Thursday, October 12, 2006


Rahul was sitting by the edge of a pond and pulling out bits of grass as he sat and stared into space. He was verrry bored. School was closed for the holidays and most of his friends were away. Since his family had guests staying with them they had to stay at home. The guests were friends of his parents. Rahul liked them but they were GROWN UPS ! He spent a little time with them everyday but then slipped out when they started talking grown up stuff. Usually no one noticed! Sometimes he rode his cycle around the garden or went and stared at the dog next door ,but today the dog was just lying around with his tongue hanging out because it was a really hot day. So he went and sat at the edge of the pond near his house.
It was cool there, sometimes he saw a frog snap out it's tongue and catch a fly. which was really disgusting but interesting as well. He loved to see the disgusted look on his sister's face when he described it to her! His sister turned up her nose at soooooooooo many things it was easy for Rahul to irritate her! He did that a lot now since he had so much time and not much to do. But she was spending the day at her friend's house so Rahul walked around till he reached the pond.
There were stones lying around and he absent mindedly started throwing them into the pond...one at a time. They fell in with a nice 'Plunk' and then there were ripples around the place where they fell in. He threw in one, two, three,four, five and picked up the sixth one. It felt cool in his hand and smooth. Curiously he looked at it. It was round and shiny. Also really white.
As he was looking at it he heard his mother calling him so he put the stone in his pocket and went home.
The next day was a rainy day. And not a drizzly kind of rain either. It poured down and soaked everything outside. Soon the house was surrounded with water that was a few inches deep and still it kept on raining! It was so dark they had to switch on the lights. It was the kind of day when there was nothing to do but get on your elder sister's nerves! So Rahul followed his sister around and asked her questions till she screamed and started throwing things at him. His mother was really embarassed since the guests could hear so she called him and said 'Rahul,why don't you go to your room and do some holiday homework?' Rahul tried explaining to her that he had just been asking his sister questions but she did'nt seem interested and went on and on about homework so he went to his room.
He went to his desk and started shifting his books around and then he saw the stone he had picked up at the pond. It looked really round and smooth! He noticed the box of paints that his parent's friends had given him lying on the desk and he opened it. They were really bright acrylic colours. There was also a brush. Rahul looked at the colourful paints and then at the smooth white shiny stone. It seemed to him that the pale stone would look better with some colour on it! He mixed the paint with water and dipped his brush in it. Then almost absentmindedly started painting the stone. He put on some red paint, some blue, some black and pink....finally he stopped and looked at it. He was a little surprised! He seemed to have painted a face on the stone without meaning to! It had bright red hair, black eyes, a round nose and a mouth.
Rahul kept staring at the face on the stone. He turned it this way and that, he threw it up in the air and caught it again and then looked at it again.

Then he almost threw it away beca
use the face suddenly frowned! He set it down on the table and took a couple of steps back!
"How would you like it " the face on the Stone said " if someone threw you up and down?" Then it went on frowning. "I'm sorry" stammered Rahul. Stones were not suposed to do that, they were supposed to maintain a 'stony silence', he thought; and giggled a bit in a scared sort of way.
"I didn't know you were alive." He felt quite silly talking to a stone but didn't know what else to do.
"Why?" The Stone asked.
"Well, because you were just lying there I suppose, like a stone"
"I am a stone. That's what I do. That's what all stones do. It is the essence of being a stone. Do you think just because we don't keep moving around like you people we don't have a place in this world and you can just pick us up and throw us around ?!!"
Rahul blinked! He thought he must be dreaming! He could hear his sister complaining about him to a friend on the phone, and that gave him a sense of reality but he still felt it was all bit too much! Meanwhile the Stone was getting angrier and angrier!
"There I was, lying down, minding my own business, being a part of the bank of the pond and then you come along and put me in your pocket along with all sorts of things that have been lying in it for God knows how long! Then you paint me all over! Would you like it if someone painted you?!"
Rahul thought maybe he wouldn't, but some of the smaller children he knew seemed to think it was rather cool to have their faces painted!
The Stone was now hopping around in anger. "But I'm not at all surprised! It's exactly what you People do!"
"What People?" asked Rahul.
"You People " the Stone said"Human Beings! You walk around like you own the place and use whatever you want and destroy whatever you want with not a second thought! Everything has it's own importance in this universe, you know! Even the moon is a rock, though it's much bigger than me, of course! Would you treat it the way you treated me?!"
By now Rahul thought the Stone had a point and was beginning to feel a bit ashamed of himself.
"I could take you back," he said.
The Stone calmed down a bit. "Well, OK!" it said. "I suppose you didn't know any better. There was a family of tiny insects who lived under me and are probably getting soaked in the rain right now, but I'll let that pass."
Rahul had to wait till the next day for the rain to stop and take the Stone back, but thankfully it stayed quiet after that! All that talking and hopping around had probably exhausted it!
The next morning he took the Stone back and put it down where he had picked it up from. It settled into the mud and gave Rahul a crooked smile with it's painted-on mouth! Rahul sat next to it for a while and then went home.
He went to visit it again the next day but couldn't find it. There was no Stone there with a painted face. It had rained again and probably the paint had all got washed off! Then he saw a stone that was surrounded with some runny colours. He saw that it was the Stone. but now it looked like any other stone! Rahul was happy. He had sort of put things right!
He told Shivani what happened and she asked him a silly question."Rahul, do you think we will all be able to put things right and get the world back to how it was before we interfered so much with it? What do you think we should do?"
Now you know what you have to do before I tell you what Rahul said!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

thts really an inspiring story :)-sanaa

Anonymous said...

this is really such a cute idea and i love the style -- keep up the good work, will def. pass this blog around
cheers /shameem

Anonymous said...

We can make the world a little of what it was before by
1] cleaning the garbage dumped around everywhere.
2]not polluting the air with smoke
3]not choking the rivers. lakes, ponds, streams,with garbage.
4]by planting more trees and not cutting the ones that are there.

Bindu said...

Thank you, Akhilesh. I wish everyone would do that and treat mother earth as we would our own mothers, with love and kindness.

Anonymous said...

it is time that evryone realises that everthinghas its own importance be it a stone or an elephant and that earth is earth bcuz of all the things on it.lets try not to interfere with nature!

Bindu said...

I agree! But is there anything we can do to put things right?

Anonymous said...

it was a nice and enjoyable story