Sometimes a touch of innocence can only nurture the innocent days we had left behind. When my four year old niece visited me during the winter holidays, one day I caught her in the garden playing with the rays of the sun that  were coming through the gaps of the trees and their leaves. I found her trying her best to catch the rays in her fist and when she failed to do so, she was trying to touch them and get her palm stained with sun rays. With a sweet childish tone she called upon me and happily looking at her hand said, "Look, my hand has got colored with sun rays!" and stretched out her right hand to show me. But as she did so, the breeze made the leaves move and the slice of sun ray at first flickered and then was no longer on her palm. Her happiness got shadowed and she looked at me with darkness of the vanishing happiness.

                                                                                                                                          I remembered how I used to do the same as a little girl. I used to try catching and holding the sun rays in my fist and when I couldn't, I tried getting my palms stained with sunshine the same way as Anya. Flashbacks of me following the quick-shifting slanting sun rays during winter afternoons came to me. I smiled to myself more, than I did to her. I knelt down in front of her and kissed her cheek to thank her for reminding me of a small yet special memory. Rubbing her cheek she said, "I was playing with the sun rays. I caught the sun rays but it vanished! Even it colored my palm golden! But now it's no more." I didn't want to see her bright smile to fade away and vouched to restore it. I asked her, "So what do you want now?" She said, " I want to have that sun ray that fell on my palm." and searched for a positive answer from me.

                                               The solution wasn't hard enough because as a little girl I myself came up with one. I carried her inside the house in my arms and collected some glass jars, both small and big and placed them before every window opening the lids. Little Anya kept following at me thoroughly and finally asked tugging my top," What are you doing? Where is the sun ray?" Completing what I was up to, I said, " The sun rays are magical and playful, you see! They never stay in one place. You need to keep the lids open and let them come and go. Never try to hold anything against their will. They move around all day long, playing. They appear and vanish. To see them you need to start from here." I showed her an East-facing window and then the rooms around the house as per the movement of the rays of the Sun from East to West. Since it was already late in the afternoon and the sun was setting I took her to the window facing the West and there it was! The sun rays she wanted to have! She smiled at me and looked through the bottle!

                                                                                                                                                                                 Anya helped me recollect a sweet memory from my childhood and in turn I helped in making a memory of her own, thinking of which, she will smile at the innocent days she had as a little one!