Who loves the RAIN

Thursday 28th June,2012 – a wet day in Panjim, a seemingly ordinary monsoon day and then it rained in my soul!

Varsha Amonkar a parent and professional who has only observed Bookworm work from afar, has been pursuing me to visit a The National Association for the Blind, Goa state branch in Santa Cruz, that is a residential home for visually impaired children .

Varsha and her daughter Sparsh feel that the group there, need support as they are all on their way to becoming competent whole individuals and in holding their hands, we could grow  with them.

I celebrate good ideas, I manage to act on some of them and in this case, Varsha and Sparsh were most accommodating of my schedule and we had a date!

It was a magical date. I arrived to a warm house of children who greet you with a firm hand shake, share their name and seem inviting.

We read RAIN – a brilliantly illustrated story by Manya Stojic in our usual style. But the response was anything but usual. I have never had a more sincere audience who hung on to every breath and word, who walked the story with me, sensing the mood, the next event and participating so fully.

Rain will never be the same. But also I will never be the same.

Since the book shares how animals respond to the rain, I asked how did they think animals respond to the rain, which animals do not like the rain and then which animal might like the rain.

I looked at this group of 19 children between the ages of 7 – 19 years, boys and girls, in my world, they are impaired – and one of them said ‘Frogs, frogs like the rain! ” .

I wonder after that magical, intelligent response who is impaired? We have read Rain at various and multiple sites as part of our work, we have received so many responses to this book over the years, none made me feel as happy or as fulfilled that children are thinkers, as this one.

Bookworm  pledges support to this group of children, because in our world the frogs are all princes anyway and we want to be part of this Royal household.