dad used to watch it when they were as young as you are…..

The show was first premiered on 10th November 1969. The "Big Bird" was its biggest star and it still is.
Caroll Spinney has been playing the giant flightless emus from the very start.

Image source

Ever wondered how he manages to perform in the show underneath the feathered yellow body suit? Well, after he wriggles into his suit, he adjusts the tiny television monitor harnessed to his chest that lets him see the outside world. When he recites Big Birds's droll one-liners, he uses his hands to support the head and animate the mouth and eyes.

The characters were created by Jim Henson, who died in 1990 at the age of 53. He and so many other producers pioneered a strategy to harness the power of television to help underprivileged children.

Supported by generous donations and a non-profit organization, the mission continues, reaching out now to middle-income kids, too. A recent study found that teens who watched "Sesame Street" in pre-school had higher grades than those who did not. New York City once honored the show by temporarily naming a street Sesame Street, and has designated November 9th Sesame Street day.

And the show is still going strong.

Last season, "Sesame Street" averaged more than 5 million viewers each week.

(Source: CCTV.com)

Imagination has wings!!!

Do you like this bridge??



Or this one??



These are made from many, many toothpicks…yeah.. it requires patience to make this and Mr.Stan Munro has lots of it.



Mr Stan Munro, a former television presenter has spent six years building famous landmarks - out of six million toothpicks. He uses glue, toothpicks and works for more than six months to make one model.

Read and See more of his models here

Would like to try making a small house ? start collecting toothpicks and start having fun....you might enjoy it..I am sure...

The Wizard of Oz is back again after 70 years!

If you have a granny who is now more than 70 years, (actually 80 years old) she might remember the greatest film ever made during her time.

The wizard of Oz; had its big Hollywood premier on August 15th 1939 although it debuted first, officially a few days earlier in Oconomowac, Wis, at the Strand Theatre.

Studio chiefs spent so much money on its production ($2.7 million) that they were eager to see how it would play in America's heartland.

Oconomowoc was also the hometown of one of the Munchkins (Meinhardt Raabe) and Wisconsin was the home state of Herbert Stothart, who won an Oscar for the musical score to "Oz."

The American Film Institute ranks "The Wizard of Oz" as the 10th-greatest film of all time ("Gone With the Wind" lands at No. 6), but it's ranked first on the AFI's separate list of greatest movies of the fantasy genre.

AFI ranks "Over the Rainbow" as the finest film song ever.

And now, you can see it too……

In honor of the iconic film’s birthday, a 70th Anniversary “The Wizard of Oz: Ultimate Collectors Edition” will be released on Blu-ray DVD

On September 29, 2009, a special concert will be held in New York City and the film will be available for free on the Internet for a limited time.

On September 8, 2009, Netflix announced that they would offer online viewing the digitally re-mastered “The Wizard of Oz”
for free in honor of the film’s 70th anniversary.

So, the full-length classic will be available online without commercial interruption, on Saturday, October 3, 2009, beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST until 9:00 a.m. the next day.

In order to watch “The Wizard of Oz” online, viewers will need the Microsoft Silverlight plugin.

The hi-def restoration will also be available for free with Netflix compatible devices including Blu-ray DVD players, TiVo DVRs and on Microsoft’s XBox 360.

If you are in New York then you will also be able to see “The Wizard of Oz” Concert in Central Park

Netflix will also broadcast a “Wizard of Oz” concert from New York’s Central Park featuring actress and Grammy award-winning singer Jennifer Hudson and “Dancing With the Stars” champion Julianne Hough.

The concert on September 28, 2009, will feature contemporary versions of the classics from “The Wizard of Oz.”

After the concert, a screening of the restored “The Wizard of Oz” will be presented on a giant screen in the park.

Now won’t that be fun?

And you can also buy collectibles.

The two-disc Blu-ray DVD set goes on sale on September 29, 2009.

The collectible limited-edition box set features a new sing-along track, commentary, outtakes and deleted scenes and six original trailers for the movie.

The “Wizard of Oz” collectors edition will also include a 70th Anniversary collectible watch, a book titled “Behind the Curtain,” and replicas of the movie’s original budget and campaign book.

And you are so lucky that you get chance to re-visit the film and maybe compare the notes with your granny (that is if she is there and has good memory)

Let me know if you get chance to see it and lemme know about your experience….

