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Let’s read a story about Sanjeev and his grandma.
Sanjeev ran out into the garden.
‘Where are you going now?’ his father asked. ‘We have to leave the house in a few minutes!’
‘I am going to get some flowers for Naani (grandmother),’ Sanjeev called.
‘The taxi will soon be here and you have to help me take our luggage out,’ said Vithal, but
his son was out of earshot.
Sanjeev ran along the path to his favourite part of the garden. It was his own special
corner. Three years ago, when Naani had been staying with them, she had inspired
Sanjeev to start a garden of his own.
Each evening, after Sanjeev had completed his homework, he and Naani would go out to
the shade of the mango tree. Naani would sit there on a stone and sketch her suggestions
on the ground with a stick.
So their little garden took
shape a few feet away from
the shady spread of the
mango tree. It was a simple
square arrangement of
flower beds enclosing a patch
of grass. In the centre was a
rockery where Sanjeev had
lovingly piled up the earth
and arranged his collection
of stones and shells with
little clumps of cacti in
between.
It had been a proud day for
him and a happy one for Naani
when the first plants stuck their
green shoots out of the soil. He yelled, ‘Come and see my plants, Naani! They are
growing!’
Naani had hurried out as fast as her frail limbs could carry her and she had smiled her
special smile for him; the smile that always held a happy sparkle in her eyes.
Now, he quickly went to her favourite flowers
– the regal, yellow gladioli that stood in three rockery: a heaped arrangement of rough stones
with soil between them, planted with rock plants
flower pots. She had handed him the small earshot: the range or distance over which one
can hear or be heard
bulbs the day before she left to go to Aunty regal: fit for a monarch, especially in being
magnificent or dignified
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