Brown paper packages tied up with strings,
These are a few of my favorite things."
~ The Sound of Music
The first thing that I did was to watch the rest of ‘The Sound of Music’
The ‘favourite things’ song was still afresh in my mind. I’d watched it till Maria stealthily ran away to the abbey. DT had said it was the best of movies ! must-watch-should-not-be-missed kind of movie. It is a musical about a wannabe nun being a governess in a Captains house (palace!) gaining the confidence of his 7 kids. It’s a classic. It’s a jolly ride, I’d say – jolly roller coaster musical flow in and out of good times.
By the time I finished everyone was awake..
NC, reading paper – “They’ve opened a new park near downtown. Let’s go.”
Me – “Yup..I anyway needed to go to the library.”
NC – “ok. We’ll cook something, take it and eat it from there.”
Me – “We’ll eat here and then go there. I don’t like to eat in open spaces.”
NC – “It’ll be cool to eat in the park. It’ll be like a picnic. We’ll eat there.”
May be because I’ve seen too many parks littered with leftovers .. I don’t like to eat in parks. Aren’t parks meant to be .. I don’t know .. heaven-in-the-middle-of-rubble or something ? a serene place ? a place where you just sat silently or walked slowly or.. whatever.. well ! it’s my personal prob. I’d rather not impose my ideas into someone else.
I went to the library .. and to my surprise saw that there was a book sale going on there. Bought some books. That kind of put me back into good spirits. Called up NC to find out if he was coming to the park. He was ready. We found the park, sat on the green grass.. Using bag as pillow I lay flat on the grass and started reading ‘message in a bottle’.
NC unpacked and had his lunch.
After a while he turned towards me ..
“How was the sale ? what did you buy ?”
“Not many .. arnd 5.”
NC inspected . he put aside duMaurier - Frenchman’s Creek , Life of Pi …and other books. I knew his eye’d stop at Republic and it did ! “Plato’s Republic ! boy ! I always wanted to read it..” He started reading it and before long, WE started reading it. The whole book’s in the form of dialogues. He read a dialogue and I the next. We played Socrates, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus alternatively .. and even as we were returning home.. we were arguing .. about ‘justice’.