Picnic!

I insist that the way I left school in the morning set my mood. People (read ‘teachers and students’) hate duty that takes them out of school into the hot sunshine. I exclaimed, “Picnic!”
Other teachers laughed at me.
I replied, “In the afternoon, I can complain; now at least, I’ll go happy!”

But even now, I’m not complaining. I went with a group of girls that was reasonably cheerful, willing to work and complained just a little. We were at a sericulture unit, learning about mulberry, lac and azolla. I found a mulberry leaf far bigger than my whole hand!
I learned that azolla (which existed only in geography text books for me) can cause a cow to produce 1.5 times the regular amount of milk!

We cut, pruned and planted. We dug, sieved the mud and laid the azolla beds.
And I ate a one-rupee pepsicola.

We played dumb charades and antakshari. What a lovely picnic it was!