This is the prompt for day 3 of January.

The earliest memory I have is how I learnt to draw a Rangoli when I was seven years old. I had a neighbout whom I called “Akka” sister, who taught me to place dots on the floor in front of her house with a chalk piece and showed me how to connect the dots. I still remember this particular piece of art that I first learnt to draw on the floor with a piece of chalk. I came back home and drew the rangoli on a piece of paper. It was years later that I learnt to use rice flour to draw the rangoli on the floor in front of my house. Drawing rangoli on the floor has been one of my passions and this month of Margazhi, “December 16th to January 15th” is special for the big rangolis that we draw in front of our houses.

The second memory that is fresh in my mind is around the same time when I went to the beach with my maternal grandfather. We went up to the sea and stood on the shore with waves circling our feet. Suddenly a strong wave rose up to our waist and my granddad stepped back, pulling me back. One of our chappals was washed away with the waves, I don’t remember whether it was mine or grandpa’s but that is not important.

The fun part of the story is that the left foot chappal had been washed away, so we decided to throw the other chappal(right foot) into the sea. My logic was that anyway we cannot walk with chappal on one foot and whoever finds the chappal will need the pair We threw the chappal into the sea and the next wave brought the first chappal (left foot) back to us. We now waited and waited for the one that we threw into the sea. It never came and so we again threw the first chappal into the sea and went home, This scenario I remember so well because this story was repeated so many times whenever the family got together at our grandpa’s house for the summer holidays.