Meethii Bolii

Scene 1

A middle class family, staying in a spacious house in Valsad, South Gujarat.

Nirali, a 13 years old girl seen to be bent upon her note book trying to solve a sum while the mother is seen getting restless. 

Mother (Sounds upset): Nirali! I have been trying to teach you measurements since weeks now.  Why is it that you can’t understand how to convert paisa to rupees and vice versa?

Nirali (Sounding confused): division…? Multiplication?  Uff… Mummy… I can’t remember when to multiply and when to divide…!

Mother: How can you remember?  Only if you stop seeing the TV and playing those silly chases on your dad’s mobile, then only can you remember, no?

Father’s entry….

Father: What is to be remembered, eh? Math?  You don’t need to mug up Math, so why remember?

Nirali: Papa… I need to remember when to divide and when to multiply, isn’t it? I know how to divide and I know how to multiply.  But when to divide and when not to ….. that …is what I need to remember.

Father: (Calls Nirali and makes her sit on his lap): No, dear! Not remember, you need to understand. Once you understand, you will never need to remember.

Nirali (excited): Papa, please help me understand!

Father (after thinking a bit): Come on, let’s go out and take a walk.  Ask your mummy to give me the list of things that needs to be picked up from the bazaar.

Mother: 2 kgs carrots, 1 litre milk, 500 gm sugar, 100 gms. Cashew nuts, 10 gms. Cardamom.

Nirali (with a twink;e in her eyes): Are you cooking Gajar ka halwa today, maa?

Mother: Patting her lovingly: Only if you two learn Math and get me the list of things from the bazaar.  This will be a gift for you!

Nirali: Pakka, mummy… After returning from the bazaar, I will surely learn the operations of Math. Promise!

End of Scene I.  Father and Nirali walk out while the mother gets busy with reading a newspaper.

Scene 2

A busy market place. Series of roadside shops.  Nirali and her father walk down to the petty shop at the end of the street. The shop sold a whole range of items, right from pencils, to medicines, to vegetables and other grocery items. It was managed by a family staying in a small room attached to it, at the back. Today the sole person managing the shop was a ten year old boy, barely reaching up to the counter.

Boy: What do you want, Sa’ab? (his dialect was very different, not usually heard in this side of the city)

Father: Extends the list… It is written here.

Boy: Please read it sa’ab … I can read in my language only!

Father: I never saw you earlier? Where is the owner, your father? 

Boy: He is not my father.  He is my Mama. I stay in a village in the deep jungles of Dang. I have come to help my mama, as my mami is taken sick.

Father: Oh! Ok.  (Read out the list aloud.)

The boy packs the grocery items in the list, carefully weighing the ingredients. He needed time to find the items and reach up to the weighing scale placed on the counter top.

Father: Nirali beta! Come…let us help him.

Nirali and father enter the shop and start weighing the items and packing them one by one.

Father: Nirali, it is a small shop.  You stay out and calculate the cost to be paid.

Nirali, very obediently she takes her father’s pen and starts calculating on her palm. Soon, the weighing and packing is complete and the boy calls out loudly, Sa’b…167/- …. carrots for 20/-, milk for 50/-, sugar for 20/-, cashewnuts for 65 /- and cardamom for 12/-.

Father: looking amused: Arrey waah Chottu… you calculated so fast!!! How did you do? Do you go to school? In which class do you study?

Boy: Come on Sa’ab… yes, I used to go to school but ever since the crop failed the third consecutive year, my father left the village and went to Vapi in search of work. I and my elder sister look after the farm patch.  I take the goats for grazing and tend to the hens.  No time to go to school, Sa’ab.

Father: Now looking seriously puzzled:  then how did you learn to weigh things and count money?

Boy:  (Now looking equally puzzled): There is nothing in there… Calculating money is much easier than counting goats and hen’s eggs. Goats and hens move around.  Money doesn’t. Either it grows.  Or it shrinks. So easy.

Father: (calls out to Nirali): Nirali, I think I now know how to understand math operations, dear! Thanks Chottu…When are you taking us to your village in Dang? 

Boy: Looking puzzled… Dang/  Why Sa’ab?  We stay in mud huts, we eat red rice and do fishing. There is nothing much there… You won’t be able to cook things that you are cooking here.

Father (With a dreamy look): We will learn Math!