Fairytales are taken over by Science Tales.
The year is 2222. An pandemic termed ‘zeera’ has hit the planet earth. The symptoms of zeera are hallucinations, discolouring of skin from whatever the colour of the skin to green, stinky fluid from the mouth, swelling of the body, paralysis then death. No antidote has been discovered to cure zeera. The World Congress is perplexed as to how to end or at least control this pandemic. The only remedy to ‘zeera’ is by killing Conclusion the Giant Snake, kill the snake and make the medicine from its venom. However, people have forgotten the art of single killing, all they know is mass killing. V23 (earlier known as Television) carries all news but bad news, headlines of dismay and shattered hope. People of the earth has given up and thinks that the Doomsday has finally arrived.
In New Delhi, the capital of India lies a street called Sonia Gandhi Marg named after the famous woman Indian National Congress Party leader [Refer: In 2016, Rishi Kapoor wrote a tweet about public properties named after the Gandhi-Nehru family, but to no avail, apparently, no one took Twitter seriously], there lives a family of three- a widowed mother, a daughter of twelve years and her brother who is ten. Sen is the name of the daughter; Pong is the name of the son. They love to get up at 7:00 am, have breakfast then switch on their Comfytop for their online classroom studies. But, it has been weeks since they last attended their class, everyone was sick.
Sen is a problem solver, her granddad used to say she inherited this quality from her great grandmother who was a Professor of Automobile Technology who survived the capitalisation of scientific knowledge. Anyway, white was her favourite colour. Unlike her younger brother whose favourite past time is to bake a cake out of the funny recipe. Her favourite pastime is to read in the attic room.
That day as she entered the attic room a mouse ran under her feet. She followed the mouse, it entered a hole; the hole was a big one. In sheer curiosity, she put her hand inside the hole, to her wonder her hand caught hold of something, she pulled it out, it was small steel container and tied to it was a letter which she unrolled. It read as,
To Whom It May Concern
‘This is not an ass cream, I wonder whether the word ‘ass’ is still relevant in the era you live in. This is not an anti-aging cream, I could have died a billionaire if I had invented such a thing. Anyway, this is SRK grease (named after my favourite actor, oh, he is so romantic) apply to the cycle wheels, hope you know how to ride a cycle, to see the wonder.'
‘Grease? Who’s SRK?’ Sen wondered.
She called out her brother. With brinjal cake in his hand he came running. He explained everything to him, as childlike as they could be, which they were, they quickly applied the grease on their bicycle wheels, sat, and zoom! They flew until the cycle landed in the desert of Rajasthan. They were lost, because, apparently, the storyline demands it.
From behind they could feel a dark shadow, they turned back and saw the biggest surprise of their life. Conclusion hissed. Sen and Pong stood there brave but perplexed.
‘What should we do?’ Sen questioned on her mind.
{What could be done? Killing is so cliché! This is not a knight’s tale, no dragons to kill or pale princess to save. What kind of sadist writer allows a big snake to be killed by children? Do it peacefully, no bloodshed}.
Sen took the brinjal cake from his brother and threw it up in the air.
Sadly she had to say, ‘Sorry bro, I don’t think he likes brinjal cake. Non-vegetarian!’
Pong started whistling the lullaby his mother had taught.
‘What are you even doing?’ She questioned her brother’s talent.
Gently, the snake stooped down, closed its eyes and slept off.
‘Good job! Pong.’ Indeed.
They greased the cycle again and flew to their home.
When the snake woke up, it woke up hungry. The brinjal cake was laying unattended, so, Conclusion swallowed it. Damn! In few minutes, Conclusion started puking and in a few hours, Conclusion passed away. Natural death. In no time the news reached the ears of the President of the World Congress. All the scientist got into the business of venom extraction and brought out the remedy Zeera. No one was interested to know how Conclusion died. Sen and Pong promised not to open their mouth, they were young and did not know the power of being in the limelight.
However, as per the story, it is debatable as to who deserves the credit for eliminating the Zeera virus in 2222. Is it the scientist who discovered the answer for curing it or the great grandmother who invited the SRK grease or Pong who baked the brinjal cake or the curious mind of Sen?
Make you own credit rolls.
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