Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “stick.” Use it as a noun or a verb; use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
A few years ago, I picked up five round pebbles because they reminded me of my childhood. We played many indoor and outdoor games those days. My father was posted in north India and we travelled by train to the small town in south India to spend our summer vacations at my maternal grandparents’ home. The journey both ways by train took six days. Books, playing cards, word building and other games filled the time on wheels. One of the fun-filled games was with small sticks. We took ten sticks and threw them gently on the side table. Using one stick we had to remove each stick one by one without moving the others.
Stick-in-the-mud is a phrase which makes me smile. It does not seem nice to use it describe anyone. But there are people who are not ready to make any changes in life. We have a phrase in Sanskrit which has almost the same meaning. It is ‘koopa manduka’. It literally means frog in the well. For that frog the well is its universe. It does not know that whole wide world exists outside.
We have some pineapple plants in our garden. Some fruits were leaning over precariously. They must have become heavy for the plant. Today morning my husband took some sticks, stuck them in the earth and tied the plants to them. Hopefully they will be a support till it is time to pluck the fruits. It rained a few days ago and to our dismay we saw a pineapple lying on the ground and it was covered with centipedes! The rain had brought them out. We left the fruit there. 😊
In 2015, Aravind went to London to present a paper at a conference called Blind Creations at Royal Holloway, University of London. He stayed there for a few more days and went sightseeing with a cousin. Earlier he had read about the shop, James Smith &Sons, Oxford Street. He found the shop was fascinating because it was established all the way back in 1830. Aravind is crazy about all things made of wood. He bought three walking sticks. He gifted one to my father. Unfortunately, my father was not able to use it much. In February 2016, he fell and was bedridden. He passed away in September 2016. My mother uses the walking stick regularly while going for walks in the morning and evening. She calls it the walking stick given by Aravind. 😊
A Trip To London’s Oldest Umbrella Shop – Living London History
Mukhamani 
Comments are welcome :)