The Unventured Passions

Few Brave Hearts

"Thirty-six Plus Twenty-seven equals to... Three six plus two seven... One two three, three six... And...No No... Start from beginning... Thirty-six and twenty-seven... Seven sounds like Reven... No Ravan... Twenty Ravan plus Ram...equals to rescuing Sita Maa...Where is my Vanar sena?"

"Bondita... What are you murmuring for the last 10 minutes?"
Anirudh's abrupt grave voice had startled the nine years old, as she quickly gasped, dropping the small pieces of chalks, her 'Vanar Sena' from her hands and looked up at him.

"No... Um... I just..."
She had held her wooden pencil in one hand, it was her Shri Ram, and had a small wooden ruler on the other, the bad 'Seven', her Ravan.

"I was... I was doing addition." She murmured, trying to hide her hands under the small table on which her notebooks lay.

"What are you trying to add?"
Anirudh had stopped typing, his eyes were on her now, intensified, and his face hardened at the sight of the scribble on the fair wooden table...
'Like that Headmaster in her school.' She had thought, her eyes slowly looked up at his, and she gulped.
'That same look... And they even had a name for it, she and Batuk... Death-stare...
Batuk says he could even kill someone with that stare... How awful!!'

"Why are you staring at me like that Bondita?" Anirudh had asked her a question, and she would have to answer, even if there was no prescribed proper answer to it.

"I... I am.. looking at your nose."

Anirudh frowned and touched his nose.
"Why? What's wrong with my nose?"

"Everything." She murmured, and looked down at her notebook once again, trying to fight the battle of adding thirty six with the mighty Twenty Ravan... without her Vanar Sena this time.
She giggled, the thought of a battle without an army appeared hilarious to her. Her mouth had opened automatically, the missing two front teeth was painfully giving away the visual of a bare pink gum as she stuck her tongue out to lick it unmindfuly, the lead of her pencil had just touched the paper... and it was exactly when the mishap had happened.

"Bondita... Why are you laughing?"

His voice was so loud, almost like a yell, so sudden that it made her hand press the tip of her pencil harder on the paper, breaking the soft lead with a low click sound.
'Did Sri Ram just died in her story?
Neck snapped!!'

Tears had already started to build in her eyes and by then Anirudh had already left his table and was standing infront of her with his arms folded to his chest.

"Broke..." She looked up at him, her lips pouted and her eyebrows twitched, almost touching the bridge of her nose...
"It's... it's broken..."
Another word, and her face was starting to flinch even more, her eyes teary and her nose red, and Anirudh was exactly aware of what was going to happen next.
Without wasting time, he quickly pulled an ink pen from his table and almost shoved it inside her hand.
"Here... Don't cry... Write with this... This won't break."

A drop of tear had already fallen on the white homework sheet kept infront as
Bondita's eyebrows straightened, and she stared at the fountain pen with wonder struck eyes.

"Bondita... Aren't you a grown up girl? Aren't you my wife? Have you ever seen grown ups to cry like this?"
Anirudh's voice had softened considerably, he had always been strict about studies but scaring her was never his intention.

"No..." Bondita sniffed back a tear, "I won't cry", she sobbed.

"Then stop crying." Anirudh touched her head and tried to ruffle her neatly parted hair, making her smile happily.