Poetry and prose

When I could write verse, my grandpa thought they were good. Sometimes guests would say, "Aditi, won't you recite some of your rhymes for us?" and I would faithfully do so. But all that the grown-ups would do was to laugh. It was around this time that Sona aunty got married and I thought of a rhyme to make her happy. So it went like this on the great day: "Who could have expected, That Sona aunty would get married; Will the new uncle like her, As much as I do?"

Some of the guests laughed while some frowned. Sona aunty took me aside and asked me, "Who made you say this?" She warned me not to say such things. This upset me so much that I bid farewell to verse.

One day mummy arranged for a music teacher for me. Daddy bought me a sitar. After two months the teacher told my mother not to waste his time.

Another day too my mother became angry when I told her I could not draw. Drawing was beyond my abilities. Another day my mother's friend dropped in and asked me, "Aditi, do you like chocolate?" I said, "Yes aunty, very much." Then in a syrupy voice she asked whether I liked her. "I do not because you have a loud voice and a big mole on your face," I said. She scowled at me and there was no chocolate.

Mummy later scolded me. "Didn't I tell her the truth?" I asked. "But, dear, you are no good. I did not understand what a chocolate had to do with my telling the truth and wept.

Every time someone asked me what I wanted to be, I said a station master because my daddy was a station master. People laughed. So I would always sit in a corner and

imagine myself to be Pandit Ravishanker playing the sitar or an Anjolie Ela Menon who could paint fantasy.

"But mummy you now write so many books and you are famous," my daughter tells me. I laugh and tell her, "May be dear, since I was not good at anything I thought about it a lot and that is how I became a writer."

SHAILEE MODY, VIII D

CHETTINAD VIDYASHRAM, Chennai

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