I Love tiger…

(A jungle book story for my five year old daughter as I am in Japan, away from her for a short period)

                 
             My daughter was only three years old then.  That day was a holiday for me, and hence she was very happy that she could have me all around her for the whole day, no need to say ‘bye bye’ at the gate of the day care centre, as usual!!

             We were playing ‘hide and seek’ for some time.  Then she said ‘story time now’.  I decided to go for a ‘jungle book’ story; not the famous story of ‘Mougli,-the jungle book hero’; but my own creation with the forest as background!  I used to do so, just to introduce some new things to her through small stories.  I don’t remember, the story I told her that day; but when I finished, she said in a very thrilled voice, “Amma, I love tiger”.  I thought, she might be saying just like that, got impressed by the tiger in my story!  But she was very serious, I asked, “How do you know tiger”? Her excitement knew no limits when she narrated the ‘tiger story’ she watched on TV in her play school.   I was really surprised, she had just started her play school, and she was a little late in speaking also but was very vocal while recounting the whole show!

            I really wanted to make her happier.  I decided to make a call to my husband who has gone to his office.  I told him to bring the toy of a tiger while coming back.  He had three toys, one of a puppy, a cat and of course the third one was that of a tiger, when he returned home in the evening.  He couldn’t get the specialty of ‘tiger toy’ and bought some toys, fortunately there was one 'tiger toy' , as I wished.  That unexpected gifts made her very happy and took the ‘tiger toy’ in her hands (not cared for the others at all) and announced ‘this is mine’, indicating very strictly to her elder sister, who was five then not to make any claim for it!  That was a really very good toy, had the ‘looks of a real tiger’.  For two days, she was always carrying the toy in her hands, even while sleeping, she was holding it!  On Monday morning, she wanted to take that with her to the play school, but I made her finally agree to leave her ‘tiger’ at home’.  While leaving for school, she put her on a table in the drawing room, covered it with a towel and said in a very soft voice, ‘sleep, till I come’!!!  The toy is still her favorite, after two years!

            I recollected all these memories when I visited the zoological park in Uneo, Japan.  I really missed her and captured these photos just for her.


                    
                    The way to the 'forest'......



               A small forest recreated for the tiger....

 

                   Finally we got a glance of the tiger....


                                             ****