Adventures of 'The Boy'

The Myth of the Gabriel (Adv.#1)(Part 1)

‘Aunty!’ the boy called from outside the window of the kitchen.
‘Yes. What is it?’ the boy’s neighbour asked.

‘I need some salt’ the boy said ‘I have got some raw mangoes with me. I need the salt to go with it. And could you give the salt in a small plate? Everyone is with me.’

The neighbour looked outside to see the kids sitting on a bench dividing the mangoes according to the work they performed. The boy took the salt from the window which was provided in a plate by the generous neighbour.

‘Out of the 15 we plucked 4 go to you’ a guy said to the boy. The boy smiled and took the master share (although they were small in comparison.) he happily pocketed three and ate one with the rest of his friends.

The mango tree in question, grew large tall and plentiful behind the guardhouse of the building complex which, also substituted as the office of the building complex. The office cum guardhouse was alongside almost touching the ‘wall’ (No the wall here does not indicate Rahul Dravid the captain of India’s Cricket team.) the wall is the barricade chalking the property of the ‘Factory’ on the other side. The factory was popularly referred to as the ‘Gabriel’. What was beyond the ‘Gabriel wall’ was not known. There were horrifying rumors floating around about the Gabriel. The boy could recollect the stories told by his granny that there was a beast beyond the wall that comes to eat those who don’t do homework or refuse food. And there was this rumor that a huge snake was there which every month took a bite off the moon and thoroughly hates little kids. And the beast and the snake were friends with ghosts.

The worst part was, the mango tree stood in the line of the wall. So the other half became the Gabriel tree. The boy and couple of his friends even dared to look beyond the wall from the roof of the guardhouse. There was a huge building not as tall as their residential complex, but it was empty.
‘They say there were a lot of people here’ said one of his friends. ‘But the beast ate them all.’
But when the boy looked down, he was shocked. There lay unattended green mangoes the size of cricket balls. One of his friends was thinking in the same lines as he was.
‘I wish we could have those mangoes!’ he said and then they got down from the roof of the guardhouse.

Later when he was watching TV in his cousin’s house with his granny, the subject of mangoes came up.

Then the very next day, Vicky asked him if he could climb lamp posts as well as he could trees. The boy nodded he said he can.
‘good then. We’ll meet you say seven ‘o’ clock tomorrow.’ He said and started walking towards his friends when curiosity made the boy ask the question, ‘Why? What are we going to do?’

Vicky just smiled mysteriously. He came up to the boy and whispered in his ears.


The boy stood rooted to the spot with fear. Vicky smiled mysteriously and went with his friends. The Boy could still hear the whispered words crystal clear.

‘We are going inside the Gabriel.’

Adventures of 'The Boy'

The Hunt (Adv.2)

He went past the bushes and went and hid behind the park bench. Slowly like a shinobi he went past the next park bench unnoticed by the people sitting and chatting on the bench. He went behind the next park bench. But this time his action did not go unnoticed. A group of girls much older than him called him. He did not respond. He was on a hunt. Again the group called him he looked up. The girl was his cousin he smiled at her and again focused on his target. He saw the tail whoosh past a see-saw.

He went near the see-saw and saw the target relaxing on the second see-saw. It was a small one compared to the one he was after day before slowly he crept up to his prey without making a noise. He then slowly reached for the back of the creature’s neck, and in one swift motion, lifted it.

The creature looked at his hunter, and mewed loudly. The boy looked at the cat he too mimicked the cat’s mewing and smiled. He then forcefully held the cat in his arms as a person would a baby, and gently stroked the cat behind its ears and on its head.

The cat gave in and purred (it was a kitten) he then proceeded to an empty bench and sat with what he considers to be his pet cat. He named the cat Tom (regardless of the cat’s sex. The boy is six years old!)

He walked in the park with the cat in his arms. He would show it to his friends who were literally afraid to go anywhere near the cat. They just laughed at him from a distance. The boy just walked away with his new pet. He perched himself on a bench with Tom, and fondly scratched the forehead and the back of Tom’s ears. The people who had come for their evening walk looked at the boy and his cat. He then heard the group of girls that had called him earlier and he picked up Tom and headed to where they were sitting.

‘Look what I have caught!’ he said holding up Tom
They broke off from their gossip and looked at the boy with the cat.

‘Eww! He is dirty!’ one of the girls said pointing at the cat.
‘You managed to catch it?’ his cousin asked.
He nodded ‘His name is Tom’ the boy explained. ‘Do you want to pet it?’ the boy moved forward guessing the answer to be a positive one.

Both the boy and Tom were startled by the ear piercing shriek that issued from the group.
‘Get it away from us!’ they said in that same ear piercing tone.
‘why?’ asked the boy ‘it wont bite!’
‘it has germs!’
‘Germs?’ the boy inquired. This was new. How his pet could possibly could have germs? The boy thought.
‘Tom doesn’t have germs!’ the boy ferociously defended his pet.
‘let the cat go’ they said
‘No I will not!’ the boy said ‘he will live with me in the house’

and the boy walked off leaving the group giggling behind. He went into the entrance wherein two buildings stood along facing the park.

He showed off Tom to his friends (building friends) they didn’t laugh at him like the kids did at the park. They even went to stroke tom but not one of them wanted to hold Tom.
‘What’s the cat’s name?’
‘I named him Tom.’ The boy said fondly.
‘It is a boy cat?’ one of them enquired.
‘All cats are boys!’ the boy said amazed by the stupid question.

