In a small village

Myself Jyotirmoy Sinha, I hail from village Baromuni and at present I stay in New Delhi. Sometimes, amidst my hectic work schedule i try to jot down a few words in the form of poetry. But how people use words and make their articles alive, amuses me. Of late, I too tried to write something and came up with a fictional story.

The story is regarding the life of a village boy named Alok who had dreams of his own and how he overcame all obstacles to fulfill his dreams. Here, the boy's character will describe the four stages of human life i.e. Childhood, Adolescence , Middle Age and Old Age. The story of Alok goes as below:

'Mayor Basi' is a small and beautiful village in Assam. The village is surrounded by vast paddy fields and is full of greenery. The main occupation of the villagers is agriculture, though there are some govt. employees, teachers, army personal etc. also. The people of this village are very simple and lovable. Their dreams and ideas are also very limited.

During the winter season when most of the paddy fields are dry the village children and the youths turn them into cricket and soccer play grounds. During this season, inter village cricket and soccer tournaments are organized where everyone participates with great enthusiasm. In short the people of Mayor Basi are happy with their simple way of life.

In this vary village, on 3rd November 1968, Alok was born in a middle class family in a small village. He was shy, polite and innocence, calm. He considered himself ugly, people used to call him “bear haired”. His aim in life at that stage, wanted to learn English, as others have their aim in life something else.

May be because of this, he made himself aloof from all and his sole companions were books. Alok loved to read books very much. When he used to start reading he used to forget everything in and around him.

But it is not that there were only children who used to tease him, and whom Alok disliked very much but also there were few good students among whom there were competitions, and since Alok was sharp in studies he used to give them healthy competitions.

Alok had a fascination to learn English from his childhood. He loved to spell and read each and every English alphabetical words like A for Apple, B for Ball etc. He did not have dreams to be a doctor or an engineer like most of the children of his age. His dream was to be able to read and write English properly.

For that he had to get admission in a English Medium school which was 25 kms away from his village, since at that time there were no English Medium schools in the village. But Alok was not allowed to go to the town by his parents, may be because of the distance or may be financial problem, he had to study in a Bengali medium school in the village. Alok used to wonder in his tender mind how the village children were unknown of the outer world, how they did not want to know anything else than what their and parents and neighbours taught. But Alok wanted to explore the world outside his village.

Alok was very stubborn in nature. He made up his mind that whatever the circumstances may be he will learn to read and write in English. He started to study more harder and in class IV he passed out in flying colors. His dream of learning English was at last going to be fulfilled, because in Bengali medium schools English was taught from class V.

But Alok's dream was shattered. One day the head master of his school came to his house and convinced his parents to keep Alok in the same class for one more year and attempt for scholarship the next year which was not planned earlier. Alok was unaware of all this. But when he heard about it................

I will come up with the remaining of the story in the next session.

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