Dusk at Lodhi

What will the mouse Stuart Little do if he is in Delhi? This question sparked

an interesting journey with my nephew Mayank.

See previous blog of interest

https://prashantbhatt.com/2011/10/22/writing-workshops-with-mayank/

Countering Writer’s block

As the young ten year old struggled to find things to write about, I gave

him a hint which he found useful. Name ten places Stuart went to and ten people he met.

The Stuart of Delhi soon visited Lodhi gardens at dusk,

saying hello to birds as they came home in the magic hour when

day turns into night. He saw the moon over the Sheesh and Bada Gumbad

of Lodhi and went to see the geese near the Athpula -the eight arched

bridge which is one of the few structures in present day Delhi of the time

of Emperor Akbar.

Smells and sounds

As he hit another ‘roadblock’ in his writing, I told him to write about

some sounds, smells he heard at Lodhi gardens and Khan market where

he went and had dinner at McDonald’s (No visit to Delhi will be complete

for me, unless I take him to McDonald’s).

Sounds-The barking of dogs at Lodhi

The sound of birds returning to their nests.

As the night matured-the sounds of crickets.

Smells- He got a sense of how the different pavements of

Khan market smell differently. Even different parts

of the same shop will smell differently -clothes have

a different scent than ornaments.

“My nose is blocked ” was one of the first comments which he made.

But slowly he got used to know the different scents of different

dishes.

Making notes

Stuart in Delhi is now being developed by my nephew, he does

not have any writer’s block and has a nice skeleton of places

his mouse went, persons he met, sounds and smells he experienced

in addition to the sights he saw. This skeleton serves Mayank

well to develop an article on the Stuart of Delhi whom he has

named “Stuart Jasola”