Category: Stories

Nine year old Drithi lived in a shack in the outskirts of Chennai, the bustling capital of Tamilnadu. Her father was employed in a chocolate factory in the nearby village to mix sugar and cocoa. Her mother worked as a home-maker and occasionally took up seasonal labour in difficult times. That being said, Drithi and her family were in the brink of poverty. Due to their weak finances, Drithi had to be content with a government school.

Drithi was bubbling with excitement at the thought of the next day. The next day was her birthday and although no fancy party would be hosted, she was looking forward to it. That night, she made sure to tuck into her bed early and enjoy it dreaming about the possible gifts she would receive. She seldom got gifts, save the dresses gifted by her parents every year. Once, on her fifth birthday, she had received a postcard from her grandmother. Sadly grandmother had passed away the next year.

Pushing the sad thoughts out of her head, the little girl went to sleep. She slept soundly, unaware of the surprise that waited for her. The next day, the very first rays of the sun roused Drithi from her sleep. She bounced up, rolled her sleeping mat and flung it to the corner. Rushing to the door in hopes of letters from her relatives, she opened it.

Things seemed normal at first. The milkman had left a mug of fresh creamy milk hanging at the gate. There was a newspaper- The Indian Express hanging on it, smelling slightly of chemicals. The road was empty on that lazy Sunday morning, save a few people jogging. The autowalas were just waking up from their cramped beds at the back of their autos. One of them, a person new to that way of life, struggled to wriggle out of his awkward position. He tried propelling himself up with the help of the yellow bars but fell down on one knee instead.

This extraordinary sight made young Drithi laugh. And it was when she bent down to clutch her tummy while laughing, that she saw the object at her feet. It was a tiny box, wrapped in a silver wrapper and tied with a red ribbon. It stood out among the clutter of fallen neem leaves and litter.

She sank to her knees and quickly began tearing open the glittering wrapper. Inside was a wooden box containing a bracelet. It was a tiny bracelet, enough to fit her bony hand. Though decorated with just a few colourful seashells, it appeared grand. It also struck her that it was the same bracelet which she had been admiring from the jeweller’s window the previous day.

She went about smiling the entire morning, unaware of the mysterious gifter. It did occur to her once or twice as to  how such an expensive gift could land at her door, but she dismissed the idea with the assumption that her parents had bought it. ‘Maybe they saw how much I loved it the other day and decided to buy it for me,’ she thought.

As the years passed, Drithi began to realise, much to her amusement, that the gifts were coming from a mysterious person- Mysterio she preferred to call him or her. On her eleventh birthday, in a similarly wrapped box, she received a necklace. The one she had wanted the most. A watch the next year …. Something that had topped her wish list that year and so on. Every year the gift was a great mystery…it was always something that she secretly yearned for. How did Mysterio know what she wanted!

It was only four whole years later- at the age of fifteen did it occur to her to catch Mysterio.

The birds were yet to start their council when fifteen year old Drithi woke up. It was her fifteenth birthday that day and her months of plans were ready to roll into action. The plan wasn’t too complicated- quite simple actually. It had only become a teeny bit difficult due to the some last minute changes. It was a Friday morning and her father was required to report extra early to work to help out a colleague. This meant that Drithi would have to wake up extra, extra early to catch Mysterio and hopefully run to bed before her father woke up. She desperately wanted to see the Mysterio this year.

The just-turned-fifteen year old opened the door softly and closed it equally softly behind her. Glancing down, she noted that the gift had not arrived yet. Good. She proceeded to wait behind a neem tree just to the right of their house. The vehicles came from the left, so this would provide her a good view of them as well as hide her.

Surprisingly, for this early hour, there were quite a few cars on road. It was the end of May and many people were returning from their vacation. Big cars whizzed by as greedy cabbies made huge profits driving at odd hours. One particular car, a massive Rolls-Royce caught her eye. It was going comparatively slowly and was approaching her shack. The grey window rolled down and a tiny head peeped out of the window for a few seconds. Drithi bent forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the face, still a nit far away. She was stunned. It looked like she was looking into a mirror… only the face seemed older. A few grey hairs flashed at her…

This is when things started going wrong. Just as her eyes could finally see the face in the car, the person’s eyes fell on her. Then, things happened in fast forward motion. The person inside- a woman gave a gasp. She quickly rolled up the window. She hastily scribbled a note because as the car started to speed away, the back door opened slightly and the note dopped down. Without thinking, the teenager ran to pick up the note. She quickly unfurled it only to be disappointed and puzzled greatly. The note read-

“Happy Birthday! Hope you enjoyed your gift! A glimpse of me…..

