A Child’s Diary: Idhika Diwan’s Corona Lockdown Days

August 24, 2020

Arrival of Ganapati Baba

Ganpati Bappa came to our house on Saturday. It was Puja time in morning. Puja means praying to God. We cleaned his home in our house. I and my younger brother decorated the temple at home with coluored pistachio shells. We also made a wall hanging, called Toran. It was made from card board, remaining incense sticks, cupcake liner, and tamarind seeds. This decoration was made from reused and recycled materials. We had late lunch as we first offered food to Ganpati Bappa. We made Modak for him. It was very yummy. There are Ganpati Bappa temples in Thailand also. We went to visit him there also. After 5 days when he went back to his home, I felt sad.

After the festival, on the weekend, we went to an island called “Koh Samet”. Koh means island in Thai. This was the 1^st time I went on an island. On Friday night, I slept early. I help my mom to pack our bags. We went there by a big boat. After reaching the pier and 5 minutes past, it was time to board on the boat. There was a piece of wood to climb up the deck. I was scared to climb up the piece of wood because it had no railings to hold on and climb up. But there were safety guards to help us climb.

I felt scared at first but then I adjusted in the boat. It took 40 minutes to reach the island. The entrance had a statue. Then we got a songthaew {big auto} which took us from the pier to our resort. It was near a beach.  While we were eating lunch, dad saw something floating in the sea water. We didn’t know what it was. So I thought that it was a dolphin, my younger brother thought it was a whale, my mom thought it was a dead fish. But when it came close to the shore, we found out that it was a dried coconut leaf.

After lunch we went on a rock trecking because there were many big rocks on the beach. In a big, shallow puddle of seawater we saw dead baby sardines. There were crabs beside the puddle so I picked up 2 sardines and fed them to the crabs. In 2 puddles, there were some creatures. I will give you a hint to guess. Sardines are one of them, they live in schools, they can be as pets or in aquariums, they lay eggs and the last hint, and they are the part of the seafood. Yes, the correct answer is fish. In the first puddle, there were transparent fish. In the second puddle, there were black coluored fish.

Later, there were no rocks on the beach. I saw a half-eaten fish lying on the seashore. I also saw a dead fish on the shore but that was not half – eaten. I think so the fish died because of pollution. My books tell me – fish can die because of underwater pollution. So I picked up a plastic bottle witch was laying on the shore. I threw that in the nearby dustbin. After changing into my swimming costume, we went to play in the water. We were collecting seashells, broken corals and rare rocks.  When I was collecting shells, I collected an unusual shell. It was a closed shell!!! I really wanted to see what was inside the shell. I thought I would discover a new animal.

When we took it back to our house, my dad said “If you want to see what is inside the shell, you have to put the shell in hot water”. I saw how the shell popped open in boiling water. Inside the shell there was a mussel. We looked the flesh under our microscope. My dad showed the sucker of the mussel. This was all about my first trip to an island. I want to go to the island once again.

But now my midterm exams are happening. Happy studying for me !!

Bye and keep reading!!!