Two Stories for this children's day

Story 1:
Vidya was a plump little girl studying is 7th std when I left kerala for my first job. She was just like my little sister.
I taught her playing chess and cycling. Then when I started giving tutions she was my first student. She always confused between Lasagu(HCF) and Usaga(LCM).For teaching her I learned the malayalam terms for LCM ,HCF and all. And as she landed in her teens our relationship ended with a distant smile and a customary hi, how are you?

Yesterday she hung herself on a fan because she couldn’t cope with pressure of studying in English medium after studying for last ten years in Malayalam medium. She always complained that she couldn't understand anything that is being taught at school, but everybody felt that she is making mountain out of a mole. Nobody seemed to care a damn. A girl with distinction in tenth standard getting low marks was unpalatable for her parents. She was scolded like "u r just fat and lazy”. Whom shall we marry you off..you are a fat ugly girl moreover you are getting low grades.It took a heavy toll on her self esteem.And she just chose to walk off from all tribulations.

Whom shall we blame?
Me (for not asking her to learn the technical terms in English and vociferously instilling the idea not to learn by rote)
Her parents (for not understanding her)
Her school (for being an institution to penalise her ignorance in english rather an institution to test her knowledge)
Globalization (Her family become rich and they could afford to send her to a covent school)
This world (for overlooking a magnificent little mind)
She only (for being a coward in this brave world)

Story 2:
Vidya is a 12-year-old girl who is suffering from AIDS. She got this gift from her mother at the time of birth. I remembered her story when I heard my neighbor’s death.
She got admission to 1st standard at the age of 10 after long legal battle. Nobody sat with her in the same bench. She has to cook food for her brother and her sick grandmother. She can’t dream of a normal life, still she has that urge to push hard. May be she don’t know what is in store for her future. But sometimes ignorance is bliss and she is not complaining. She is really happy when those 7-year-old classmates let her to play with them. Her smile bring a lump in my throat. But how cruel our so-called literate civilized society is. Not everyone in this world has the courage of this little girl. We should be proud of her. For me she is as powerful as Indra Nooyi or Angelena Merckel.Because being powerful means being capable of influencing many lives. May be Vidya is not influencing anybody’s life. But she is influencing her own life in a big positive manner.With the institutional frameworks that bound Mrs.Nooyi and Mrs.Merckel,they even cant dream of living such a bold life.I salute this bold young girl today.
Story courtesy:Penmalayalam in Kairali TV.

I really wish a bit of that innocence a bit of that courage a bit of that ignorance were left in my neighbor’s case.


The 1st story is a fact+fiction mix and 2nd one is fact and fact only.