S9: "A Cup of Coffee and A Scoop of Vanilla"

It was a sunny day and was around 11 am, I went to CCD, ordered a cup of cappuccino and I sat on the chair where WE always sit.

I was sitting there peeping through the window into the petrol bunk next to it.

‘Oi’, he smiled. ‘Here’, he gave me the two extra sugar packets which I asked for. He sat in front of me callously eating the vanilla scoops.

My eyes laid totally on him, blinking slowly and feeling every breath seeing him and I don’t know why this happens, whenever I see him, the rest of the world will get blurred. May be I should ask my eyes about it or even better I should ask my heart.

‘I am so happy for you baby’, he said finishing his first scoop. He looked at me and smiled.

Till then I was not feeling any drops of happiness. I was selected for an MNC yesterday. From the moment he said he was happy, I was feeling all the happiness at once. It was like he just opened the gates of my happiness dam and it started flowing euphorically.

I smiled and said,’ I want to say something. I wanted to say this since a long time and I want to say it now’.

He smiled in a way that he already knew what I was going to say.

‘What?’, he asked expecting the words to spill out of my mouth.

My heart started thumping so hard that my eardrums were completely filled with its sound. My eyes started to count each and every corner of that place and were avoiding his eyes.

‘It’s ok! Tell me, what is the matter?’ he asked again.

I finally gathered each and every beat of my heart and try to pull the feelings out of my mouth which were hiding deep inside my heart.

‘We are best friends since two years and umm .. I want to say that I want you more. I want to spend with you till my last breath and’, I paused and took a deep breath and said ‘I love you Achyuth’.

My hands were shivering and by hearing these words he kept looking down for a few minutes and filled the atmosphere with deep silence. I started worrying. The what-if’s took over my brain and started terrifying me ‘What if he say no’ ,’ What if he ends the relation with me’, ‘what if he just walks away’, ‘what if something fall into my coffee’, ‘what’.

‘Achyu’, I said keeping all the what-if’s aside.

‘Ha’, he replied looking up straight into my eyes.

He stood up. I felt like he is going to leave. My heart beats were nowhere in control.

He looked into my eyes and kneeled down in front of everyone. He took my hands and said, ‘Will you marry me?’.

That one sentence stopped all my senses and I don’t know how to depict my happiness. I showed him with my happy tears and said ‘Yes’.

He kissed on my hand. I never felt so special. My brain kept searching for the words in the dictionary to explain how am I feeling while my heart was somewhere in the clouds and its every beat was chanting his name.

He was saying something about our future but I was so lost in his eyes that no words were reaching my ears.

Suddenly a voice came from nowhere. ‘Mam your coffee’. I blinked my eyes and turned to my left. The waitress came with my coffee and placed it on the table. I was dazed and kept looking at her without any word. ‘Mam Are you ok’, she said.

I shook my head and stammered, ‘Yeah I am fine’.

‘You want anything else mam’, she asked bending forward.

‘No thank you’, I said.

I shifted my eyes to the chair in front of me. It was empty. It was missing someone whom it had had seen with me a hundred times before. My eyes were wet and they fell on the words on the coffee cup.

My lips smiled after reading the words, ‘A lot can happen over a coffee’.

Oh yes. It was last year I was sitting with him making fun and mixing my coffee in his vanilla. And today I was sitting alone without him and my coffee without its vanilla. My heart which hopped on to the roller coaster ride with him fell down on the ground. It was injured very badly and was still recovering.

I bended forward and said, ‘Coffee, I know what u r feeling. U may be wondering where your vanilla is, it may be somewhere happy with its new partner. It’s just you and me now’.

I finished my coffee looking at the empty chair and took a lungful of air and moved from there.

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S8: "Prince and The Unknown Bane"

Between the rustling of the trees, the hide n seek of the rabbits and the deer who are running for life, came the prince on a black horse with an arrow in his hand aiming at the deer.

He has a muscular body with enticing blue eyes. He is wearing a red velvet suit embroidered with black threads, a golden scabbard with a knife in it along with golden boots up to the knee. He always likes to hunt alone.

While he was aiming at the deer, he finds something glowing behind the tree. He hops down from his horse and walks towards the tree. He was sure that it is not an animal as it was not moving. As he reached there, he notices that it is a small ball of football sized in gold color, glowing magnificently.

He stepped forward, his heart was thumping, his eyes popped out. He tried to touch it with his shivering hands. As soon as he touched it, the shine got disappeared and it turned into a normal white ball. He dropped that ball down and to his astonishment his hands were glowing.