Hopefully, we can meet again as friends in the future.

Yours lovingly

Your dearest Mysterio

She’d thought about this moment, imagined it, for hours, but she’d never expected what happened. The tide of events turned a fresh Friday morning to a disastrous evening.

Pranavi, a fourteen-year old tomboy, had woken up to the morning rays of the summer heat. She had glanced up to the wall clock and had noted with dismay that it was barely six. She hated being woken up early. She liked a quiet and peaceful sleep- a luxury which was barely granted to her. Her house was on the tenth floor of a multi-storeyed apartment in the heart of Chennai. Being in one of the busiest streets, there was always some construction or project or rally that kept going on.

But that morning had been different. There had been no unpleasant sounds of the drills or the voices of politicians booming over the speaker. It had been almost a perfect morning had she not been woken up by a pillow on her face.

Pranavi groaned and jerked her hand to the side to hit the person who had woken her up.

“Ranveer, why did you wake me up!!”

“Because today is an important day,” the mischievous voice of her brother  answered.

Pranavi and Ranveer were siblings, separated by just a year. Pranavi, despite being a tomboy, was the more obedient child of the two. Ranveer on the other hand, loved playing pranks on people. He had been suspended from school several times and nearly expelled due to his classic ‘bucket on the door’ prank and the ‘broken teacher’s chair’ prank.

Ranveer had then proceeded in pouring out his plans for that evening. His sister had listened with a grumpy mood at first, which later went through several stages of transformation and had become an excited face. Without the slightest hint of the horrors that awaited, the siblings had gone ahead with the plan.

And now, they reaped the fruit of their thoughtless mischief. They saw their grandmother at the door with a few neighbours. She held a bag of bitter gourds, green chillies, salt and packeted chapattis. There was a visible confusion in her face. She clearly seemed to be having trouble with something.

Pranavi’s mother went to the entrance, equally puzzled. She took the bags from her mother’s hand and asked her, “Amma, what happened? Why did it take you so long to come home?” Pranavi’s grandmother craned her head   kept looking from side to side, “Ah! Nirmala, it is you. Where are you? I am not able to see properly. Something seems to be wrong with my spectacles today.”

It was indeed true. The lens of her spectacles had some white translucent coating in them. Mrs. Nirmala’s eyes fell on this. She strode ahead and took off her mother’s spectacles carefully and twirled them in her hand. She placed her thumb on the translucent white and began rubbing it. The substance seemed to be adamant to stay there at first. It took a bit of harder and longer rubbing to chip it off. It seemed like acrylic paint.

Pranavi heard Ranveer shift uncomfortably behind her. She felt uncomfortable as well but remained motionless. He murmured in a barely audible whisper, “Umm.. I have my homework to do. Shall I go now?” He hadn’t turned when the threatening tone of their mother sounded, “Ranveer, where are you going? You have a lot of explanation to do. Did you know that because of your mischief, your grandmother might have gotten lost, seriously hurt or even killed?”

“Lost she was sister,” a man’s voice sounded. He was their neighbour and family friend, “She nearly went off to the next street when there had been a truck approaching.”

After a quick word of apology and thanks to the neighbour, Mrs. Nirmala resumed addressing her son, “Why did you do it?” Her heart beat rising from the pressure of guilt, Pranavi stepped up to take the blame, “We meant it as a harmless prank really! We never thought it would go this far!”

Pranavi’s mother looked at her with horror and utter belief written on her face, “You took part in this too? But why?”

Pranavi would probably hate her brother a lot in the future for what was coming next. She was trying to shoulder the entire blame despite being half innocent, yet he spoiled that. With a feeble and scared smile, Ranveer said, “Happy April Fool’s Day Everyone.”