Okay? Give me Hi-Five!!!

Children’s favorite books made into movies

When I was kid, I used to love to read fairy tales and while reading I would go into my own fantasy world, imagining all kinds of things. My favorite book was ‘Jack and the Bean stalk, and I must have read that book hundred times and yet I would love it. I was never bored of reading that one.

Which story books do you like to read?

Did you know that the fairy tales have become so popular that they have started making films on those children's stories? Books that you loved to read are now made into movies. Some of the movies that you may like to see….



Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince The sixth volume of the Harry Potter series is said to be author J.K. Rowling's darkest, despite all the hormones raging on the Hogwarts campus.



The Princess and the Frog This is another movie that you might like it. In this re-imagination of the old Grimm Brothers' fairytale, we get an additional layer of something old, something new: The film marks Disney's return to hand-drawn animation and also features the animation studio's first African-American princess



Where the Wild Things Are Put on your wolf suit and get ready for the wild rumpus that is Where the Wild Things Are on film. It's kind of amazing how similar the combination live-action/CGI movie looks to the illustrations in the classic book by artist and author Maurice Sendak.



C.S. Lewis let his imagination run wild in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the special effects in the 2005 movie, starring Tilda Swinton, don't disappoint. The Chronicles of Narnia have enchanted millions of readers over the last fifty years, and the magical events described in C. S. Lewis's immortal prose have left many a lasting memory. For here is a world where a witch decrees eternal winter; where there are more talking animals than people; and where battles are fought by Centaurs, Giants, and Fauns.



Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs As the title implies, the town of Chewandswallow has weather that's a little on the yummy side—until the falling food gets so large it starts to endanger the townspeople's lives. The tiny town of Chewandswallow was very much like any other tiny town except for its weather which came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it never rained rain and it never snowed snow and it never blew just wind. It rained things like soup and juice. It snowed things like mashed potatoes. And sometimes the wind blew in storms of hamburgers. Life for the townspeople was delicious until the weather took a turn for the worse. The food got larger and larger and so did the portions. Chewandswallow was plagues by damaging floods and storms of huge food. The town was a mess and the pople feared for their lives. Something had to be done, and in a hurry..

So, Will you be watching these movies??? actually, I don't mind watching it too....

Source: http://parenting.ivillage.com/

The Story Of a Crow

Mister and Misses crow decided to start a family. They looked everywhere to find a safe place for their children. In the city of Mumbai, there were not many trees left. Most of the trees were cut to make way for new buildings. The crows were very sad that they could not find a nice tree to build their nest. At last they found a vacant balcony; they saw that nobody was staying in that house.

Mister crow said, “I think no body stays in this house, let us build the nest here.”

Misses’ crow said, “I think the owner has gone for a holiday. I think this is a perfect place to raise our children.




So it was agreed that they would build a nest in the balcony. Everyday, they flew to far off places to collect twigs. Sometimes they would break from the trees and sometimes they would find it on the ground. They would bring the twigs in their beak and slowly, slowly, one by one, they started to build a nice, deep nest which was very secure for their children, and then, finally, one fine day they laid five tiny eggs.




The eggs were very, very pretty. It was of bluish green color with the spots of brown and black.



Mamma and Pappa crows would visit the nest everyday and come to take care of the eggs. The eggs started to change its color from blue to brown and then to black. One fine day the eggs were hatched. Only two eggs were hatched while other three got sick and died. The crows cleaned up the mess and decided to take care of their two small birds.



Mamma and Pappa would take care of their young ones, Mamma would sit with her babies in the nest to give warmth to her baby birds while Pappa would go and look for the food for Mamma and baby birds. Mamma and Pappa crows had many friends and they would visit them everyday and would see that no harm would come to the baby birds. The baby birds started to crow.



Slowly, they learnt to produce some sounds like their Mamma and Pappa,

Mamma would say “Caw, Caw”
And Baby birds would squeak “”cooooooo, coooooo”




When they saw their Pappa fly away up in the sky, they wanted to fly too and they would slowly flap their wings, and try to fly but their wings were very weak and they could only flap a little. They would wait for Mamma and Pappa with their beak open, waiting for the food.