His breath fastened, he widened his eyes and seemed that they will fall down. He was drowned with fear and anxiety. He saw the white ball which was moving on the grass. He picked it up and he saw words appearing in it.

Dear,

Don’t get scared or else the boon will turn into bane.

Ur glowing hands is a boon to u,

Touch any non living thing; it will turn into a living thing.

By reading this, the prince dropped the ball without letting it finish and immediately searched here and there to touch something.

He saw a small round wooden plank of his palm size on the grass; he touched it with his both hands.

In front of his eyes, the wooden plank turned into a living being. It got eyes, ears, nose, hands, legs and everything.

His jaw dropped so down that even the wooden plank can pass through.

‘Thank you your majesty’, the plank bowed to the prince.

At that very moment, the prince felt so powerful and his face was filled with power and something was up his sleeve that he grinned and left.

The wooden plank walked towards the white ball, the words continued.

My Dear, boon always comes along with a bane

If you say no to use this boon for any 3 living beings

Then u will lose your power; Use it well dear

And the ball turned down into ashes.

The wooden plank stood there astounded, as the prince was no where around him.

The prince returned to the palace keeping his chin up and a grin on his face.

He went to his room, spent the whole night keeping his brain under work and suddenly he jumped from his bed, ‘Amazing! This is just amazing!’ he said and then fell asleep.

The next morning he woke up and was ready to experiment the idea his brain gave him last night.

He took a few steps forward and he touched the chair, it turned into a living thing and started moving. His eyes fell on something that they started sparkling. He moved towards his only obsession; Gold.

He touched the gold bar, it came into life.  His eyes lightened up.

‘You’, he said.

‘Yes, Your majesty’, replied the gold bar.

‘I want this whole room full of gold, do u get it?’ said the prince bringing ten more bars to life. He also made diamonds and all the jewels came to life. He went down and touched all the chairs, tables. He made his palace into a magical place.

He threw all the soldiers out of his palace. His daggers, swords stood around his palace for his safety. He became so greedy, mean-spirited misanthrope. He didn’t care for the people in his kingdom.

While he was enjoying his magical power, a man from the kingdom came running to him. He was breathing heavily. He kneeled down before the prince, ‘Your majesty! My wife is dying. Please save her’, he pleaded.

Prince saw him, gave a thought and said, ‘Who allowed you into my palace? Throw him out.’ His callus words broke the heart of the man who came for help. Two giant pillars came towards him. They picked him up and threw him out of the palace.

He returned to his home with a broken heart and a broken hand.

After a moment he left, prince hands shivered without his consent. But the prince didn’t care much about it.

The palace became so invaluable. There are many rooms filled with gold, diamond and jewels. His every costume was made of gold and every accessory was made of diamond and precious jewels.

The next day, as he was walking in his lawn and a pillar holding an umbrella for him and a walking stick was holding fruits for him.

While he was walking, he noticed a rabbit which was injured badly. He stopped and made a snap with his finger, out of a sudden a big dustbin and a broomstick came running to him. He pointed at the rabbit and shouted, ‘I want my lawn clean’.

The broomstick picked the rabbit and put it in the dustbin. Prince walked inside his palace and sat on his throne. His hands started hurting terribly.

Then he saw the wooden plank that he gave life was walking towards him.

‘What is happening, what have u done to me’, the prince yelled.

‘Your majesty, I didn’t do anything. I am here to tell you about the bane u missed to see that day’, he replied bowing down.

‘WHAT BANE?’ he replied in pain.

‘Your majesty, you shouldn’t say NO to three living beings that are in need, if else u will lose your power.’

‘YOU ARE SAYING ME THAT, NOW?’ he said noticing his hands becoming dark red.

‘I started on that very day to inform you majesty and I reached now’, the plank replied making an eye contact with the prince feet.

‘YOU PATHETIC BEING’, the prince walked towards the plank to show his fury. As he was a few steps away from it, it turned into a wooden plank as before, into a non living thing.

He stood there petrified. He had no idea what was going on. The glow in his hands disappeared and they turned to normal.

Before his eyes, his whole creation turned to normal. Everything was falling down and returning to their original state.

He put weight on his brain to think when he said no 3 times. As far as he knows he rejected only two times. He sat on his throne pressurizing his brain. Suddenly an iron ball which returned into its non-living state, along with the golden chandelier fell on his head. He was badly hurt. His head was bleeding and he was screaming in pain.

A golden smoke appeared and said:
‘Dear, u should know that for every boon there will be a bane and u should learn to use it well when the power is in your hands.’

