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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S4: "Magic Slate"

It was almost dusk and pari was returning to her home from the school. She became late as she was playing with her friends montu and rimmi. On the way, in the bushes she found a slate which is very colorful and is looking brand new. She picked it up and looked around for someone who might have lost it. She didn't find anyone. She put that slate in her bag and went to home.

During that night, after dinner she opened her bag, took out the slate to examine and wrote something out of her book just to check it. It glittered once, she got amazed and wrote some other formulas from the book, she saw the glitters again.

"Wow", She murmured to herself. She kept the slate in her bag and slept.

The next morning, she took the slate to her school. The maths teacher came in and asked random questions. Pari didn't know the answers for any of the questions but suddenly answers came out of her mouth. She stood startled for a moment. Teacher was asking the same formulas she wrote  on the slate but she didn't learn them, she just wrote them. The teacher appreciated pari for answering all the questions. But pari was totally in a puzzled state.

She took the slate  and wrote everything mam told on it. She didn't play with her friends. She went home early as she was really confused. To overcome this confused state, she wrote everything from her notebooks on the slate and sat there watching the glitters and she spent the whole night doing that.

The next day, there was a surprise test and out of blue pari wrote all the answers which she didn't even learn. she finished the test prior to everyone and went to the playground and sat alone watching the slate in her hands. Suddenly, she got the answers for all the confusions and puzzles running in her mind. Two words uttered out from her mouth.

"MAGIC SLATE", she murmured.

"Oh! That's amazing. whatever we write on this, we will remember that, it will go directly into our mind. This is absolutely unbelievable", she said to herself touching the slate.

Rimmi and montu came and asked her, "Hey what happened? You left so early . Didn't you write anything? ."

"Yesterday I studied till late night, I knew all the answers", pari lied to them.

She didn't want to reveal the truth. Though she was not happy with it, for the first time she kept a secret.

Every day she used to carry the slate with her to school and write everything on it.  By and by she became so arrogant and conceited. She doesn't even clarify the doubts asked by her friends. She stopped playing with montu and rimmi. She even started making fun of them.

"oh rimmi ! You don't know even that answer and montu, you are not able to solve that easy problem. How pity !", she started flaunting about herself.

Rimmi and montu busted out in anger but didn't utter a word. As pari left, rimmi said to montu "I have this hunch that something  is wrong. Pari can't get that intelligent over night. She is dumb than both of us. She is definitely hiding something. Let's find out what is actually 'pity'."

The next day when pari went outside during lunch break, rimmi and montu checked her bag. They found the slate which is very colorful and while checking the remaining items in the bag, montu accidentally draw a line on the slate. It glittered. They both got shocked.

"Write again", rimmi said.

Montu scribbled on the slate, it glittered again.

"Oh-ho ! So this is the actual reason why she is pitying us", rimmi said seeing the slate. They decided to steal it and teach her a lesson.

Pari came back and found that her magic slate was missing. She was very depressed. She searched every corner of the class and asked everyone about her missing slate. No one answered her.

That night, rimmi wrote everything on the slate she wanted to learn. The following day, in the class when mam asked the same questions, she was unable to answer them but pari answered them.

They got the secret. " As pari owns this slate. whatever we write on it, it goes directly into pari's mind" , rimmi said to montu.

They both smirked and raised an eyebrow at once by looking at each other.

Montu took the slate to his home and wrote all the bad words he knew and also wrote some spontaneously invented bad words.

Pari spoke as it is as montu wrote and got punished by the teachers. She had no clue what is happening with her. Mam warned pari for her behaviour and announced the class that there will be a test tomorrow.

Rimmi's turn it is. She took the slate to her home and wrote everything which is going to be asked in tomorrow's test incorrectly.

Pari got flunked badly in the test.  She got all the wrong answers and bagged punishments and scolding's.

Rimmi and Montu were gleefully chuckling in the playground.

Pari came to them and said in a very low tone, "I want to tell you both my secret. It's not me, it's my magic slate. Whatever I write on my slate I get to remember it. I got very proud with that, I am sorry."

