The Rania Diaries

                                   It was a clear sunny day. The afternoon sky was crystal blue with streaks of clouds here and there. Warm rays of sunshine shone on flowers of all hues in the garden. Peter, a young boy of about seven, was lying on the velvety carpet of grass outside his home after school. Both hands behind his head and legs bent at an angle, he gazed and gazed in the mesmerizing blue depth of the sky. He could hear his mother calling him inside the house to start his homework but being weary of his monotonous routine, he decided to lie down for a few more minutes. He continued staring towards the sky. A couple of hawks were swarming in the sky. Peter felt soothed seeing their gliding movements in the sky. “If I were a hawk, I would hover around in the sky all day without any worries”, thought Peter with longing…  No sooner had he thought this that one of...

Up until last year, I was an ardent lover of cats. However, I never really had the opportunity to officially raise one. Fulfilling my primordial wish, one day, my eldest brother came back from work with a surprise for me in his car trunk; a beautiful grey kitten with protuberant yellow eyes. I instantly fell in love with this cute kitten. Apparently, the poor creature was being ‘bullied’ by other older cats in a plaza where my brother found it. Since, we didn’t know if it was vaccinated or not, I was only allowed to keep it in our back yard. Being young, kitty was highly energetic but at the same time very jumpy and the later bit of information incited quite a bit of trouble for me. One rainy afternoon, while taking the laundered clothes off the line in our back yard, suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit the sky. It was probably kitty’s first time experiencing one because as soon as the thunder sounded, kitty leapt up on to my knee in sheer fright. In this attempt, its long claws ...