A memorable boat ride!

Once you are back from vacation, those holiday moments linger on leaving you a little  nostalgic, feeling a little empty and a little melancholic that the big vacation you’ve been planning is finally over ! Vacation blues or not, one thing we always do soon after we return is promptly upload the pictures onto Picasa, organize, sequence and share them with friends and family. So as we uploaded the photos onto my dad’s laptop (as technically we are still on  vacation in my dad’s farm house) and regaled my parents with snapshots from our holiday, we got to relive all those favorite moments captured on our Cannon EOS Rebel T2i. My personal Cannon moments are all those photos taken on the first day of our vacation on the houseboat. Sailing down the tranquil waters of the Vembanad lake is an experience that truly unites you with nature and a great way to de-stress your body and mind. That aside, it seemed more practical to spend the first day of our vacation on the houseboat as it enabled Abhay (who had running fever) and his sleep deprived parents (who were up all night to bring the fever down) to get plenty of rest!!!

While we lounged on the deck, the boatman took us around the massive Vembanad lake which is also a hotspot for many migratory birds that flew past our boat. So remembering our serene experience on the houseboat, today I read “The Boat ride” a level 2 Early Reader from Pratham publications by Herminder Ohri. This is a story about a family of squirrels wherein lived Vikki who always liked to talked big. One day when their cousin Kato visited them from the far forest, Vikki offered to take him on a big boat. It was Kato’s first time on a boat and felt reassured when Vikki told him that he had been on the boat several times and there was nothing to fear when Vikki was on board. They hopped onto a boat and sat curled in the corner. As the boat started moving, Kato saw many ducks and swans gliding near the boat and fish putting their heads out of the water as if to say a “Hello”. Kato was so excited to see so much life on the water that he peered out of the boat in an attempt to touch the swans, when he toppled over into the river. Seeing his cousin screaming for help, Vikki who had claimed to be an expert had no clue what to do. He just scampered from one side of the boat to another side shouting for help. Finally Kato was rescued by a swan who put her head down in the river, picked him up in her beak and tossed him into the boat. The accident had silenced Vikki who no longer made tall claims as he used to. As Kato got warm, he cheered up and couldn’t wait to tell everyone of his thrilling adventure! Already he began to fancy himself as a Hero, a brave and adventurous sailor! But as the squirrels got off the boat and staggered their way home, Kato was so tired  that he fell asleep at the dinner table before he could even utter a word about his unforgettable boat ride! Similarly, though Abhay  was excited to cruise on the houseboat, he was probably too drained out to remember what an unforgettable ride it was!