The Dwarf, the Fairies and the Wizard

The island is so tiny that it seems that the wind will blow it away. This is why it is called the Island of the Wind. It is surrounded on all sides by the sea. The plants and trees of this tiny island are tiny as well and so are the birds and animals. There are flowers of many clors there but all the size of a pea seed. There is only one person who lives in this island; even he is tiny - he is a dwarf.

Two fairies used to come to this island everyday - Red Fairy and Blue Fairy. They were very good friends of the dwarf. Everyday they would dance with the dwarf, the dwarf would gift them butterflies. Together they were very happy.

The dwarf used to live in a small hut on the bank of a small waterfall at the edge of the forest. All day long the dwarf used to search for something in the island. He would stand here, sit there, turn a leaf, dig a hole and many other odd things but no one knew what he was looking for. And in the evening he would sit beside the waterfall and read an age old manuscript in the moonlight.

The fairies would dance all day long in the island, drink honey from the flowers and and at the day's end they would come to the dwarf and sit beside him with their feet in the river water. They would sprinkle water at the dwarf and ask him, "How are you dear dwarf?"

The dwarf would say in an annoyed tone, "I am busy. Do not disturb me."

One day Red fairy said, "You are always reading this book. What do you read?"

Blue fairy said, "Some day I will throw your book in the sea water. What will you do then?"

The dwarf replied, "Don't you dare do any such thing. This manuscript is priceless. It will be a huge loss if I lose this manuscript".

The fairies asked together, "What is in this manuscript of yours, dwarf?"

Th dwarf replied in a very serious tone, "There are treasures hidden somewhere in this island. Ricjes that you cannot imagine. Gold, diamonds, pearls, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. This manuscript contains the clues to find out the treasure. I am trying to find out the hidden treasure."

The faires said, "Oh! Such a little thing? What would we do with the treasure if we find it out dwarf? We drink honey from the flowers and you eat tree roots. We have nothing to do with gold and diamonds. Forget the book. Come on let's dance. Look there is a beautiful moon in the sky tonight"

So the dwarf had to leave his manuscripts. They started dancing together hand in hand but after some time the dwarf started to jump around. The fairies asked, "What are you doing dwarf?"

"Dancing".

"Where is the rythm?"

The dwarf started to jump even more. The fairies started laughing and after some time they left the dwarf and flew away. After the fairies left the dwarf alone, he came back to the manuscript and started to read it again.

Days went by. Every night the dwarf would use one trick or another to get rid of the fairies and then he would read the book night and day. He dreamt only about the treasures, about how he would surprise the fairies by gifting them a necklace made of the largest pearls and emeralds.

One day the fairies came to the dwarf and said in a sad tone, "If we find you reading that manuscript again we shall throw it in the sea water".

"Don't you dare do any such thing", the dwarf said.

That night the dwarf had almost found out the where the treasure was hidden. A little more effort in the night could find him the treasure. He said, "Please forgive me for today. I shall dance a lot tomorrow".

"But we had come only for you".

The dwarf got irritated and sai, "Go away. Do't disturb me. Don't you have anything else to do other than dancing?"

The fairies becme very sad. The dwarf did not love them as he used to love them before and all of this because of that manuscript. They took the manuscript away from the dwarf and threw it away and said, "Let you manuscript go to the land across three seas."

"What?", the dwarf got scared. He ran behind the manusript but it flew across the waterfall, over the small hilltops of the island and then into the deep sea beyond. The dwarf could go no further.

He returned to the fairies and told them how he had planned to gift them a necklace when he found the treasure. The fairies replied, "We don't need the treasures dwarf. We are happy when we dance".

The dwarf also thought that perhaps it was a good riddance. What would he do with all the treasures of the kings? They started dancing merrilly.

* * *

Bengal - An Introduction

The state of West Bengal in the India and the country of Bangladesh together form the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. That there are two divisions in Bengal one being a part of the secular Indian state and the other being the Islamic country of Bangladesh, has several politico-religious reasons.

This blog primarily focuses on the Indian part of Bengal which is called West Bengal with its capital in Kolkata.

It is one of the smaller states in the Indian nation but at the same time the most densely populated. The reason behind such a population explosion in the state can easily be found in the history behind the creation of the Indian and Bangladeshi states. Often cited as the worst victim of the partition of the subcontinent, the state had two major influxes of refugee population from the eastern parts of earstwhile Bengal which is on today's date the country of Bangladesh - once during Indian independence in 1947 and again during the Bangladeshi War of Independence in 1971.

West Bengal is primarily an agriculture dependent state with its prime crop being paddy. Jute and tea are other important agro-industries in the state.