‘But I just rejected two living beings’, he said holding his head.

‘Dear, the woman who u said no was carrying a baby in her womb. With your one NO, u killed them both. Good bye dear, Rest in Peace’, the face in the golden smoke smiled and disappeared. Poof.

 After hearing this, the prince took a deep breath and he closed his regretful eyes with an ashamed smile on his face.

After a few days, the people in the kingdom came to know about the prince. They placed the prince golden crown on the throne and the kingdom lived happily ever after with the gold and diamonds the prince made. Happiness and peace were glittered in the air. And the prince was remembered throughout the ages.

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S7: "CHUMCHUM and the Choco-Jamuns"

One day in the morning, when the class was going on, the P.T. sir came in and announced the notice about inter school competitions.

‘There will be Inter school competitions this weekend. U can choose any sport like running race, slow cycling, quiz, cooking and many more. The list will be pasted on the notice board. U can choose your own game but u can’t choose your opponent. Anyone of you come and pick one paper note out of this’, he said holding a bowl full of paper notes.

Everyone in the class exchanged exclamatory glances with each other and nominated singham with their eyes. She went and picked up a note from the bowl.

‘Ah! You are going to compete against 6^th class students, decide the sport and tell me in the break TODAY’, he said and left.

The whole class was filled with terror as they don’t have any good connections with 6^th class guys and had already been involved in a fight or two.

The class ended and everyone came towards chumchum’s chair.

‘6^th class guys!!! Oh no!’ said kripa.

‘But now we don’t have any choice’, said uffi.

‘But whut we choose? They are faster and stronger than us so we can’t choose any physical sport’, singham said.

‘We will choose quiz’, confidently said vikki.

‘U sure?’, asked aishu.

‘Yes, I am absolutely sure, kumbu u go and tell them that we are choosing quiz’, vikki said and everyone nodded at each other with a relief.

Kumbu went to P.T. sir to tell him. ‘Come come, what do you want, write in this paper and give it to me’, he gave paper and pen to kumbu. He wrote, gave it back and returned to the class.

After the break, P.T. sir entered the class again and announced seeing the note pad, ’Ok You are participating against 6^th class students and You chose COOKING; interesting. Get prepared well for the weekend. All the best.’

By hearing the name COOKING, all the eyes in the class popped out. They had no idea how it happened. Everyone rushed towards kumbu’s table and splashed their angry looks.

‘Whut did u wrote?’ demanded singham. ‘We told u to write quiz’.

Ever-hungry kumbu answered innocently, 'He asked what do you want, write it on the paper and I wrote FOOD. What else anyone wants in a lunch break’.

‘What? R u crazy’, said chumchum. ‘None of us know how to cook’.

‘Relax guys! Now we can’t do anything. Just finalize one item’, vikki said in a low tone.

‘Gulabjamun’, said kumbu with a widened smile.

Angry looks again splashed on him.

‘Ok. After going home, find out how to make it and everyone bring one ingredient’, said aishu.

Everyone found out the recipe and how to make it from their mom’s.

Weekend came and the competitions begun.

Everyone brought one ingredient and both classes were given one supervisor to help them with the stove.

Vikki brought the instant gulab jamun mix and kept guiding with the instructions and recipe. 'Ok mix these balls with flour and put them in the pan’.

Aishu mixed them and uffi put the pan on the stove and the supervisor helped him to light it on. But Uffi put water in the pan instead of oil.

As per instructions by vikki, aishu put those balls in the pan.

‘What is that, Is that water? Put oil instead of water’, vikki shouted.

Kripa replaced it with another pan, this time with oil. Aishu put those balls in it. Vikki kept reading the instructions and everyone stood looking at him.

‘Hey hey take them out’, Vikki said. They turned out into black hard balls.

‘What are these’, Singham looked closely.

‘But we don’t have any time to make another. We have 2 minutes left’, chumchum got worried. ’Ok, put some flour on the plate’.

He arranged those balls in the form of the face and filled the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows with the chocolates he brought for emergency situations. He decorated the plate so nicely and the time was up.

The teachers came, saw the plate and laughed.

'What is this’, they asked.

‘Choco-Jamun’, Chumchum replied instantly.

They kept laughing and took the chocolates as they didn’t dare to eat the gulabjamuns.

 And the winner in this round is ‘3^rd class students’.

It was hard to believe but everyone was jumping around with joy.

‘How did this happen’, kripa asked out of surprise.

‘Maybe they were worse than us’, winked chumchum.

