seed #353
Once upon a time there lived a boy called Chintu. He had turned 9 only three days back, the day on which his fourth tooth fell much to his dismay. He lived with his grandma and his parents in a small hut on the plains of Mansukhgunj, a place whose mention you won’t find on any map. You may try asking your geography teacher or search on the internet, but it will be futile. You either live in Mansukhgunj or you don’t get to reach it. You can’t locate it and then go there like you travel to other places.
It’s a place with beautifully tilled earth, vast fields and farmlands that stretched till the point the earth ends or so it was assumed in Mansukhgunj, that the earth was flat. Very few people lived in Mansukhgunj, where song birds chirp and the breeze brings you enchanting scents of clover and cardamom from distant lands. Chintu’s parents were pillow makers. Though they lived a life of poverty and ate mostly cabbage soup and puffed rice, Chintu was a happy child, he loved making paper planes, playing football with his friend Kuttu in the the big fields, watched the clouds and draw houses with chalk on his slate, but his favourite part of the day was hearing stories about the great many mysteries of Mansukhgunj from his grandma in the flickering lamplights.
Out of all the stories the one he loved the most was about the famous seven rainbows of MansukhGunj, a phenomenon that took place only once in 100 years. “Tomorrow, 100 years of the 7 rainbows will be complete, Chintu, you may be lucky to see it all happen in the sky. But now you must go to sleep, it is already quite late.” Chintu would not have taken her grandma’s words so seriously had it not started raining that night. And you must know rainfall in Mansukhgunj is rare, it is mostly bright and sunny. Chintu had hardly seen rain, but heard about it in his grandma’s stories and he knew that rainbows came out after rain. All these things made him so excited that he could not sleep the whole night. He tossed and turned and thought of waking up his grandma numerous times but somehow controlled himself. Early in the morning he woke up after catching little sleep. The entire night he tried to decide which spot would be best to view the rainbow from, he could not decide between the tulip fields or the marigold field, but after a lot of thinking he chose to view it from the rice fields which had full grown stalks of beautiful maze. He ran to the rice field without even brushing his teeth and having his usual breakfast of puffed rice and water. He was perfectly sure once the drizzle ends the rainbows would appear. He once thought of asking Kuttu to come with him but decided against it because he didn’t want to waste a single moment. He wanted to see the rainbows all by himself when it appeared. By the time he reached the fields it was not drizzling any more, instead it began raining in torrents. He barely took shelter underneath an ancient adobe house, as the rains came down heavily drumming on its roof. It was perhaps the first time he was seeing rainfall since his birth. Hours went by but the rain refused to stop, it poured through the roof and trickled through pores of the shed.
Chintu felt like crying, he was hungry and felt tired. He crouched at the little corner where the raindrops were not trickling and fell asleep. When he woke up, two hours had passed. His clothes were drenched, he was coughing, he did not know what was happening because he had hardly ever coughed in his life. He was scared and rose up to his feet and came out of the shed. The hard tilled soil had become swampy, his feet almost got dug in that. A chirping bird drew his attention and he raised his head. The day was back to normal as if it had never rained. The skies of Masukhganj were bluer than the kashmiri skies and now it was a blue that would fill any heart with joy. But that did not please Chintu one bit, he remembered why he was there, he felt really angry at his grandmother for giving him wrong information, he was about to leave when it happened. One by one. Like a magic trick popping out the blue. The rainbows appeared in all their beauty.. He became full of happiness. He danced for a while as he wanted to go and hug her grandmother but alas, his happiness was short lived, given all this wait for so long braving the rain, poor Chintu couldn’t hold back his tears when the rainbows disappeared in a moment as if they were never there.
Chintu returned home and for days to come he would be sad because everything seemed dull in comparison to what he had witnessed. He would not go out of the home and searched for the rainbows in the blue MansukhGunj sky. His father wanted to often take him on his bicycle to Mr Karlekar’s house (who was his father’s boss), something that Chintu had always wanted to do but he sadly declined the offer. “Where did the rainbows disappear?” finally he asked grandmother. His grandmother understood that Chintu was really sad, so she had to make up a story to make him feel good. “Oh, the rainbows belong to an old man who lives in Mansukh Gunj; nobody has seen him but he is older than hills, he gets these rainbows for display once in every 100 years but takes them back, so that anybody else does not tear them or steal them. He is really possessive about his rainbows.” Chintu was not convinced upon hearing it. That night he dreamt of the rainbows. Weeks passed. Chintu began to forget about the rainbows. Some months passed. He almost completely forgot about the rainbows, though he would be reminded of that moment of beauty that he had witnessed and the joy in his heart and the sadness that he felt when they all disappeared. He would often narrate the experience to his friend Kuttu who would not believe him. That would make Chintu really angry.