Soon they grew up and looked like thier Mamma and Pappa.When they were strong enough they started practicing to walk around the balcony from one end to another, left and right, right and then left,they walked and walked and they would try to flap their wing and fly a short distance. For many days, they practiced to walk and fly, walk and fly, making their wings stronger and stronger. And then one fine morning, they spread their wings wide and wider, and, gathered courage to fly and then oooooooooopppa! They flew up into the skies.



Hurrah! they shouted and then sang, "Caw, Caw" They flew up in the sky, enjoying the breeze on their face. They laughed so much, "Ha, ha, ha, mamma wait for me, caw, caw!" following their Mamma and Pappa in the sky, up and down, round and round, flying over other balconies, and to other windows of people’s houses. They learnt to caw, caw loudly, enjoying the sound of their Caw, Caw, and were able to find some food for themselves.


Many times now, they often come back to the balcony in which they were born and remember their days when they were little and not too strong..

New Animals in our Zoo?

When you go for a holiday to a foreign land, do you visit Zoo? Do you like to see different animals that you don’t see in your home town?

Would you like to see giraffe, antelope, zebra, ostrich, cheetah, African elephant, hippo, flamingo from African Zone or emu, wallaby, kangaroo, black swan, sugar glider, lorikeet from Australian zone or Orangutan, leopard, gibbon, otter, pythons, cobra, birds, insects from South Asian Zone?

Mumbai city plans to set up a zoo of international standards with animals from all over world. But do you think that these animals will be happy here? Away from their familiar environment, won’t they miss their natural habitat? Won’t they get traumatized?

Presently, Mumbai zoo is in very poor condition. Animals are not healthy and live in unclean environment. But BMC plans to revamp the zoo in five phases

In phase one, there will be construction of administrative building, an education centre, a zoo hospital, a quarantine area, a parameter wall, fences and a service road.

In phase two, there will be construction of an entrance plaza, children’s exploratory centre, underground parking lot, playground area and a Cheetah restaurant

In phase three, there will be construction of zoo exhibits, construction of enclosures for Africa, Australia and South-East Asia exhibits, construct cages for Indian exhibits and construct staff houses

In phase four it will look into supplies

And finally in phase five there will be shipping of new animals

Howwzat? Looking forward to seeing a new zoo in Mumbai?

Source: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/

Baby........

Baby will you dance today?
Baby, you look happy today
If you can twist and turn with your partner
then everything will be
alllllllllll riiiiiiiight



Baby, are you shopping today?
Baby, what did you buy today?
If you had gone by your pram
then everything would be
alllllllllll riiiiiight



Baby, I see you kiss this pig today
Baby, see he loves to play
if you take him home with you, then
everything will be
alllllllll riiiiiight



Baby, see you have new friends today
Baby, see how they cuddle you all day
if you pet them on their head, then
everything will be
alllllllllll riiiiiiiiight



Baby, will you dance with him today?
Baby,will you skip, run and play?
if you have fun all day
then everything will be
alllllllllll riiiiiight



Baby, do you like this dog?
Baby would you like to take him for a walk?
if he walk with you then
everything will be
alllllllllllll riiiiiiiight.



Baby why do want to cry?
Baby dont you be so shy
if you listen to me, then
everything will be
allllllll riiiiiiiight

Summer Games

The creek plays catch-me-
if-you-can with the mangroves.
Summer is such fun.

The shadows and the
sun play games of hide-and-seek.
Summer is such fun.

The whistling wind plays
Chinese whispers with the trees.
Summer is such fun.

All hearts play follow-
the-leader with the koel.
Summer is such fun.

Scented flowers play
blind man's buff with butterflies.
Summer is such fun.

Funny Definition

Dosa: A flat white thing made of rice that makes the eater rather round!

Panda..a black n white bear...

The Panda is a mammal classified in the bear family and lives in mountain ranges of China. It once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest clearing and other development now restrict the giant panda to the mountains.

It primarily spends time roaming and feeding in the bamboo forest. Pndas communicate though vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. It is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens.

Little Bo is not a Sheep

He is a handsome and lucky guy dressed in tuxedo-black-fur with white chest, white paws and a rakish white goatee and is here to stay with Malia and Sasha and the first family at white house.

His name is Bo, which the girls chose because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama’s father was named Bo Didley

Bo has charmed the first family. He sat when the girls sat, stood when the girls stood. He made no toileting errors and did not gnaw on the furniture. Bo has, after all, been receiving lessons in good behavior from the Kennedys’ dog trainers.

