Cue Card 2020 #35: When was the first time you admired the sky or a beautiful sky you enjoyed seeing

You should say:

• What were you doing
• Who was with you
• What you saw

Model Answer:

• I like to look at the sky at night and enjoy the twinkling stars.
• I have been doing that since my childhood.
• However, I don’t vividly remember the first time I admired the sky.
• So, here I would like to talk about a time, I remember well, when I admired the sky.
• Last year, it was my cousin’s wedding in September.
• We had so many guests, that my cousins and I had to sleep on the terrace.
• It was quite pleasant outside and we were happy with the arrangements of sleeping outside.
• After dinner, we all carried our beddings upstairs and laid our beds.
• It was a clear moonlit night and we could see the stars twinkling brightly.
• We started giving shapes to the star patterns.
• It was great fun.
• My cousin, Rubina is 13 years old and had come from America. She told us that her geography teacher had told her a lot about constellations and the sun and the planets.
• She told us in a very interesting way what the stars can teach us.
• We were very impressed by the way things were taught in her school in America.
• All I remember was mugging up chapters from my geography book to pass the exams.
• We gazed at the stars and enjoyed the twinkling and tried to figure out some constellations.
• She also told me the names of a few constellations, but unfortunately, I don’t remember them now, as it is more than one year when she told me about them.
• There are many mythological stories related to stars.
• Once, my friend in school told me that when a person dies, he becomes a star.
• Many people who have lost their near and dear ones look at the stars to find them.
• So this was the time when I admired the sky for the first time, that I remember.

Another idea

• There have not been many times in my life where I have taken out time just to see the sky because daily chores of life take up the majority of space in one’s life.
• I believe life goes at a very fast pace but still there are few days when one enjoys being with mother nature.
• Today I would like to talk about one such day when I spent a lot of time admiring the sky.
• I remember this so strongly because this day was one of the important days of my life.
• It was a year ago when my two best friends from college came to my house as it was my birthday eve.
• My parents went out of station for some family function so we had the whole place to ourselves.
• We decided to go out in the evening and watch a movie which was recently released .
• We all got ready for the movie and decided to go to a cafe after the movie where we could cut the cake.
• To our surprise when we reached the theater we were told that all the tickets were sold out and that it was a houseful.
• We were disappointed as our evening plans got crashed right in the beginning.
• So as my friends were from other places they were not familiar with the local places to visit so I decided to take them to a lake near my house as the weather was very pleasant that day.
• As soon as we reached there we sat along the peripheral wall of the lake and it was the time of sunset.
• The serenity of the place was beyond our imagination. The sun was setting in one end of the sky and it started to get dark at the other end.
• It was just like a painting.
• I played some relaxing music on my phone and it just added a charm to the moment.
• As it started to get dark, cold winds started to blow.
• We spent almost three hours on the lake looking at the sky, taking to each other, listening to soothing music.
• Towards the end we didn’t even feel like going away from that place and it made us realise how beautiful life could be.
• I felt happy and thanked my destiny that things did not go according to my plan because the outcome of this unplanned visit was beautiful.
• All of us got time to rejuvenate our friendships and since then it has become one of our favourite spots for hanging out.

Follow ups

1. Why do people like to study the sky?
   People like to study the sky to notice the changes in weather; some see it as an inspiration for arts like painting, photography, etc. It is also important to study about sky and space to understand that we are a part of a very large universe, which ignites our curiosity about what’s beyond the sky. Some people study it, as they believe that planetary movements affect a person’s fate.
2. Do you know any story related to planets?
   I don’t remember any one story, but I used to read the comics series Chacha Chaudhary, in which there is a giant named ‘Sabu’ who visits Earth from Jupiter and decides to stay back with Chacha Chaudhary, after he tastes the food on Earth. There are also many movies made about superheroes from other planets, like PK, Spiderman.
3. Do you think children should be told planet stories to improve their imagination?
   Yes, definitely. It is very important that children be told stories about other planets. It most certainly helps improve their creativity and imagination, because of the curiosity it ignites/creates in their minds. Some children also end up taking it up as a career path, e.g. astronauts, space research scientists, rocket engineers, etc.
4. Would children be benefited from watching stars?
   Yes, children would be benefitted from watching stars. They become curious about the universe and outer space, which help increase their creativity and also, might help them chose it as a career path in the future.
5. Would you like to watch movies on planets?
   Yes, I like to watch movies about other planets and outer space. In fact, I recently watched one such movie, PK, where an alien comes from another planet to Earth. It is a very good and inspirational movie, where this alien character has been used very nicely to portray all the blind superstitions we follow. This movie was a blockbuster/super-hit.
6. Did you like to watch the sky when you were young?
   Yes, I liked to watch the sky when I was young. I remember that during summer vacations, we used to visit our farmhouse and we used to sleep outside, in the open. At that time I did not know anything about constellations, but we used to find the night sky with the twinkling stars very fascinating and beautiful.