The whole class were mad after their success over 6^th class guys. They were making funny faces towards them and applauding chumchum for the idea.

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S6: "SAS stories"

#1

Aug 8^th 2015 3:25 am:

‘Is it 5’, I suddenly woke up from sleep and check my phone. I was desperately waiting for my friends Sriya and Arjun who are coming after 6 months. They are more like a family and a part of my soul.

I got sleep deprived. I went to the kitchen, made some coffee and kept walking to and fro in front of the clock for some time, playing candy crush for some time and rolling on the floor for some time.

The phone in my hand got vibrated. I jumped up and said ‘hello hello’.

‘Hello sitara, we are about to reach there in 15min’, said sriya.

I took my bike and went to the bus stand to pick them up.

As I reached, they were waiting for me. I ran to them shouting, I didn’t care who were there around me. I hugged them so tight. I was crazily euphoric.

Arjun went to his house which is also in Tirupati. I took sriya with me to my home. I had so many things to say but the atmosphere was filled with comforting silence.

9:00 am:

We got ready and we went to bus stand to go to Tirumala.

This is my 1^st ever attempt to go to Tirumala by bus. The winding road, the scary speed of the drivers as if they were on a racetrack and the meandering curves altogether knocks my stomach door and say, ‘Time to puke’.

Arjun knowing that we both will get sick of journeys started talking things completely irrelevant to change our mood.

We reached there in 30 minutes, hopefully without any dizzy wizzy’s.

We directly went to darshanam and it took 1hr 30min for us which was pretty quick. The God was glowing magnificently in the dark room. We took laddus and we started our way back home.

As we reached the bus stand, me and sriya sat there waiting, as arjun went to bring his car.

As we were sitting in the bus stop, my eyes fell on the words “tiny tots” which is written on the back of a t-shirt of a kid who is selling flowers at the entrance. He was around 6-7 yrs. He looked so energetic.

Arjun came and he dropped us to our home.

The next morning I woke up pretty early as sriya was leaving to Bangalore.

She left and I was in my car parking, watching the rising sun and stretching my hands a bit. Suddenly a newspaper came with a bolt speed and hit my face.

‘What the hell’, I yelled.

‘Sorry Sorry’, the paper boy came towards me.

‘Can’t you see’, I raised my eyes to see that paper boy.

The same tiny tots t-shirt. ‘U flower boy? Bus stand?’, I exclaimed.

‘Yes, I sell flowers in the bus stand, I am so sorry, I didn’t see u’, he started apologizing.

‘It’s ok. U can go’, I said.

In the afternoon, I went to buy some groceries in the supermarket and to my astonishment, I saw that tiny tots boy again carrying the tea for someone.

‘Hey hey’, I stopped him. ‘Paper boy!’.

‘Tea boy’, he said raising the tea glasses upwards. He smiled and walked from there before I could say anything.

I was curious to know more about him. In the evening I went to the bus stand for him. He was there selling the flowers.

‘How many days will u wear the same shirt flowerboy?’, I smiled and asked.

‘Hehe, I washed it yesterday’, he said looking down at his t-shirt.

‘U washed? Ur m..mom ?, I asked him.

‘I have no one, I work here and there. I earn and go to school’, he said with a token of pride on his face and no sadness at all.

‘Where do u live?’, I asked so worriedly.

‘On that bench’, he said showing the bench on the bus stand where we sat while waiting for Arjun.

‘U sleep on that bench’, I stood aghast.

‘Yes. That uncle guides me and helps me for everything ’,pointing towards the man in the shop opposite to him.

I had no idea what to say. I totally lost my speech. After a minute I said,’ Come with me. I will join you in some orphanage and they will take care of u. There is no need to sleep on a bench and to work in this age. When the right age comes, then u should work, not now.

‘No, I am eating good food and studying now, I am happy. What if it won’t be like this?’, he said.

‘I assure u, I will take care of everything Trust me. Be ready tomorrow, I will come and pick u up at 10’, I said and left.

That night I spoke to Arjun and Sriya. They felt good and proud about my decision.

The next morning, I went to pick him up. He was there all ready to leave. I took him to the orphanage and joined him. I gave him new clothes, books and hugged him.

‘Here are the books and here is my number, if u need anything anytime, u can call me’.

‘Thank you for everything’, his eyes filled with happy tears.

‘Use your time wisely and study well’.

‘Bye bye lucky’, I said and left.

From then, we three pay frequent visits to the orphanage and give him new clothes, books and look after him.

