“I gotta pretty pink flower in my garden, Mama!” cried my two and a half year old son, exultantly. His wee shrill voice had a catch in it. Or was it a catch in the voice of my imagination?

I too, had seen the pale pink solitary rose bloom in our garden. But I had only seen it as I have forgotten now how to feel a flower’s presence.

The pink rose became, for my son, a whole garden. A mysterious hiding place for the “wicked witch” who occasionally visited on her broomstick. She hid behind the rose because she was “f’ightened” and wanted to make “f’iends.” We would call out to her and quickly scuttle behind a door, just in case she took our invitation too seriously!

“Poof!” “She’s gone, Mama,” as the petals fell unresistingly to the ground. And then we lost ourselves in another fantasy. grasping for the wicked witch in the air.

To live through a child’s imagination is to live on a magic carpet traveling and feeling like one has forgotten to.An enthralling journey of discovery.

The river at Kalesar became an ocean for the day we spent there. Its pebbly, stoney shore transformed itself into a beach. As I lay with my eyes closed on the rocks, the gentle ripple of the river waters began to hum and surge in my mind and through my son’s incessant chatter I could almost feel the waves crashing down on us. Six years later, he still thinks of Kalesar as a sort of beach resort – and for that matter, so do I!

One evening, as we watched the winter skies in Mussoorie, they turned gradually grey from a tumultuous swirling of orange and blue and the sun dipped rapidly behind the Winter Line. “It’s darkling!” announced my little boy in a matter of fact way. The word “dusk” suddenly lost its magical quality. It became too still a word and “sun-set” too prosaic. It was, indeed, “darkling” as the mystery of silence and darkening grey soothed the fires of the sun.

I shall never forget the delight and wonder on his face and in his eyes as he looked up into an umbrella and saw raindrops bounce off its top. He gurgled with delight reaching out his little hands to feel this miracle in nature.

Now as we stand together looking quietly at the seven ranges of the Tehri hills in the distance, they are barely distinguishable and wrapped in a purple haze. And they beckon us. He wants to explore what is beyond, as I did, many years ago and I see the excitement and passion glisten in his eyes. I wonder what he imagines is beyond and hope that he will carry me through another fantasy.

December 1998