Q1.
Do you also keep in touch with your loved ones?
Answer
Yes. Malli and Valli’s family stays in touch with relatives and friends spread all over India, and most of us do the same.
- By phone and video call — a call to Nani in the village on a Sunday, a video call so that grandparents can see how tall you have grown.
- By visiting — summer holidays at Nana–Nani’s house, going home for Diwali, Pongal, Bihu or Eid.
- By letters and messages — a postcard, a greeting card at the New Year, a message on a phone.
- By small gifts of the season — mangoes, jaggery, home-made pickle or laddoos sent when someone travels that way.
Why the book begins here: the whole chapter is a journey. Because the family keeps in touch, the children are able to travel to Haryana, Gujarat, Puducherry, Madhya Pradesh and Meghalaya — and at each place they see a different method of separation being used in ordinary life. Science is not only in the laboratory; it is in Nani’s courtyard.
Try This: Draw a map of India in your notebook and mark the five places Malli and Valli visit — Haryana, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Puducherry, Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and Shillong (Meghalaya). Write beside each one the method of separation they learnt there.