Often cited as the cultural capital of the country, the city of Kolkata, is the capital city of the state. It was previously called Calcutta and was the capital of British India until 1911 when the capital was shifted to New Delhi which is still the capital of India. The city of Kolkata and the state of Bengal has a rich cultural history.

The most important festival in the state in the Durga Puja which is held in the season of autumn in September or October. It is during this festival that the culture of Bengal is displayed to its fullest grandeur to the rest of the world.

West Bengal has recently seen some upsurge in political violence centering land acquisition for industry by the government.

Silsili Chronicles - The Temple of Darshan Baba - Part I

This is a story from Silsili, a small sleepy town somewhere in the foothills of Himalayas. The town has its own railway station and a post office. There are two schools as well. And the government is talking about building an army camp nearby.

Life is not as fast paced here as you would normally see in the big cities. People do not run around busily to make their ends meet. They stop and ponder on the different unimportant things. Even today children sit down cuddled in the winter evenings and listen to stories from the elders.

There are many places of interest nearby. There is the Lal Masjid, the city mosque built hundreds of years ago. They say there used to be a temple at the spot where the mosque now stands. There have been many fights between the Hindus and Muslims over this in the recent years.

Then there is the huge Darshan Baba Dam across the Rukruka river. The dam got its name from the famous Mandir of Darshan Baba nearby. There are several stories about Darshan Baba in these areas. He was an infamous Tantrik who lived in the forest near the hills about one hundred years ago. There are several infamous stories about Darshan Baba and his Kali temple. It is said that every New Moon night he would sacrifice a young boy in the name of the goddess Kali. The village elders seldom visit the temple because they fear that if they visit the temple, then they would disturb Darshan Baba in his Samadhi and that would mean the devastation of the town of Silisili by the wrath of the Tantrik who knew Black Magic.

Such stories are nowadays not believed by many, but people do not generally visit the place even during the day. They try to avoid the place and since the place is a mile or two away from the town, daily business generally do not bring people to this place. But nobody would dare visit the temple at night.

What a Child Thinks

This is not an expert's comment on child psychology neither is this a theory to judge all the children in this world. This is necessarily a collection of the different cute hypothesis and theories, that a child might have about the world around him. I have heard most of these from children whom I have interacted with as an adult and also when I myself was a child.

I will start off with a few of my own concepts about this world. The first thing that comes to my mind is my idea of the planet earth. Somehow I had this understanding that the Earth was a giant ball with all of us living on its surface - pretty good huh?? But the real twist in the tale is that the giant ball is placed at the top of a multistoreyed building!!! Now that is called imagination.

I also remember what I used to think about Birbal, a tribal man who used to live near our house in the tea garden. In our thick Bengali accent we used to call him Bir-BALL as in soccer "ball". I had never known the man by face and had only heard the name. I used to think that he must be a soccerball covered in a red hanky. I have got no idea why I had such an impression. When the man died and the funeral procession was going past our house, I had run to the verandah to have a glimpse of the man who was Bir-BALL. I was really hoping to see a soccerball covered in a red hanky. However, I do not remember how it had felt when I could find no ball in the procession.

Another winner is my idea of a school. When I was a kid, I remember my parents discussing that I am growing up and I need to be sent to a good school. Now the scholarly kid that I was, I thought that a school is a place where people go riding on a bicycle, wearing only a lungi (a clothing used in some parts of India where a long piece of cloth is used to cover the lower half of the body by winding it around the waist) with no cloth to cover the upper half. And when you reach the school, you gather your things and start to plough the field so that seeds can be sown - my way of becoming an engineer!!!

Enough of me. Now I will talk about a kid named Raja whom I sometimes used to teach science when he was a third grader. One day he opened his science book and said, "Explain 'The Universe'". He had this chapter called "The Universe" which dealt with the workings of this Universe - the Sun, the Earth, the Moon and so on. I had to go to my wit's end to make him understand that the Sun is actually much bigger than it looks like and that the Earth revolves around it. When he finally understood that the Sun is in fact a fireball millions of miles away and that man has gone to space in rockets, he asked, "If someone carries a bucketful of water in a rocket, goes very near to the Sun and splashes the Sun with the water from the bucket, then will the fire be put off?" Now who would answer that?

His next question was a very philosophical one that even Aristotle would be very pleased to hear! He asked, "You say that man has walked on the surface of the moon! Now tell me, if someone moves too close to the Moon's edge and accidentally falls off where would he go?" Then I had to explain to him that the Moon is like a giant pingpong ball.

There are even more of such unanimously accepted and acclaimed ideas which I shall try to document at some other time. I hope you all educated people will take some time out of your busy schedule and let us all know if any of you have thought or heard of any such enlightening ideas!!!