Bo, though he was raised elsewhere, already has a keen sense of who’s in charge inside the Beltway. When the president walked across the room during the visit, Bo followed obediently.

The Portuguese water dog was a gift from Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who owns two of the breed.

Holi in my town

Severn Cullis-Suzuki ....envirnomental activist

It is only after Armageddon, the Old Testament teaches us, that children become leaders.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been doing her best to save her planet from environmental catastrophe since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.

At age six when most girls would be playing with their Barbie dolls Cullis-Suzuki was selling her father's hardcover books at lawn sales for 25 cents each to raise money for native land claims in British Columbia.

By age 10 she had co-founded ECO, the Environmental Children's Organization, with a group of like-minded grade six girlfriends at Lord Tennyson Elementary School in Vancouver.

Their first project was to buy a water filter for natives in the Malaysian tropical rain forest whose water supply was threatened by over logging and the effluence of an ever-encroaching population.

In 1992, when she was only 12, she brought world leaders to tears with a speech at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in which she chastised them for failing to protect her and her friends from the looming environmental catastrophe.

"I'm afraid to go out in the sun now because of holes in the ozone. I'm afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it," Cullis-Suzuki said in a six-minute speech heard around the world. "I used to go fishing with my dad in Vancouver until just a few years ago. We found the fish full of cancers."

Then she read out a checklist of the things the adults had failed to do to protect and preserve the health of the planet and urged them to get on with the task of making it fit for 5 billion people, or get out of the way.

"I'm only a child and I don't have all the solutions, but I want you to realize neither do you...if you don't now how to fix it then please stop breaking it," she pleaded with the delegates.

All parents should be able to comfort their children at night by assuring them that everything's going to be all right. "But I don't think you can say that to us any more."

Cullis-Suzuki and her ECO pals got to Rio by holding bake sales and making and selling hand-made earrings and beaded necklaces. After the speech, Al Gore, the soon to be U.S. vice-president rushed to congratulate her on what he said was the best speech he'd heard at the summit.

That performance brought her instant fame and propelled David Suzuki's daughter on to the world stage. Overnight she was transformed into a media darling and a much sought after environmental speaker.

Today at 24, with a Bachelor of Science degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from Yale, Cullis-Suzuki travels the world preaching her passion -- and getting paid for it.

Wake up and smell the ecological devastation in the air, move to save our forests, and stop polluting our lakes and oceans. It's a message she fears often falls on deaf ears now that the applause in Rio has long since died down.

"I've seen a major disconnect between talk and action," she says adding that activists must find new ways to get their message heard and acted on. "The real innovation is at the grassroots level. Things can only get better through a lot of little habit changes."

And that means convincing young people that by making small changes to the way they live their lives can have a huge impact on the environment. Riding a bike to work or taking public transit, drinking coffee from a mug instead of a disposable cup and resisting the urge to buy things you don't really need, to name just a few.

She acknowledges that it's a big challenge to protect the environment while maintaining economic growth but believes it can be met by making industry and commerce understand that what's good for the environment is also good for business.

Healthy fish populations are essential to supporting a fishing industry, just as trees and parks are needed for tourism and life itself. She talks of the importance of eating locally produced food and how environmental problems must be framed as social issues.

"We need to identify what the new vision is, what the alternatives are to our current destructive lifestyles," she said in a recent interview. "I'm particularly interested in asking young people this question. "What do they want for the future?"

Her own immediate future calls for a return to university in the fall to pursue her studies at Victoria University on Vancouver Island to keep harping on the environment until we all get it, that there is only one planet Earth, and it is worth saving for grasshoppers and people alike.

Cullis-Suzuki is one of the environmental heroes featured in The Great Warming, a three-part television documentary on the devastating effect of climate change.

Filmed on four continents the Canadian produced series travels to four continents to tell the story through the words of real people-from nomadic herders to inner-city dwellers.

Severn now lives on the islands of Haida Gwaii.

Source: http://www.thegreatwarming.com/localhero-interviewsevernsuzuki.html

Orange Party in Amsterdam

Oranges, Oranges everywhere….if you are in Netherlands in the month of April you are going to see lots of oranges. This is festival, which is celebrated as Queenday when people of Netherlands get very creative and make a spectacular show with oranges….you have to be there to see it! It is amazing!