‘26 July 2021

Monday

Dear Diary,

Today, I participated in my first inter-school competition this year. It was a writing competition. We were required to write a formal letter. The letter with the most creativity, best vocabulary, etc… etc. would win the prize. I thought that I would ace it and win the first prize. Usually, the topics are pretty easy, but this time, I was stunned. We were required to write to no one in particular and with no topic. That meant that we could choose our own topic and a receiver.’

I stopped writing. It was almost midnight- way past the time I was supposed to be in bed. That didn’t bother me. Today’s incident was something that I had to record. It didn’t bother me that I had to strain my eyes under the single, narrow beam of light from my torch. I always made it a point to make an entry in my diary every day and today was no exception.

I looked at the grey graphite diffusing with the paper as I reflected on the events of the writing competition. I wrote down, ‘To be honest, it was really queer. I eyed the question, reading it about twice or thrice. My head started going in circles and my vision blurred as I kept staring at the paper for a long time. Maybe it was for too long. At least, I was finally able to come up with a pretty decent idea. I just hope that it gets considered.’

Too tired to even stay awake a wink longer, I shut close my diary, switched off the light and flung myself on to my soft, furry bed. Scrambling under my warm bedsheets in the cold night, I closed my eyes. I must have slept like a bear because when I woke up, I only had time to take a quick shower, jam the bread into my mouth and run off to school.

One week later, my parents received a call from the Principal. I was playing hide and seek, hiding under the bed when I heard mother’s phone buzzing. I stayed in my hiding position. Mother’s footsteps sounded as the door to the bedroom creaked open. Mother picked up the phone and was surprised when she found out that the person on the other end of the line was my Principal.

I heard her gasping as I held myself from sneezing. The ancient dust under the bed was staring to move about and trying to invade my nostrils. I clasped one hand over my nose and balanced myself on the other. I heard my mother stay quiet for quite some time and then she slowly replied in a polite tone, “Yes ma’am. We will be there… yes ma’am, we’ll definitely come.

Placing the phone on the bed, she called out, “Ammu! Where are you? Come here this instant!” I knew where that would lead to. The Principal must have called mother to complain about one of my misbehaviours or one of my pranks. Not sure of which, I slowly crawled out from under the bed, only to be greeted by mother’s stern face. “What have you done this time?” she asked.

One hour later, my parents and I entered the principal’s office. This wasn’t something new for me. In fact, I had a history of visiting the place. I had gone there so frequently that I was familiar with every nook and corner of the room. I knew that the Principal kept her lunch under the table, near her chair. The old, worn-out windows, the dusty walls, the tile in the centre smelling of sour milk, the half-broken chairs in the far corner- anything you name, I knew it.

 “Please take a seat,” the Principal offered politely. We sat down, mother in the left, father to my right and me in the centre. Grimly and secretly, I noted that the chairs needed replacement. We were sitting on good-looking leather arm-chairs. They looked good on the outside, but when I sat, I realised that the cushion felt clumpy and one leg’s bush had come off.

After we were comfortably seated, an uncomfortable silence hanging about in the air, the principal started speaking. Placing her elbows on the table, she informed, “I haven’t called you today for any complaining. In fact, I called you here to congratulate Meena.” With that, her permanent frown split into a surprisingly wide grin. Her teeth shone pearly white in the light.

Turning to my right, I saw father looking at me, silently demanding an explanation. Mother wore the same questioning look as well. Shrugging my shoulders, I let them know that I had no idea of what was going on.

Slowly, father asked, “What for?” At that, she opened the drawers in her desk, shuffled through some files and brought out an A4 sheet with paragraphs written on it. As she kept it on the table, I realised what the paper was. Of course, who doesn’t recognize her own handwriting? It was my submission for the letter writing competition!

The Principal handed the paper to my father and requested him to read it aloud. He adjusted his spectacles and read:

“From: Meena

Block 6, 134A

Green Peas Road

Saligramam

Chennai 600093

 To: All the Mathematicians of the 21^st century

Indian Mathematical Society

Pune, Maharashtra

India

Respected Sirs/ Madams

                       Subject: Request to end all further studies in Mathematics

This letter is to bring to your notice, the importance of stopping discoveries of new concepts and theorems in Mathematics. I have been observing that students are struggling with Mathematics.

