English Literature – Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-7 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

Brief Introduction

• Birth – January 18, 1955
• Education – MBBS (IMS/BHU)
• Publications – 4 books (2 in Hindi, 1 each in English and Bengali) and two are yet to come.
• Translations – Books and articles are translated in English, Odiya, Marathi and Gujarati.
• Awards – CBT awarded stories and novel, “Kamaleshwar Smriti Katha Award (2013, 2017 and 2019)” by Kathabimb.
• Honour – “Hindi Sevi Samman” by Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Wardha (December 2016). 

☆ Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-7 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

Across The Seven Seas.           

Now Gayatri too, was dreaming. The dream of becoming an accomplished swimmer. Probably her dream didn’t end there. Couldn’t she become the best? Couldn’t she win the gold in competitions?

An idea, a little wish, like a seed, was sown, just casually, in her mind by her grandfather. And now the seed had grown into a big banyan tree, spreading its branches all around and sending its roots to the earth underneath.

But wish and will are two different things altogether. One can wish to become an athlete, but he or she must have the will power to achieve the goal. Only after lots of sweating your dreams come true.

That day since, every night, Narayanan set the alarm for four in the morning. He would get up timely and then call Gayatri to wake up, ‘Let’s get started.’ After sipping the morning coffee they readied themselves. They had to catch the four fifty ferry to reach Alleppey. With Gayatri sitting on the crossbar of the bicycle, Narayanan cycled up to the ferry station on the bank of Pampa. They rode the steamer and crossed the river. There again she would ride on her appupan’s cycle and reach the stadium at last.

The very next morning Gayatri woke up with a start, ‘What’s this? From where this sound is coming? This ringing of bells?’

Every day usually the dawn started with the chirping of birds. She just couldn’t ascertain what it was.

And just then Narayanan entered the room, ‘Oh, why are you sitting like that? Let’s get started. Can’t you listen to the call of the wind chimes? And my dear, didn’t you ever think of opening the box? Not even interested in seeing what you got in prize? Why?’

When they arrived at the stadium Kumaran was anxiously waiting for them. In the days to come he would always say, ‘Sir, you’ve brought me a piece of iron. Now it’s my duty to make steel out of it. Believe me sir, all your efforts won’t be a futile exercise.’

And then, just like every other day, a rigorous training of one to one and half hour followed. To begin with she started free hand exercise. Next, skipping. Then running along the track of the stadium meant for the runners. Soon all her muscles would become quite spring like. Always waiting for a command. The swimming was the last thing to do. Some day she would run again just to increase her stamina. It was a favourite dialogue of Kumaran, ‘Look Gayatri, training and practice, both words consist of eight letters. That means you’ve to practise as much as I would instruct you to do. O my god, there are eight letters again in ‘instruct’! Ha, ha!’

It’s easier to write than to do these practically. By the time her daily training ended Gayatri, a girl of ten or so, would become quite exhausted.

That day, it was already past seven thirty in the morning. She was quite breathless and sat on the field to take a little rest. Kumaran came near her, patted on her head and said, ‘Tired out, are you? Have you ever heard the name of Milkha Singh, The Flying Sikh? Let me tell you his story. He stood fourth in the 400 metres track and field athletics. This happened in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. For two and half years he used to run for five hours daily. Once he had even vomited blood. It was his friends who took him to the military hospital. What a miserable childhood he had! During partition riots both his parents and other members of the family were killed. And he witnessed all these. He was simply an orphan when he came to this unfamiliar land.’

Gayatri cherished listening to these true stories of the sportspersons. Another day Kumaran told her again about Milkha Singh. He said, ‘Can you imagine, in spite of being ahead of everybody till two fifty metres, he failed to get a medal. People say that he probably thought he was running a bit too quickly. So he slowed down for few seconds. By the time he was just looking at others, Otis Davis of America, Carl Kaufmann of Germany and Malcolm Spence of South Africa overtook him. They took away the gold, silver and the bronze. Milkha returned empty handed.

‘And do you know who bestowed upon him the title of The Flying Sikh? It happened in Pakistan where he beat Abdul Khalid of that country. Then the president of Pakistan Ayub Khan called him The Flying Sikh.’

After all these work outs every day when she came out from the stadium, all her energy would be gone. Someday, sitting on the crossbar of the bike, she would just doze off. What else she could do? After so much of exercise and training she had to attend her school. Someday she would really feel sorry for herself.

And this happened one day. When, after crossing the river in the steamer, they were returning home, she started snoozing lightly. And within no time she just slipped from the crossbar.

‘Gayatri, what happened?’ Startled, Narayanan put on the brakes and stopped the cycle immediately, ‘Oh my goodness, did you doze off? Must be careful in future my baby.’ Narayanan was worried. Luckily they could avoid an accident that day.

Back home, everybody became alarmed when they came to know about this.

Manishankaran was really worried. He told his father, ‘Appa, what’s this? What’s the use of being so adamant? Can’t all this be stopped?’

‘My son, to get back the kingdom of heaven for the gods even Lord Vishnu had to disguise himself as a dwarf. And can’t we raise ourselves a bit higher so that we can face all this without any complaint?’

And in the afternoon when she returned from her school she was sneezing and coughing.

‘What happened?’ Ananthi brought her a dosa on a plate and touched her forehead, ‘Oh see, you’re running a temperature. How can you go to Alappuzha tomorrow? And then to school?’ Alappuzha is the Malayalam version of Alleppey. Similarly many a cities in Kerala have two names. The capital of the state Trivandrum is now Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin is named Kochi and Ernakulum. Likewise Calicut has become Kozhikode.

‘I’ll, amma. Don’t worry.’ Gayatri was pretty confident.

But she could not. Narayanan was worried and he called Kumaran on his cell phone, ‘No, no, don’t worry. She’ll go for her training once she is alright in two or three days. She will.’

That night while she was sleeping in her bed, her brother Rajan came up with a toy car in his hand. He got up on the bed and crawled to her, ‘Chey-chi (sister), are you ill?’

With efforts Gayatri opened her eyes. She had a little headache.

Rajan whispered to his sister, ‘Want to play with it? Sorry, that day I didn’t give it to you.’

Gayatri smiled. Few days back when their father had bought it for Rajan he would not let anybody touch it, ‘Oh, be away. Leave my thing alone. It’s mine. Achcha has brought it for me.’ But now he was so compassionate.

Gayatri touched his cheeks and said, ‘Not today. Tomorrow we’ll.’

Contd…      

© Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

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