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S5: "Chum Chum- The Introduction"

"Wake up!", a sharp squealing voice of his mom aroused from the corner. "Chumuuuu",the most

irritating sound than the rooster crowing and the morning alarm. His mom came rushing to him and

shook his arms violently. He opened his eyes widely as an owl but unable to get over the sleep, his

head banged down.

"Chumuluu", She shook him again."U are getting late for the school".

She lifted him up from the bed, put him on her shoulder then took him to the bathroom.

Brushed, bathed and ate breakfast but still chum chum was lingering in his sleepy hangover. He sat

on the front seat of his grandfather's cycle and his head was banging down on the handle rod.

A loud shrill completely took over his sleepy hangover. He tilted his head up as much as he can, there

stood a man with hefty shoulders and broad moustache with a whistle in his mouth.

"Get inside", he showed the way through his stick which he use to scare the hell out of children. He

turned back, said bye to his grandpa and entered into the school.

There were a total of 7 students including him in his class.

Varun,the topper of the class. Raghav,the creepiest one. Ramu,the foodie. Siddu,the plant geek. The

two girls: neetu,the class monitor and sweety the prettiest.

He sat on the second row middle chair.

Chumchum turned to his left to say hi to raghav aka Kripa.

Raghav lifted his hand to say hi to chum chum,suddenly he smacked his hand on the desk, killed an

insect and tossed it into his mouth.

"Ew ! Kripa ! U didn't had your breakfast at home?", Chum chum said disgustingly.

To his right, a gleeful smile with sparkling braces and nerd glasses.

"Ha..ha..haaaiiiiii", stammered varun aka vikky. "Hey Vikky", chum chum Hi-fived him.

A crunching sound came from the behind row. The three turned back, there sat ramu aka kumbakarn

crunching the chips.

"Hello kumbu",said the three.

"Crunch, crunch", kumbu helloed back.

"Guys! Look at this. Its Taraxacum, so cute na ?!", said siddu who was sitting next to kumbu.

"I suppose its dandelion", said vikky.

"Yes, of course. Its scientific name is taraxacum", he said.

"Arey Ufii, give it to me",said kripa.

"why ? To eat this also? It's not for u", uffi said.

"Oiiiii enna pandringla ", a loud roar from the first row came.

"Nothing singham ", said chum chum and all the boys turned and sat still.

Neetu aka Singham is a tamil rowdy girl who hits everyone with what ever she finds.

She came back, tilted her head a bit to left, with her both hands on her waist asked "whut? Whut's

going on?".

"Umm! Uffii brought something for u",said kripa.

Uffii widened his eyes and hid the flower.

"Whut? Showw!",she demanded.

Uffii had no choice but to show her the flower. She immediately grabbed the flower from his hand

and gave a ferocious up to down look in return and went to her place.

There comes the other girl on whom all the eyes of the boys lies on, Sweety aka Aishu.

The girl who sits beside singham and who looks immensely adorable with cute eyes and the smile on

which every boy says "WOW".


One day, all the 7 were discussing and it was chum chum's idea to put a nick name to everyone and

to call with it. Well, he had a strong reason behind it. His name is Chumbukeshar and as a matter of

fact, he hates his name.

Everyone agreed to it and started thinking.

He proposed his own nick name as chum chum and got approved by the remaining too.

Then raghav came and satin the middle. Everyone started thinking with the same pose: Hitting

forefinger on their lips and eyes towards the roof.

"He is just so creepy", said siddu.

"Let's call him eww", ramu said with a disgusting expression.

"Creepy..Cripa..Kripa", uttered varun.

"Kripa! Yes that's a nice one, Let's call him that", chum chum finalized.

Next came varun.

"He is google of our class, we will call him googly", said singham.

"Our own Wikipedia, let's call him vikky",said aishu in a sugar coated tone.

"Wow", said everyone except singham.

Then its ramu's turn. It was easy to name him as he always do only two things: Eat, Sleep. They

named him Kumbu- Kumbakarn.

Siddu came and sat in the middle. He is an obsessed plant lover. He always uses the scientific names

of plants to refer them.

Again all went to their thinking pose.

"Siddatonia, Sidalulumalalula,sidudududada", said kripa.

"Whut?", said singham.

"Uff .. uffii?", said vikky.

"Yeah yeah, uffii is cool", approved everyone.

Then the two girls remained. It was easy to name them.

Neetu named herself as Singham as she didn't like the name 'Hitler' referred by the others.

As Sweety looks so fascinating they named her aishwarya rai- aishu.

From then, all the 7 have nicknames and no one in the class calls them with their own names.

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