All the hypotenuse, imaginary numbers, functions, alpha, beta, gamma is confusing the students. There are two reasons why you are requested to stop further discoveries:

Firstly, many of the concepts are impractical. Their only usage is in the examinations. Especially, chapters dealing with lines and angles and imaginary numbers. I believe that such chapters are deviating from real life.

Secondly, the extra concepts are falling as a burden on the students’ shoulders. Languages such as English, Hindi, Tamil, etc. help the students to communicate better. Subjects such as Social and Science promote general awareness. But in the case of Mathematics, it is found that apart from eight to ten chapters in all, the rest are unnecessary.

Thirdly if students are taught only the necessary chapter, they can go at a slower pace, taking more time to understand each concept thoroughly. This can be of extremely helpful to them. A recent study has found out that ninety percent of the students are unable to do simple calculations such as adding the cost of items without the use of a pencil and paper or the calculator. If everyday Mathematics is impressed upon, this situation need not occur.

I have brought out some of the demerits of further discoveries in this subject with the hope that you would consider it. Please take your time and decide on the necessary actions to be taken.

Thank you

Yours Sincerely

Meena”

By the time father finished reading, three pairs of eyes were on me. There was another awkward silence which was again broken by the Principal. She addressed my parents, “This unique entry by Meena has won the first prize and the recognition from a magazine editor who wanted to publish this piece of art.”

Beaming with immense pride and joy, mother patted my shoulders. The drive back home was lit with smiling faces.

‘4 August 2021

Wednesday

Dear Diary,

Today, the most astonishing incident took place. We were informed that the portion in Mathematics for us had been reduced from twelve chapters to three chapters. The printing of new books is in progress. I am really amazed that my one moderate idea of a formal letter writing has impacted our Mathematics syllabus. In class, I even received a lot of compliments from my friends, thanking me for successfully reducing the portions. Who knew the places my simple idea could lead to?’   

I penned down.

Again, under the flickering light of the torch I looked at the paper, admiring what I had achieved. I had become famous in just a week’s time; from a naughty little girl in school to someone who is liked and respected by everyone.

It doesn’t matter if your ideas are small or big, whether someone feels its silly or great. What matters is that you are willing to take it forward.

I was playing in my house when I saw a man cutting a tree outside the street. I could clearly see that the tree was shedding tears and the crows sitting on the tree were cawing very loudly. He took no notice of them and continued to swing his axe against the trunk.

It pained me. This was the sixth tree they were cutting in this week. I wanted to do something, but I felt helpless. After all, what could I have done with the stupid gift of being able to understand plants and control them? Here, I was a person who could understand their pain but unable to defend them.

I saw my grandmother step out of the house. She was going to try reason with them. Again.  My grandmother had been trying to stop them from cutting the previous six trees but they kept giving excuses. First, they said that they needed more trees to produce paper. Yesterday, they said that it was Government order and took away two of our trees.

This filled me with anger. How dare they take our silence for granted. I had to do something- something to make them leave and never come back again. Something- but what? I couldn’t just will that man to stop cutting the apple tree or the tree to run away. That would be like making soup out of sausage peg.

But I could- of course I could. I could will the apples to fall on his head. Afterall, it was my command they were waiting for. I willed the raw ones with all my might to fall on his head. And lo behold they fell on his head like a volley of arrows. He wielded his axe above his head to shield himself but a few of them still struck him.

Next, I willed the bhrami creeper nearby to place him outside our street. It first twirled itself around the person’s legs and clasped them tight. Next, he was gently lifted fifty meters into the air and placed on the pavement, just outside our street. His face was worth seeing when he was lifted up. His face was a mixture of honest surprise, shock and horror. All others who witnessed this marvel were surprised as well. My grandmother was the only one who understood the truth when she saw my mischievous round face plopping outside the window.

The man returned back; the axe lifted in a defensive position. On my bidding, the tree flung one of the beehives towards him. It landed just beside him and out sprouted a swarm of angry bees. They chased him so much that I later heard that he developed Xylophobia. When our problem was solved, I saw the leaves shedding tears of happiness. I saw the bhrami creeper bowing down to me. I think the crows and bees were saluting me.

So friends, if you have any such talents, don’t hesitate to use them to protect Nature.

First Story from Sahana Vinod which won the 3rd Prize in Eco-Fest Competition organized by Bhumi through Young World – The Hindu Newspaper

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