MAYA AND THE PUZZLE- A SHORT STORY
In a house by a narrow zigzag road where gulmohar trees grew in plenty, their orange flowers filling up the skies, there lived a little pretty girl named Maya.
After returning from school she would often sit by the window and watch birds feeding from Gulmohar flowers. The birds were many, and their colors delighted Maya, sometimes she would try to speak their language, imitating their melodious calls. She kept one bird feeder at the top of her house. She had developed a rare quality of love with birds.
Maya’s school was in a green corner of the little town. It was named as ‘green corner’ due to the presence of good number of trees with green leaves. Another specialty of these trees was the leaves retain the green throughout the year. Maya would get up early in the morning before sun rise to enjoy the company of birds. She knows that it was the time when all birds flew in search of food and return to their nests only in the evening. Often her mother had to scold her to eat her breakfast properly, but Maya would always be in a hurry to go to school. Whenever her class would plan any activity, Maya would raise her hand when the teacher would ask those who are interested to put their hands up. She always raises her hands up and participates in all the activities.
Whenever the teacher asked the students to suggest any good points to take up the activity planned Maya was first to suggest useful points in carrying out the activity. On one weekend her teacher had planned to go out with all the students of the class to visit a nearby small forest to enjoy the natural scenes. Maya had suggested her teacher to visit only during day time due to fear of wild animals. She thinks day time would be suitable teach on trees, birds, insects, animals, ponds etc. She told her teacher to hire a good vehicle with experienced driver for safe journey.
For their annual school gathering Maya’s classmates were busy planning on the dresses they would wear to the function. When Maya’s teacher had talked about staging the character as Tarzan the Ape-man and asked those who were interested in acting out Tarzan, to raise their hands, Maya’s hand had shot up even as her friends giggled at the thought of playing the ape-man.
Maya would raise her hand when the teacher would ask those who are interested to put their hands up. Maya had knowledge that Tarzan the Ape-man was filmed in the year 1932, 1959 and 1981.
Maya’s father thought many of her questions to be irrelevant and would get annoyed by them, especially when he would work from home with the help of his laptop. So, to get some time to complete his work in silence, he would call Maya to his side and give her puzzles to solve. Sometimes, she asks her dad to permit her to operate the system. He didn’t allow her to operate, because of official data stored in it.
So, one evening when her father returned home from the office, carrying his laptop in a bag with an intention work from home. Maya had a new set of questions which had been bothering her all afternoon and to which she did not have satisfactory answers.
“Daddy,” said Maya as he entered. It was nearing eight in the night and her father had another long day in the office. He was looking forward to hot dinner, a wink of sleep before tackling the workload he had carried home. It was an important project and he was entrusted with overseeing its completion.
He tired to smile as his daughter welcomed him with her customary joy. She was his only daughter and he looked forward to seeing her after a hard, long day in the office. His face lighted up as she reached up to put her hands around his neck, and he smiled. He bent down to place his laptop on the table and Maya clung to his neck.
“Daddy, I wanted to know something,” she said.
“Not now, Maya, let daddy freshen up and finish his work,” her father told her gently, knowing she would insist on first getting her question answered. He knew it would not stop at one question, and there would be many more. Proud that he was of his daughter for being so curious, but at times, with work on hand he had little time to play the teacher. Today was one such day.
“No, daddy. Tell me first and then your work,” she cajoled him.” Not now, Maya, I have lot of work to do. If I don’t do work how will I be able to buy you ice-creams?” he tried to convince her. But Maya would have none of it.
“I won’t eat ice-cream this week; I want you to listen to my question.”
“Ok. Ok. But only one question,” he relented.
“Only one question?” a delighted Maya said.
Her father braced for her question. Knowing Maya he knew that he could not take her question for granted. Maya had the knack of asking unusual questions. He had often been stumped by them.
“If camels live in the desert and they have humps to store food, why don’t other animals of the desert have humps like camels?”
He did not know this one.
“I will tell you afterwards,” he said.
“No, daddy, I want to know now.”
With work pressing and not enough time to look up book references, he tried to stall her, but she would not listen. Then he hit upon an idea.
“Ok, I will tell you. But, before that you have to solve a puzzle. If you get the answer correct, your question will be answered and you will get an ice-cream too,” he said with relish.
He knew her fondness for ice-creams and thought this would be irritable to her. The puzzle he had on his mind was not an easy one. He didn’t think it possible for her to answer it soon. That was his intention, for, in the time it would take her to solve it he could finish his work and spend time with her.
A confident Maya was open to the challenge. Visions of butter scotch and Vanila swam in her mind as she sat by his side waiting to hear the puzzle.
Her father was an avid reader of several magazines. His reading room was full of back issues of various magazines he subscribed to. Maya too had grown to like the colourful, glossy magazines and, often, she would sit in his lap and together they would read aloud to Maya’s mother preparing food inside. Now, seeing her eager face awaiting the puzzle, he picked up a magazine and turned centre pages over to the world map he had seen the other evening. Then he tore the entire page out and proceeded to further tear it up into three pieces. A stunned Maya watched the unfolding scene. She had never seen her father tear from any reading material. Today was turning to be different.
He mixed up the freshly torn three pieces of the world map and told her,
“This is a jigsaw puzzle. Now, arrage the pieces to get the whole map,” he said, smiling.
After a few minutes, just as her father was settling comfortably in his chair, and opened the concerned file in the system and feeding the required data with full concentration.
“Daddy, I have solved it,” Maya’s voice rang in excitement.
For a moment there was silence as Maya waved the completed jigsaw in her father’s direction? She was smiling. Then her father broke the silence.
A frown appeared on Maya’s face.
“No, mummy did not tell me. She had stepped out to our neighbor’s house. Aunty had called her.
He looked at Maya, feeling guilty for doubting her ability. And a proud feeling swept over him and asked her how she solved it.
“Dad, I can reveal this only when I get vanilla.”
“That was neat,” he said, “So, you have grown smarter than your papa, huh?” he completed. His files sat by themselves on the table as he scooped her into his arms and did a jig, both of them laughing. Just then the door opened and Maya’s mother came in.
“Get ready,” he said to his wife, still smiling.
“Where are we going,” Maya’s mother asked, smiling, as she watched a happy father-daughter duo.
“It is Vanilla time,” he replied.
“And question time too,” added Maya.
After all, she did not intend to let her father off the hook.
“Sure, sweetie,” her father said, laughing. “Maybe if you had a hump you would have stored ice-cream in it,” he lovingly pinched her cheeks as he said it.
She went out with her parents to celebrate the vanilla time. Her father was driving the car and she was seated in the front beside her papa. Her mother was in the back seat. On the way her father asked, “Maya, how did you solve the puzzle?”
She replied, “In the beginning, I was upset and unable to make the map whole. I was about to accept my inability. I wanted to weep for not solving the puzzle. With frustration, I was just reversing the paper pieces number of times, an idea flashed to my mind. On the reverse of the paper pieces, there was an ad of a smiling baby on full page. It was an ad from Johnson & Johnson. I thought it was very simple to arrange the picture of baby. When I completed the process the world map was automatically ready on the other side. On the torn part of the reverse, I had pasted tapes neatly to keep the map intact.”
Her dad and mother were surprised to know the wonderful knowledge of their little daughter and could not speak for a while due to happiness.
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