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Mushir and the Magic Rickshaw

By Amrita N. Chak; Illustrations by Kusum Chamoli

This story took place many years ago... not in a kingdom, not in a village, but in a small town called Kalpanagar. This is not a story of a prince, nor a farmer, but of a young school boy named Mushir, who, quite to his surprise, became a very special person for the townsfolk of Kalpanagar.

Now we listen to the tale.... The summer of 1967 was blistering. The heat came in great waves and beat upon the flat tin roofs of the fifty or so houses in the small dusty town of Kalpanagar. Pigeons and sparrows in flight would fall to the ground because of the terrible heat. The leaves of the mango trees crackled, snip snap, and fell off the branches, forming wide brown carpets of tumbling leaves. In the homes the water taps grumbled when they were opened. The water in the nearby dam had dried up and animals as well as humans had to make do with very little water. Kalpanagar had been turned into a hot, hot stove that very unkind summer in '67.

Mushir, his Ammi, Abba and little sister, Suha, lived in one of these houses with the flat tin roofs. Early one morning, as Mushir and Suha were eating a breakfast of tea and bread, Mushir saw an auto-rickshaw weave down the street. It was colorful and had a loud speaker attached to its top which looked like the horn of a unicorn. Red and green streamers flowed from its back like a long tail and yellow balloons bounced about on strings that were tied to its sides. From the speaker a sweet, musical voice sang out:

"Follow me to where I go, Where I go, you'll never know, Unless you follow me!"

It was a teasing song sung by a mischievous voice. Mushir and Suha rushed out to their compound wall to get a fading glimpse of the auto-rickshaw as it turned around a bend and disappeared. Mushir looked at Suha and Suha looked back at Mushir. They both blinked several times. They had never seen anything so pretty, so colorful, and so musical in their lives! And they were both extremely disappointed that they had not been able to follow the auto-rickshaw to wherever it might take them.

"Maybe it will come again tomorrow." Suha said hopefully.

Mushir was older by three years and wanted to show how much he knew about the world. He had heard his Abba often say, "Never depend on good luck visiting twice. It only comes by once."

"No, it won't come again," he said and turned to go back inside the house. The sun's rays were on his shoulders, sitting there like a hot water bag.

Suha called out, "It'll be here again, tomorrow! You want to bet?"

"No. I don't!" Mushir replied, a little annoyed by his sister's persistence.

Later that same morning, Mushir joined his friends, Deepu and Jai at the cricket field opposite the clock tower. They sat under the scanty shade of an old Tamarind tree that had lost most of its delicate leaves during the long, hot summer. Deepu was worried. He had heard his parents discussing the shortage of food in the ration shop. Jai said his mother was going to visit her sister's home in a neighbouring town to borrow many kilos of rice. Mushir had heard his parents whispering to each other that they were running out of food in the house. Vegetables were rotting in the fields because of the summer heat. Rice was not growing in the paddy fields because there was no water. Fruit had become something that the children of Kalpanagar dreamed about but hadn't eaten in four months. Oh, for a sweet, juicy mango or a bursting pomegranate!

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