We had just wrapped up a summer workshop for a bunch of kids, a group that ranged from impatient eight-year-olds to inquisitive 14-year-olds. It was for an NGO that looked after the city's stray animals. Using the virtues of the average stray who is able to survive in big, bad Bombay, we egged [or at least we tried to] these little aspiring journalists to think out of the box and push their boundaries by probing their minds to ask the right questions. And ask they did, with no fear or trepidation, and certainly no hesitation when it came to questioning right from wrong.

A few lingered on at the venue after the session as they waited for their parents. In these moments, we chatted up with one of the participants, a shy, seemingly reticent girl who had asked all the right questions in her reporting project. Even the resident stray doggie who dropped by the session [clearly the showstopper!], seemed to have taken a shining to her.