Ice cream vala… (Entry)

“Ice cream vala… ice cream vala” shouted kids from behind and the vendor had to speed up his cart so as not to get attacked by the naughty excited kids. He was the only vendor of that street who visit the place of Koharpur every day. He knew he earn less out of all the day’s hard labor of selling ice creams that sometimes get spoiled on its way to the customers but what stick him to this business was the smile that he brought on faces for just half Anna. Children talked about him more, their parents told stories about him and every day, every one awaited clock to struck 4 for them to watch that lovely scenario. All of them just buzz out of their houses to see the beauty encircling around the ice cream vala, irrespective of the  scorching sun that’s yet to cool himself down.

“One by one or i’ll give nothing to anyone. Understand. Say Yes”

“Nooooo….” All children shouted in union. They knew he won’t be saying no for this delicious ice berg and along with the ice berg in their hands he will narrate a story which as always far delicious than the stuff in their hands. Now, with all the halla gulla by children, he sat down under the shade of a tree with his cart parked at proper a place surrounding kids of the koharpur.

“Kaka, Cinderella vali story” pleaded a cute little girl who adore Cinderella a lot.

“No, kaka only superman vala story” said a boy in full authority, eyeing the cute little girl. ‘Okay, okay no fight or such emotions. I don’t know who cinderelllla was or superman..nn. But i know of a story which you all can hear’.

Once there was a king who was very fond of clothes, he had every expensive pair of clothes. One day one of his ministers requested him to see the man who claimed that he could make clothes out of gold and king in curiosity called him in, provided him with every sort of material and gave him a definite time to work on it. Minister in order to check his daily proceedings, went up to the weaver and asked how much cloth he made out of the gold till now. He presented in front of him the invisible thread and how he weaved the entire thread out of that machine, adding whosoever wasn’t able to see this – was surely incompetent for the post held. Minister in utter foolishness to save his compatibility to the position nodded yes to the thing he was doing. After a month when king asked him to bring the cloth he bring on the invisible lies and told the same thing as he told to the others. To king’s surprise every other court men appreciated him but they knew there was nothing for sure. King held a gathering where he presented his new attire to his people who laughed silently keeping their heads down. But one boy shouted out all of a sudden,” Why, the King is all nude”.Hence, the foolish king got embarrassed of his foolishness that robbed him of all his gold, just by a commoner.

So, moral is to act wisely and speak up when you think something is not right. To live a life full of wisdom and confidence, instead of being a sycophant.

The entire group of kids laughed out, falling down from this side to that not able to believe the king was so foolish. They slowly made way for the ice cream vala to wind up for that day. He left the kids in amusement of the story, watching them smile and getting ready to play out now. The sun was about to set. He packed his cart, count his earnings and got ready to leave.

He never came back again, the streets of koharpur never saw him again, people talked, gossiped and then adapt accordingly forgetting the ice cream vala. But in soft whisper his story is being told numerous times by the old people of koharpur, alerting the kids of the house to be aware of the ice cream valas.

Contd…