Kids Short Story – A day in the life of a 5 rupee coin…
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
I wake up to a new morning with the sun’s beautiful rays falling on me. I get up to see myself in the mirror and Lo! my deep silver carvings have gone and i am all golden! Unlike my ancestors who were heavy and famous for the joke “oh! you are so thin, keep a 5 rupee coin in your pocket or you will fly away” among the humans, i have disastrously lost weight, beating the tradition of the ancestral joke!
With a heavy heart, i get ready to look for an owner for myself, hoping that my “value” does not reduce as has my size and weight! As I start walking, I see young men and women neatly dressed in office suits and ties, exchanging smart hand shakes and a handsome amount on their cheques. I understand that I hold no value here, i cannot fit myself between the 0’s of the lakhs of the amount they possess.
I walk further and find children playing on the street. There is a young boy wearing branded shoes and clothes, standing with the bat. Thinking children to be the most innocent creatures of mankind, i decide to give myself away to him. I go and rest very delightedly in the pocket of his branded jeans, relieved on finding an owner. After the game, the child goes home. I wait for him to take me out of his pocket and put me in his piggy bank. But the spoilt rich child does not even bother. He changes his clothes hangs his jeans behind the door and starts playing on his tablet! I creep to the edge of his jeans pocket and see him. Sigh innocence!
Next day, the kaamwali bai comes and washes his jeans. I didn’t know surviving is such a menace! I am washed away in the soap and it’s foam chokes me. When the cruel bai hangs the jeans on the gallery, i jump out of the jeans, only to find myself on a crowded road below.
The honks from the vehicles make me deaf, i see people all around me running like mad men. I lie there, under their feet, getting pushed and hit by all the strange creatures there, wondering what disaster is making them run in all different directions. Nobody notices me!
As the sun sets, i lie there, covered with mud, stinking with the day’s smell of restlessness, agony, impatience, and competitiveness. As i start to give up hope of finding a “true” owner, i see a little girl running towards me. A young girl, her face dirty with mud, not dirtier than mine though, wearing a tattered frock. She runs towards me, pick me up and jumps in the air.
She turns around and starts walking, maybe towards her home. As she walks, she talks to me.
“Now i can put you in my piggy bank for my doll.”
A mile more and she looks at me again and says, “No, you are for my brother’s shoes…yes!”
Yet another mile and she says, “Final decision, you are for the leaking roof in my hut. I will wait for my doll and tell brother that his shoes will come next week.
A tear drops from my eyes. More tears rolling down wipe away all the mud from me revealing my golden body to her. I shine brightly and beam at her and at myself. I have finally found someone who cherishes my being with her, who builds dreams with me, I have found my “true” owner!
__END__
