the boy

Write Tribe Wednesday Prompt - 27 November 2013

This week use the photograph below as your prompt. Write your thoughts, a story, a poem on your blog.

credit: Morgue File (http://mrg.bz/jnYWqY)


He had come to say good-bye to me. He looked smart in his casuals and a satchel on his back.

He walked into my house of bricks and stone with his footwear leaving imprints of wet mud. He called out my name and I came running from the kitchen. Removing the satchel from his shoulders , he cupped his palms and said ."take , these are for you."
My eyes glistened at the sight of the big red , green and yellow marbles. I cupped my tiny palms and he poured them into mine with some marbles bouncing on the rough floor to roll away towards the corners of the room.

I saw him go but only for a moment and my sight and joy was concentrated in the cupped palms. Now I had so many marbles to play with.

But it was no fun playing all alone between 'my' house and the big yellow mansion where he lived. I longed for his company but in his company I had never won any game.

Amma told me that he had gone to a boarding school to study and become a 'big saheb' just like his father. I was happy for him. I wished he could take me along. Wish, I too ,  could study and play marbles in the evening with him. But amma sternly said that study is the prerogative of the rich and I should accompany her to help her to wash the dishes , in the big yellow mansion.

After a hard day's work , I had very less time to admire the marbles.


The marbles lay  in a pearl-pet jar just like my joys.


Later amma kept the marble jar in the cupboard away from my gaze.





Now I manage all the domestic work in the big yellow mansion. I light a small 'diya' in front of amma's photo and feel the marbles with my palms.  The red, green and yellow marbles are no longer big to my adult eyes and have lost the sheen. Yet in them I try to search for my lost girl-hood days that disappeared with the mud-stained feet.



There was a knock on my door. Who could it be at this time of the night? I adjusted my sari 'pallu' and opened the door. A man stood at the door, smiling. And when I lowered my gaze , I saw his cupped palms , full of glistening red, green and yellow marbles. He walked in with his footwear on. With the mud-stained imprint on the floor and the marbles in his palms, I have regained my childhood , my joys. 






                                               FOR : WRITE TRIBE