One day his father took him to the market. They were carrying a bunch of pillows that his father had made. He held the pillows on the backseat of his father’s bicycle till his hands became sore. His father took the pillows and asked him to visit Mr.Karlekar’s house and take from him as he would give him a box. “Mr Karlekar has been informed that you would be going to collect the packet, he is a strict man, so behave yourself and keep that packet he gives you. Bring it safe to me.” His father pointed at the big brown house and cycled away towards the market. While entering he noticed that It was the only house with a garden. He had heard about Mr karlekar.. He was his father’s boss. He did not really know what this man exactly did but he had heard from his father that his man was famous for his anger..
However, that did not stop Chintu from feeling happy, all he ever wanted was to be considered a grown up. He knocked on his door that was made of burnished teak wood. A young man opened the door and smiled, “I am Chintu, my father sent me.” Chintu said to the man.
“Ah, Chintu, I am the housekeeper, wait I will give you the packet Mr Karlekar told me to hand over to you. He had handed over the packet to Chintu when the land phone rang loudly. The housekeeper man rushed to get the phone, visibly scared. Chintu took the packet and looked up. He saw a very beautiful chandelier dangling from the ceiling and picture frames of a young man. That must be Mr Karlekar.
Unmindfully the packet fell from his hand which made a loud thud and the seal of the packet ripped open. Chintu was amused to see pillow covers, most of them were red in colour made of silk. Now he got to know that Mr karlekar gave his father the pillow cover he would keep fitting his pillows into. He bent forward to repack these when a heavy voice called out his name. “Chintu” turned around and saw an old man with a face like cracked soil, standing with a brown packet in his hand. Chintu understood it could be none other than Mr Karlekar but he was way older than the man in the picture frames. “Come here Chintu ” Chintu knew that Mr. Karlekar would punish him and would complain to his father about his behaviour, his father would then scold him real bad.
Chintu inched towards him with fear and looked at him. The old man was wearing a blue satin robe. He observed him with fear as the old man gave him the brown packet he was holding in his hand. ”Open it” he commanded. Chintu’s eyes gleamed upon unwrapping it. It was a curtain. But that was not just about it, he knew it was no ordinary curtain, it was just one of the 7 rainbows. He was thrilled to know that his father Mr Karlekar’s boss was the old man his grandma had mentioned. His father perhaps had no idea about him and he wanted to tell him. “Don’t tell anyone what you know about me to anyone” The old man smiled and added. “This is your birthday gift, Happy belated birthday, Chintu. Now go, your father must be waiting for you at the market. Chintu smiled and ran back. His happiness knew no bounds. He had one of the rainbows. He gave his father the pillow covers and hugged him really tight. And showed him the curtain Mr Karlekar had given him.
Later that night as Chintu slept with his grandmother, in the other room Chintu’s parents were fitting their pillows in the covers. “Mr Karlekar’s pillow covers are the best.” asserted Chintu’s father.
“He has been really kind to give Chintu this expensive curtain” his mother added as she knitted a yellow wool into a sweater for Chintu.
“Yes I think the housekeeper had told him because I mentioned to him it was Chintu’s birthday recently and that the sun falls on his eyes every morning upsetting his sleep. That is really a kind gesture from him.” he smiled and added “ He had remembered to pack the gift for Chintu, despite not being home, that is really sweet of him.” He said smiling to his wife knowing very little about the reality.
Meanwhile in his dreams Chintu was standing on the rice field and looking at the blue skies of MansukhGunj as he could see Me Karlekar spread 6 of his rainbows across the skies and take them back 5 minutes later. Grandma had known the story from Chintu and was pleasantly surprised, though not quite as she knew stories did become true in Mansukhgunj
Magaj INC 