Today’s letter took me to a couple of different places before I landed where I finally did, on a fictional character once again with the magic of Moochwala and his mysteries!! I will tell you more about him in a bit.

I thought about the famed Mumtaz Mahal: an empress from history, for whom the most beautiful symbol of love ever – the Taj Mahal – was built. But then it would be yet another queen, and I am only half-way through the alphabet still. So it is back to something lighter with a fictional detective (and short-lived at that, for the children’s magazine Target that his comic strips appeared in, stopped publication years ago, and I still can’t understand why) who never failed to make me (and many others in India – years ago) smile!! And like the title says, there is mention of musical stuff and mirrors too.

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The Magic of Moochwala and Mysteries

I grew up reading everything I could, and in a whole crowd of magazines that we received at our home, one of them was mainly for us – the kids. Target was published monthly in English from 1979 to 1995, and featured a mix of reader contributions, stories from regular writers, articles, regular comic strips, and more. Moochwala was one such comic strip – usually a two-page spread – featuring this detective and his dog who were an amazing mystery solving pair!

Mystery books held a special appeal, and while I devoured everything from Blyton’s mystery series (like Famous Five, the Five Find-outers, Secret Seven, and more) and the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drews to Agatha Christie’s books and others, comics were cool! And Moochwala with Pooch, so much fun and dear as well.

Moochwala

Moochwala, the Mystery Solver
Have you heard of Moochwala,
The detective superemo-ooh-la-la!?
With his super-dog Pooch,
he solves mysteries and gets to the truth!
He has a mustache so unique,
even his shadow is worth a peek,
for it makes it a point to display
Moochwala’s mustache in its full array!
But sometimes I do wonder
Are his skills and mustache just noisy thunder
Maybe the mystery solving was all just pure luck
And his mustache? Well, maybe it is stuck!
~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites

Day 15 Prompts

The NaPoWriMo prompt for day 15 is below:

 Begin by reading June Jordan’s “Notes on the Peanut.” Now, think of a person – real or imagined – who has been held out to you as an example of how to be of live, but who you have always had doubts about. Write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of the person in a way that exposes your doubts.

The April PAD prompt for day 15 is to write a shadow poem. Some people are afraid of shadows (even their own), but others like to lurk there. There are shadow governments, shadowy characters, and well, just shade (which is super nice in Georgia during the summer).

References and Further Reading

• Wikipedia page on Detective Moochwala
• You can read some of the uploaded strips here.

My M Books

Mirror to Mirror

I loved Rajani LaRocca’s Red, White, and Whole and also a couple of other books by her. And so when I saw this one, I had to read it. LaRocca is an amazing verse novelist, and this book takes readers to a world of music-loving tween twins as well as a peek into life in an Indian-American family. The book is written in alternating chapters from each twin’s perspective, and shows us what they think of each other and themselves, as well as shows us how similar, yet how different they are – from each other as well as from their parents. I am not sure what I loved more here – the story itself, or the storytelling..

Musical Tables

Oh my! These tiny poems are delightful! There is not much else I can say except use synonyms for delightful, and maybe add on that some of these little wonders are coolly contemplative within those few lines, others provoke and lead you to ponder. For example, this poem does all of those with just one line (or maybe it is just a quote!)

The Sociologist by Billy Collins

I wandered lonely as a crowd.

And Now, the End of the Post

Linking up to BlogChatterA2Z, Blogging from A-to-Z April Challenge, NaPoWriMo, and the Ultimate Blog Challenge.