"We don't believe you. There is nothing like a magic slate. You're lying.", Rimmi said.

Montu was sitting in between them and was clueless about what rimmi is saying.

"I am not lying", Pari said in even more lower tone.

"If you are not lying then show us the magic slate", rimmi asked putting her hand forward.

"It has been stolen and someone is writing wrong answers and bad words on it, that is why I am behaving like this and I am really regretful for my behaviour with you guys. I am so sorry", pari said and she was about to cry.

"So you don't have it now. Tell us how does it look like, we will help you in searching it", rimmi said.

"It looks so colourful and if we write anything on it, It sparkles once", pari said with her fingers gesturing in the air.

Rimmi took out the magic slate and wrote 'HA HA' on it , showed it to pari and said "Like this?".

Rimmi and montu laughed out loudly at once. Pari got shocked. She opened her eyes and mouth widely.

"We stole it to teach you a lesson and to bring back our best friend pari from that arrogant monster pari" , rimmi said and gave the slate back to pari.

"We are sorry", montu said and both hugged pari.

Pari for a moment exchanged her looks between the slate and both of them, then laughed vigorously.

The trio laughed and laughed, then played till sunset.

With this mind boggling lesson, pari changed. Thereafter whatever she learns, she explains to her friends. Though she comes first in the class and solves everything, she never got proud and arrogant again.

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# The Invisible Hurdle

PROCRASTINATION, the gigantic and invisible hurdle which appears on every lap of our journey towards our goals. As it is invisible it is merely difficult, firstly to recognize it and then to hop over it. It's not as simple as its meaning says; delay or postpone action. It would even estrange us from our dreams if it becomes a habit.

The most important thing about procrastination is we do it unknowingly. You have an important thing to do, and the dead line is not so near or let's say there is no dead line at all. You will probably put off this important thing to watch TV or a movie or to chitchat with your friends and other things which are not as important as it is.

Sometimes I just put off doing the important tasks because I am lazy or just that I am not in a mood. This would  become really worse when it becomes a habit.

Overtime even without my consent, it became my habit. I started procrastinating foremost things and started indulging myself in not-so-important activities unknowingly. Only last minute pressure made me to work and even worse I left many things incompletely and even gave up many tasks.

Then I decided that I don't want to continue this and I don't want to become the slave of my own mind. I came up with so many ideas to shoo off procrastination and laziness.

Firstly  I wrote all the short term goals which have to be done in a few days or weeks and then the destination where I finally want to reach and I stick this up on the wall where I can see daily.

I started rewarding  myself after achieving each short term goal with the things I like but more than that I started punishing myself. If I won't complete a certain task, I can't touch my phone no matter who ever calls and I can't go on the social networking sites or something else which you are merely addicted to and which is involved in your daily routine. This is really affective.

Then I made my goals public, I told my friends about the tasks I am going to do and they keep on reminding me if I get distracted and I eventually began to do things to avoid embarrassment.

Laziness and getting bored are the two big No-No things . Thinking about the feeling after reaching success also helps. The important thing is recognizing that we are procrastinating and prioritizing the things. I provoke and scare myself to do things by thinking what will happen if I stay like this my entire life.

The main thing which worked out pretty well is whenever I get lazy ,I take a stick note and write "I M LAZY" and stick it on to the wall where I can see daily and not only me, my whole family also see it. And I ought to be honest in sticking notes whenever I feel lazy or bored, the more the notes, the more the embarrassment, and over time I saw the improvement, the lesser notes, the more appreciation and thereby more motivation.

And one more thing which helps is if you want to do something, start doing it little.

If you want to run for 5 miles. Just wear the shoes daily and walk a few steps and eventually you will end up running 5 miles or even more. Because sometimes it's just the starting problem, so by doing this you will overcome it.

You can make the invisible hurdle visible and you can jump over it as I did and then nothing else in this world can stop you from heading towards your dreams. 

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