This year they decided to go to Ireland.
‘Why?’ you might well ask. Two factors
made them think of this destination.
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ways, had got enchanted with the
‘Chronicles of Narnia’. Like a lot of kids
these days, they had come to C.S. Lewis’s
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them, ‘The Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe’ and its sequel, ‘Prince Caspian’.
In fact, Gaurika did a school project on
Narnia, and Keshav acted in the stellar
role of Aslan in the annual play.
Sagrika and Dinkar did a web search,
discovered that C.S. Lewis had been born
in Belfast, and had been inspired by
Northern Ireland’s Mountains of Mourne.
It would thrill the kids to bits to go to the
font of these fables.
The other factor was two gifts that
Gaurika’s friend, Smita, brought back for
her from her own Irish trip: a CD of
traditional Irish songs and a little doll in
a medieval velvet gown from the Bunratty
Castle’s souvenir shop. Gaurika was
inseparable from both.
The 12 year old has music in her blood.
The Irish music set her feet tapping to
quite another tune. Gaurika ‘really, really’
wanted to go to the place where the CD
came from ‘because the people sounded
like they really knew how to have fun, and
even their sad songs have such sweetness’.
The Mountains of Mourne, Co. Down
13
