The Coin Tragedy
.jpg "five rupee coin")
One of the most
important things our parents and teachers try in vain to teach us as kids is
“understanding the value of money”. Every time we asked our parents for a penny to
buy an ice-cream or any of those childish things, we were exposed to two long
hours of lecture- on how our dads and moms put all their effort to support the
family. Little do they know that each one of the words emitted by them at that
time are effortlessly converted and penetrate into our ears in the form of
ice-creams, chocolates and toys.
It is said that
experience is the best teacher. The person who said these wise words might
have, in his lifetime, gone through something like this:
Location: a not very dense forest, Hardoi, Uttar
Pradesh, India.
Date: Somewhere
in the month of may.
Out of the many
enjoyable pastimes during the summer vacations, summer camp was the most
awaited one. Not just was it an enjoyment for the kids but parents too, felt
relieved in the absence of their 24x7 hungry young ones whose belly size was
directly proportional with the number of holidays left.
This time the
summer camp was fixed at a small lodge at Hardoi, not very far off from our
actual place. Some of those whom I remember accompanying me were Chunnu,
Sharanya, Astitwa, Mannya, Shikha, Sargam and others who are going to kill me
for not mentioning their names here. Anyhow, after a fun-filled travel of one
hour, we reached the palace we had been dreaming off since the announcement of
the camp.
The first day
passed with nothing but in remembering the names of children who had come from
other units. It was obvious that we were in no need of knowing the names as we
all had inherited the great skill of naming others on the basis of their
physical characteristics. A fat bellied one would be “watermelon”, while one
who showed no interest in eating was called “stickman” or “dhancha (skeleton)”.
A heavily stretched one would be a “khamba (lamp post)” and so on. Now let me
come to the story-
Sense of humor, a
talent not possessed by every man. But Chandan(name changed) was not among the
“every man”. He had been enriched with such a skill that while his mouth was
shut, his body would tire hard to bring seventy millimeter smile on the face of
viewers. Chandan had planned to take us along with him, to a nearby forest
which of course was not home to the wild beasts. We reached the spot by four in
the evening an after filling every square inch of our stomach with ice-creams
(a by-product of Chandan’s almost empty wallet), we started off to see the
beauty of that forest. India is filled
with architectural marvels, and one of the most popular among them is the Railway
track. The sight of one such track would surely raise a doubt in you and
you would come out with a suggestion- Why not put a “use-me” board alongside?
I don’t think we
regarded it as a shooting spot but we soon found ourselves clicking pictures
sitting on the tracks. The fun was short-lived as a train came head-on towards
us with a rattling sound. We at once cleared the area and prepared ourselves to
wave the passengers a good bye. And yes, we ended up waving goodbyes…….. to a
goods train. The train had passed and we were chatting about those imaginary people
who waved back at us. But one of us soon discovered that Chandan, with solid
tears in his glary, deep eyes was searching for something. We were moved and we
thought of helping him search for the thing which had been lost by Chandan. After
about half an hour of futile search, we decided to ask him what he had lost. “
A fat five rupee coin”- he declared with his wet throat, finding it hard to
control his tears. The search began again and one of us laid eyes on a bright
shining thing on the steel track. The coin had been found but the only regret
Chandan had was that it was of no more use to anyone. The fat coin was now thin
and flat as no Indian roads are.
0 comments:
Post a Comment