Five Word Challenge July 20: Strawberry

"Tell me a story", demanded Rima after our Sunday meal. This was part of our sacred Sunday routine. Every Sunday, she visited us around eleven in the morning, dressed in a prim frock with her handkerchief folded in a triangle and clipped to her frock with a plastic strawberry clip. Despite having silky curly hair that flew in the wind and gave her a wild look, she was a very serious child. She was always scowling and pursing her mouth, as if to say, "Oh! I noticed that! That was a bad, bad thing to do!"

Rima was my niece. I loved her. At fifteen, an age when I hated everything and everybody, she was like my hope wrapped in a yellow fragrant light. Sometimes when I didn’t understand anything and sat in my corner crying and shivering, she came and stood by me quietly, pursing her lips and gently patting me on the back.

Anyways, I knew that I had to tell her a story. I even knew which story, it was the one I told her every Sunday! So I sighed and began.

"This is a story about a strawberry."

"Hahaha! Like the one on my frock?"

"Yes. Now listen quietly. This is a story about a strawberry. The strawberry was very pretty. She lived in Calcutta with her mother and father. She went to Calcutta Girls’ School."

"Oh my God! The strawberry is just like me!"

That was the other trick of telling her a story. There had to be gratifying references to her in nearly all the sentences. Only then would she certify it to be a good story.

"The strawberry had a grandmother who cooked very well. But she didn’t know how to make ice cream. This made the strawberry very sad, because she loved having ice cream. The grandmother couldn’t bear to see the strawberry so sad. So every Sunday she bought the strawberry some yummy ice cream. This made the strawberry very happy and she lived happily ever after."

"You know aunt, even I like ice cream."

"I know that."

"Will you buy me some ice cream in the evening?"

"I might buy you some ice cream if you sing for me now."

She didn’t need much coaxing. She loved to sing, or, what she thought was singing. Loudly and very off key, she started lisping all the hymns she was being taught at school. They went something like,

Milo loves me

(My Lord loves me)

His love nay yyy

(His love will never end)

And so on…

This used to be the brightest moment of my weekend. The joy and innocence in that little child’s voice filled the house and the neighborhood, and we all smiled from wherever we were- father in the garden, mother in the kitchen, neighbors in their balconies. If angels had an euphony, it would sound like this.

Many, many years have passed since then. Rima is nineteen now. She is a shy, quiet girl, and just about an average student at school. She sings very tunefully. She doesn’t have any nieces.

I  am thirty-one. I am scared of bringing up children, and don’t want any of my own. When I am with my friends’ children, I pet them abstractedly and shoo them away. The fierce, almost feral instinct of loving little children is gone. I don't miss it.

Sometimes I feel I could abnegate all the power in the world to get back the love and the idealism of my youth. But the next moment I smile and shake my head, for I know that that's not what I really want.