Story

I like to hear stories. I didn’t value them when my grandma used to weave a magical world just with her words and make the story telling into a proper dramatic performance. But now, I want to be told a story every night. I ask the husband to tell me a story, but he isn’t very keen. So yesterday I asked him to play a game where we each tell one line, and the other builds up another line over it to form a story.

Of course, the first 10 mins were spent in joking about it. He said, “There was a little boy in a house.” I asked, “What’s his name?” Husband then scolded me for asking a question and said, “His name is Sandeep. The end.” 😦 We started the whole exercise again and came up with this.

There was a little boy. He was 6 years old. It was summer holidays and he was bored and lonely. His house was on the other side of the river bank, while the rest of the village was on this side. He wanted to go to the village to pluck mangoes. He liked to steal mangoes from a tree in particular house. He waited at the river bank for the boatman to take him to the village. But the boatman wouldn’t agree because he was really young and didn’t have enough coins. The little boy then saw his older brother and his friends playing a few meters away. He asked the brother to take him to the other side. The older brother was really annoyed as he didn’t want his little brother to show up and embarrass him when he was pretending to be so cool with his friends. But the little brother just kept standing there, hoping for the older brother to give in.

The older brother and his friends finally decided to take the younger brother across. So they all set out in the next boat. Within 5 minutes they left the little brother at the other side. It took the little boy a few minutes to realize that although his brother had helped him cross, he was actually left at a spot a few kilometers away from the actual village. The older brother had taken his revenge.

The little boy was confused and wanted to cry when something shiny on a tree a few meters away caught his eye. He walked towards the tree all excited. But as he reached the tree, he realized that the shiny object was much higher up than he thought. So the little boy started climbing the tree. His knees and arms were getting scratched as he wasn’t used to climbing a tree, and his little feet couldn’t get a good grip. Finally, after half an hour he managed to reach where the object was. He saw that it was a smooth piece of stone that shone when the sunlight reflected on it. But he saw that a bird was actually holding the stone. The bird kept staring at the boy curiously for a few seconds before flying off. Disappointed, the boy surveyed his surroundings from the top and spotted a pile of similar stones a few yards away.

He climbed down the tree and started walking towards the shiny pile. His disappointment only increased when he realized that the pile was actually pieces of broken glass that shone due to the sun. He was about to walk towards the village disappointed, when he spotted a stone. A stone very similar to what the bird had. Only a part of it was visible above the earth but the rest of it was hidden deep under. The boy tried to scrape off the mud, but the stone didn’t move. He then picked up sharp stone and tried again, but no luck. The bird had been watching the little boy from the top. In fact, he had been hovering over the boat and had seen how sad and lonely the boy felt. The bird flew down and helped the boy dig the area around the stone with his beak. The little boy finally got the stone. He petted the bird with love and happy, trotted off to the village to pluck mangoes.

As he neared his favorite house, he started feeling a little scared. The owner of the house was a mean, old man who was known to thrash anyone caught stealing mangoes with a long thin cane. But the mangoes in his house were just the best. And they looked so inviting and plump. The boy was also hungry with all the tree climbing and walking. He picked up a stone and aimed at the ripe, golden mango nearest to him. Unfortunately, the stone hit the window and made a loud noise. The mean man, as if waiting for an opportunity to thrash someone, came out with his cane. He looked huge and was red with anger. The little boy froze in place as he saw the mean man nearing him. He was in tears as the man approached him with the cane. And then the man just passed him by and started yelling, looking for the culprit. He kept circling around the boy, calling out names and running around frustrated.

That’s when the boy realized that the shiny stone made him invisible. Happy, he walked back to the river bank and took the boat all alone. He just had to climb in. He could come back for the mango tomorrow.