The Story of a Boy and a Girl..

Their talks may begin from gardening to stories in the school textbooks. Most of the time they run on parallel tracks with no point of intersection. The Boy tends to be engrossed in self-prescribed duties, while the girl likes to chatter about her school, lessons etc (I know that the guys reading this must be thinking…”how typically girlish!”, no offence taken but that’s a general perception…) By large it is an odd conversation that takes place…For instance the boy says “Do you know we have to water the plants for them to grow”…and the girl says “Lali ki bakri kho gayi thi…(Lali had lost her goat)”….well that’s the way it goes…

This odd pair spends most of their evenings playing in mud, cycling, leveling the ground, jumping under trees and many such activities. I tend to observe them from the kitchen window, hidden from their view…

One afternoon I was manning my post as usual at the kitchen window when the boy walked towards the garden holding a rod with a slight bend at the end.   At first I thought it must be something he must have picked just for fun, but later on I realized that it was supposed to be a pickax (a tool used to dig holes). His companion arrived just after empty handed….

The task of digging is highly energy consuming, and requires great deal of patience as without proper tools the mud tends to fall back into the pit. The boy started digging, sound of metal hitting the ground followed by a tiny moan. Metal meets ground. And the moan.. and so on….The girl asked ” what are you doing?” The boy replied “I am digging a hole to grow a plant”…Ohhhh!!! the girl exclaimed….

Well after some extra human efforts he did succeed in making a hole, using the rod and his tiny hands as tools. The success must have encouraged him as he moved on to a new spot to make another hole. Which was closely followed by another, and yet another…So after some time the tiny patch right in front of our kitchen was converted into maze of tiny holes (the kind that could hold a table tennis ball at the most)..

All this while the girl was either watching or busy playing some weird game which I could not decipher. When the boy had dug a few holes the girl seemed to catch an interest in the proceedings, so she sweetly asked the boy whether she could help. Why not just join in said the boy. The Girl chose a spot to dig, but unfortunately the place she had chosen had a small rock. As she understood that digging on a rock surface would be futile she decided to move the rock first… She dug at the sides slowly and keenly, removed the mud that stuck to it, slowly shook the rock and after some time managed to pry the rock out…And what did she find???? 

The place where the rock sat was carved into a well-shaped hole. It was naturally formed. With great excitement she cried out to the boy “hey there is already a hole here, come see”…The boy who was all along busy digging, replied in a matter of fact manner “So what, No problem….. just dig elsewhere…”

With this the girl lost her enthusiasm and went back to playing. The boy started planting twigs in the holes he had made..piled up mud around them and managed to make them stand..Went into his home, came back with a glass filled with mineral water and watered his plants…….With that final act his work for the day ended, and he and his friend walked back to their respective homes.

Kids are pure at heart, they tend to follow the rules of hard work rather than smart work. It is the innocence that makes them do so. That is the very reason why a well made natural hole was totally ignored and a tiny hole made by one’s own hands appraised. Hoping to find such innocence, its Satrangee Parachute flying on……..