Amrita Chak on Pitara Kids Network

Mushir and the Magic Rickshaw

Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:17:12 +0000

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.

The Friends of Custard House

Sat, 06 Oct 2001 07:53:07 +0000

Robert Custard was a gentleman to be sure. Though he was only three-and-a-half feet off the ground and sometimes he even sported a milk moustache, he was still, quite definitely, a gentleman at the age of nine.

Now, you must consider that we are talking about the India of the 1930s. The British were ruling the country. Little boys and girls were expected to behave in a certain way. They were never to be seen covered in dirt. They were never to be heard yelling at each other and even their games were expected to be civilised.

A Free Bird

Thu, 19 Apr 2001 04:08:27 +0000

A Free Bird [Illustrations by Kusum Chamoli]

Everybody in his family called him ‘shy baby’ — not ‘cry baby’ to be sure, but shy baby. Young Somu was shy, but not just a little shy. Somu was very, very shy. When guests came to his house for tea or dinner and asked him his name, Somu would dig his chin into his neck and close his eyes and after a few minutes he would run out of the room. His parents always felt embarrassed about his behaviour and every time after the guests left the house Somu would end up getting a sound scolding.