creativewritingproject

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Chatty Puppets

After spending a few days at Srirampur and kick-starting the summer with fun and food, mother and I were back on our original plan to spend some days in Solapur. It felt great to reunite with some cousins and five minutes into meeting each other after a year, we were already planning some of our adventures. This included swimming in the river, going to the village fair, and watching the annual puppet show.

Swimming was the most fun, with so many children, there were many games we played in the water and it was definitely refreshing given the 40 degrees Celsius temperature of the summer. However, my cousin, Riya was the most excited about the puppet show. I couldn’t understand what was so fascinating about the puppet show but she said that it was based on a true story which had taken place centuries ago in the village. Village stories always interested me, coming from a big city I couldn’t comprehend these myths and tales which circulated in the village and everyone knew about them.

One evening we finally went to watch the most talked about the puppet show, the story was about a tragic love story between a prince and a princess from rival kingdoms. I enjoyed watching it and the traditional elements specific to the village grabbed my attention. After the show was over, Riya wanted to go see the puppets up close, and hence we went backstage to check them out.

Riya and I went backstage and interacted with the women who were controlling the puppet, they explained to us the materials the puppets were made of and the process of making these traditional ones specifically. They were amazed by our interest and we were intrigued by their effort and story. They left us alone some time with the puppets while they went to get some tea and snacks. After chatting for a while among ourselves, we felt that one of the puppets moved. Riya laughed it off but next, something that we never thought happened. The puppets started speaking. We were startled and didn’t know how to react. But we didn’t get a creepy feeling and wanted to stay to listen, the princess went on to talk more about her love for the prince. We stayed to listen but the women seemed to take longer than expected.

We shared our goodbyes with the talking puppet and still couldn’t believe what was happening. We decided not to tell this to anyone, and just enjoy the fact that we had a very unique and unbelievable experience. At the end of it, Riya had succeeded in convincing me that this was the best experiences to be had in the village.

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Dark Shadow- Living through a Horror Experience

It had been many years since I had met my uncle who lived in Srirampur, and our sudden plan to visit him hadn’t given me much time to think about him a lot. Nevertheless, I was happy to see him, he was a funny guy who loved telling stories and made amazing onion bhajias (a deep-fried Indian snack made out of onions). These elements were enough to get me happy about seeing him.

Our unplanned visit was received well by him and his family. His wife and children were already making a lot of tour plans around the cities and of course, the homemade delicacies which would be prepared. The most exciting part of our visit to him for me was that I had heard from my mother that my uncle knew a lot of supernatural or ghost stories and this time, I was going to pester him to tell me some.

Like every Indian uncle, who would listen to anything a niece who has visited for summer would ask, my uncle gave in to my repeated requests to hear some ghost stories from him. And the day and location were decided. To add to the effect of the story, uncle decided to tell it on the full moon day, when all of us were sitting on the veranda with plates full of his signature dish, onion bhajia.

I was always fascinated by the supernatural stuff but never was a believer and that’s why I found it more funny than scary. Uncle went on to tell us the story about the local village ghost, a vetal, who was a king’s soldier and was looking for the long-dead king to pay his tributes after he died fighting in a war. Vetal came to knock at everyone’s door at midnight on the full moon and new moon days in the hopes of finding the king, one wasn’t supposed to listen to his knocks or answer them or he would drag them away to death to join him. I admit, I was a bit frightened at first but the fear left me eventually, and found my uncle’s way of narrating quite funny and entertaining.

After his narration ended, I laughed it off which his children and wife found quite surprising but eventually forgot as we chatted about other things and played a few board games. It got pretty late and my mother wanted us to go to bed as we had to wake up early the next day to continue our journey to our original destination Solapur.

I had had a hearty meal and after the exhaustion, I was almost asleep when I lay on the bed. That’s when I could hear a slow thumping, after paying more attention I thought it was a light knock. Suddenly, the story came back to my mind and I broke into a cold sweat. Shrugging these thoughts off I wanted to believe it was just the house cat. But the knock grew louder, and hence I decided to see what the cat (I wanted to believe it was a cat) was up to. I shrugged out of bed and quietly navigated my way to the main door. As I treaded quietly to the door, I could see a faint light in the kitchen and a dark shadow, my heart was thumping but I needed to see what was going on. I picked up my cousin’s cricket bat and went towards the kitchen, thinking it was a thief. As I stepped in, the shadow screamed and I screamed back, after a few minutes of frantic screaming, we looked at each other. Turns out, it was my cousin who was snacking on some cookies and was struggling to open the jar.

Our screaming woke everyone up in the middle of the night but at least we had a good laugh.

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The Train (Road) Not Taken

Summer was always an exciting time in India. Summer brought with it hot sweltering heat but along with that came mangoes, no classes, and plenty of time with friends and family. It was a custom for all children to visit their cousins living in other cities and spend a few days with them. This was a time to reconnect with family members, eat summer special delicacies, get pampered by uncles and aunts, and of course the continuous bickering with cousins about who had grown taller over the year.

For the summer after my fifth grade, my mother decided that we go visit her brother in Solapur, a small town in Maharashtra, India. It had been two years since she had seen him and wanted me to spend some time with my maternal cousins. Also, her cousin’s sister had given birth to a baby girl a few months back and I was over the moon as I would be interacting with a baby. And hence the plan was made, we would leave the very next day my school closed for the summer holidays.

Reaching Solapur was a task, a 5-hour bus, an overnight train, and a 2-hour bus again to reach my uncle’s house. We were joined by aunt Reema and her two children, which guaranteed that the journey would be as entertaining as the actual holidays to be spent in Solapur.

Like any other Indian family going to their hometown during the summer, I and my mother packed lots of gifts, homemade sweets, and clothes that could only be bought in big shopping centers in cities for my cousins in Solapur. We started early morning to get the first bus which would take us to the train station, with 3 huge bags we had a lot to take care of. The evening of the previous night, Reema’s aunt had called in to tell us that her husband had fallen sick and would be meeting us directly in Solapur. I felt a bit sad but nevertheless, I was excited about the journey. Unfortunately, mother also ended up losing her glasses the morning we left.

As we reached the hustling train station, I could hear the chatter of many people saying hellos and goodbyes, and the smell of hot Indian milk tea drifted everywhere, porters shouted and sped across platforms. I was tired and sleepy and was practically being dragged by my mother so that we don’t miss that train. Mother was very stressed, handling the three bags on her own, making sure that nothing is out of order. Finally, we made it into the train and now it was time to relax.

Throughout the journey, we played various card games and my mother told me stories of her childhood. Being very tired, we fell asleep instantly. We didn’t realize till breakfast was served the next morning that we had taken the wrong train and were headed to Srirampur instead of Solapur. The breakfast played a key role in our realization, on the train to Solapur the breakfast was the traditional Solapuri Poha but the breakfast served was Idli. And then when we spoke to the people around us, we realized that mother had made the mistake of reading Srirampur as Solapur because her glasses not being there.

After laughing over, it for a while mother figured out that we could visit her cousin’s brother who lived in Srirampur for a few days before heading back to Solapur, after all, there are a few advantages of having big Indian families.