He went into the building wherein he lived. In the ground floor passageway many neighbours looked at the boy and the cat.
‘he caught a cat?’ he could hear the neighbours.
But he was busy thinking how happy everyone in the house will be. They will be jubilated about Tom. That’s the way it happens in the movies.

He rang the doorbell.

His granny opened the door. With a big smile on his face, the boy held the cat and said ‘Look Granny I’ve got a pet!’

But they did not want the cat in the house. The boy protested. Then his granny said he would not be allowed into the house until he has let the cat go.

He then met a friend who was a lot older than him in the same building as his. He saw the boy holding the cat. He was with a friend of his. He laughed at the boy and called him. The boy went to him. He took the cat from the boy, and told him to follow. The boy followed the friend out of the building. The boy’s friend was stroking the cat he gave the cat to the boy.
‘You catch it?’ the guy asked.
The boy nodded stroking the cat.
‘Let the cat go. It needs to go back to its mother’ the guy said.
The boy was reluctant. Then he kissed the cat and let it go.
‘It’ll come back tomorrow’ said the boy reassuring himself.
‘If it doesn’t, you can always catch it later!’ the guy said.
The boy smiled at the guy and went back to the house.

Upon reaching his house he was escorted straight to the bathroom. He took a bath.

The groups of girls were chatting again the next evening on their park bench.
‘…he then made him let go of the cat.’ one of them said.

They again found the boy hiding behind the bench.
‘Looking for cats again?’

‘No’ the boy said looking up ‘I can’t find the cat today. So I am looking for Spiders instead!’

Adventures of 'The Boy'

The Eighth Matchstick (Adv. 3)

The boy went into the bedroom and saw his uncle and his father having their afternoon fiesta, digesting their lunch by sleeping the afternoon off (it was a Sunday) the boy crept inside the room careful not to wake his uncle nor his dad. The summer afternoon was hot and his uncle and his father lay asleep on the floor with a small blanket between the floor and themselves the fan was in its full swing.

The boy went to the balcony to look outside the afternoon was almost over and it was almost time for tea. He knew he could have tea rather than that disgusting white drink called milk. He was six years old, wiry and had curly hair almost to the extent called unmanageable. He looked out of the balcony wishing he would be outside playing rather than show any evidence of sleeping. He went back into the room stealthily as he knew that waking any of the two men would get him a ticket to sleep or worse, homework. The crate empty of mangoes but still full of hay which is used to make the mangoes ripe quickly.

He went beside the crate, analyzed and deduced that he could easily fit into it, he enters the crate. Now he imagines it to be a race car and makes car sounds (not too loudly lest he wake up his uncle and his father) he then stops making sounds. Something was missing he thought. He then spots a pillow and a cushion lying there unattended. He jumps out of the crate, gets the pillow and the cushion. The cuboid with one large side was against the wall, three sides free. The large part is where he keeps the pillow alongside the crate making it a door. He then adds the cushion alongside the front as the bonnet. He again sits inside the crate and tests the imaginary car’s pillow door.

He gets out of the crate again hunting for a spare cushion to complete the car by using it as a dickey door. He runs to the front room to see his granny chatting with two neighbors. The neighbours ask the boy what is he upto. Famous and loved well for his notoriousness he was. The boy doesn’t hear what they ask. He is busy hunting for the spare cushion spotting one on the cot, he grabs it.

‘Arent you sleeping?’ his granny asks
‘I am not sleepy’ the boy whines ‘look out its evening!’

He heads back to the bedroom before the question of his homework arises. He completes his imaginary car and looks at it. He pulls the pillow in a 45 degree angle as you would open a car door and settles in the crate full of hay.

For fifteen minutes, he plays ‘race car’ then gets bored again. He looks around, and sees the pictures of different gods and packets of incense, camphor and other holy stuff. But the thing that interests him most is a small box of red with an image of a ship and the word ship written in yellow bold above the ship logo. He looks around his uncle and his father was fast asleep.

With stealth rivaling that of a high-class Shinobi, he procured the small box of matches. He went and sat in his made-up car. There inside the crate full of hay he lit the match with a precision of a cook he looked at the fire burn till it came to the point when he could not hold the match anymore, he would then blow off the flame and proceed to the next match.

After seven matches neatly extinguished and kept away from the crate he went on to the 8th match. He lit the match, when he saw his dad stir. The sudden movement caught him unaware and the fateful 8th matchstick slipped and fell on the hay. With reflexes of a cat he jumped out of the crate.

All he could do was gawk at the hay starting to burn little by little. He found the strength and ran screaming into the hall ‘FIRE, FIRE’. The sudden movement of a boy entering screaming fire, did not have the effect he had hoped he would get.

‘FIRE, FIRE’ he yelled pointing at the direction of the bedroom
‘what?’ asked his granny ‘Where?’

The boy’s answer was drowned by the roars of his father and his uncle. Granny and the neighbours rushed to the bed room and the boy followed. His dad and his uncle were putting out the fire with water. The anger on both their faces was terrifying.

Nobody saw the boy escape out of the house.

In the park bench he sat, when inquired the reason for his nervousness and fear, he said ‘My dad is going to kill me!’ fear oozed through his voice ‘I burned down the mango crate!’