Beauty and the Boy from the East

Chapter 5 ~ Aditya's tatoo

THE RATING WONT LET ME PUT PG OR G, BUT THIS ONE IS <3 

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But life wasn’t always bad. I haven’t told you the good stuff about my life. The things I expect you’d never appreciate properly. 

I had a phone. I had electricity. With my phone I would text friends and we would go out to the market places trying to bargain for cheaper prices. A few of us would distract the shopkeepers. We’d pretend we were sick and ask for pity or we would begin talking about the weather. The shopkeepers didn’t realise that the rest of us would creep from behind and take items. Our treasure would be evenly split and that made us happy.  Simple things in life made us happy. The stuff we got was like diamonds for us. Mostly we valued a practicality of an object, but we created our own fun. We had access to the internet.  We sometimes went on it, but usually we’d go to our own little ‘park’. It was just a small patch of grass that was located behind a rubbish pile. We discovered it there by accident. Aditya was looking for something useful in the large rubbish piles. He’d even found money there. We scrambled to the top, the most neglected valuables were usually found there. He got there just a bit after me, so as a joke he pushed me. I wasn’t in a very balanced position and found myself being hurtled towards the ground. I landed arms first, scraping them as they met the floor. The floor was spiky and while Aditya ran to me, I felt the soft bristles of grass. Green grass. I was laughing as Aditya apologised.

“Grass,” I gasped. “We found it.”

The grass covered the same areas as my house. Nye, bigger even.  Sure some bits were yellowing due to the summer’s harsh conditions and lack of rain. Despite its imperfections, to me it was magical, beautiful. It represented the forgotten peace. The joy we all feel around nature. When you live like you, you respect nature. But you also must use nature to help you. It was so close to my house, yet this strip of land represented a different world to mine. Its paths led to the bigger roads, full of tall buildings.  It was like that patch of grass was a meeting place. It was like the temples. It was to be respected. A few trees thrived here. They were us. They had survived years of abuse, neglect but still used what they could to grow. I followed the wild flora as they grew in random spots. A white flower with pink streaks caught my eye, its smell was soothing. It was pure. I was not.

Cricket was what everyone played. All Indians, regardless of your social status, played cricket. The indian boys in my neighbourhood used what they could to play. All they needed was a tennis ball, stumps, and a batt.  Aditya carved a few batts using a knife and small leftover logs. He’d given me one for my 14th birthday, a good, sturdy set of batts. He even carved my name in Hindi for me. It looks exactly like my tattoo. 

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(NB: Did you found this a bit more happier? I didn't want the story to be too depressing...although its more like a story within a story within a story O_O but yeah, did you like it? Should i continue? There's still a few pages i have left to upload, and then I'll decide what to depending on my fans :s )