Short stories:

Me: "Meghna what are you writing?"

Meghna: "I have a homework on how islands were formed"

As soon as I started to tell her the scientific facts she stopped me.

Meghna: "Ma, I have to write my own myth about how islands were formed, not scientific facts.

Me: "Cool, very good creative writing project!"

Meghna: "Why don't you write your own myth with illustration"

I had no other option than to pen down my first story (that too in english!!) with illustration.

Story of Islands

A long time ago, our planet Earth was significantly different from today. There were continents and oceans; but there were no traces of islands! Indeed there were no islands at that time and oceans were filled with sweet water.

In that deep water of the oceans there was a kingdom of beautiful mermaids. They were very gentle and gifted musicians. On every full moon they used to swim up to the nearest seashore and sing beautiful songs. Everything was spellbound!

But alas, greedy humans used to live on that land. When they got to know about the mermaids they planned to capture them.

On one moonlit night, the mermaids swam up to the seashore with their beautiful princess, “Jalpari”. The greedy humans attacked them and imprisoned the princess. They took her to their king who was not only greedy but was also very jealous of Jalpari’s sweet voice. He ordered his court to execute her the next morning.

All the mermaids were in an incredible amount of sorrow. They cried their hearts out with their queen. The ocean water turned salty from their tears.

The ocean god could not bear their pain anymore, he was angry and his whole body started shaking vigorously in anger. He shot out red-hot lava from beneath the sea through cracked ocean floor.

He then formed an extremely powerful colonel, he called his colonel “Tsunami” and sent him to rescue Jalpari. Tsunami won the battle against the wicked king and his greedy people and rescued Jalpari. The mermaids were bursting with joy and showered Tsunami with many precious gifts.

Tsunami was very pleased and to keep the mermaids safe from the greedy humans he created many islands far away from the land and gifted these to Jalpari and made them invisible to the greedy people.

Since then mermaids swim up to the island shore on full moon and sing their heavenly songs. People with golden hearts are the only ones that can see them enjoy their music on full moon.

Meghna got a violin

It was 2017. Meghna and her parents were visiting Andaman and Nicobar islands in her summer vacation. It’s a beautiful island midst of Indian Ocean. They were staying in cottages so near the seashore that she could hear the sound of the ocean waves even from her room.

Everyone was asleep after the day long journey. But sleep was far away from Meghna. She woke up and opened the door silently and tip toed outside. She was mesmerized to see nature’s beauty---she saw a big full moon above her head and all she could see was flooded with silvery moon light. Despite the roaring and harsh waves she could hear a melodious voices coming from the seashore. She gathered all her courage and walked towards the melancholy sounds.

To her surprise, she found a golden mermaid singing the heavenly music. After sometime the mermaid felt the presence of Meghna and turned towards her.

“I am Meghna, who are you?” said Meghna.

“You must be the one having a golden heart! Glad to meet you! I am Jalpari, princess of mermaids.”

Two of them became friends in no time. They continuously discussed about their friends and their homes. The two friends departed as dawn slowly approached.

The next day Meghna woke up late and spent whole day with her parents surfing the majestic waves. Life was so good! She had never seen such a spectacular sunset! It made her day!

They had dinner early and soon went to bed.

In the middle of the night Meghna heard the melody, she had heard Jalpari singing yesterday. She came out of her cottage and walked towards the seashore. Jalpari was sitting on a rock doing her usual singing. Meghna sat by her and took in that heavenly music.

Jalpari gave Meghna a beautiful blue pearl and said,” keep this always with you. It will save you from all dangers.”

In the middle of the conversation Jalpari expressed her desire to have wings so that she can see the outer space. Meghna also had the same desire. But alas, none of them have wings!

Jalpari suggested to go to the sea god and pray for wings. Meghna had learnt swimming before so she agreed to the plan and dived into the deep blue ocean.

Meghna could never know that the underwater world is so colorful if she had not come here with Jalpari. The sea god was sitting on a throne made of white pearls. Two big gold fishes were standing next to him and mermaids were singing and dancing all around.

Meghna and Jalpari bowed down before him and expressed their desire to have wings. The sea god was very pleased to see them but he told them that any ordinary wings like birds would not help them to fly in outer space—they need special wings! He then dug up some precious materials from under the sea bed and made wings for them. Meghna and Jalpari were very happy and thanked the sea god. Their journey to outer space began!

As soon as they passed Earth’s atmosphere the space above them became black though they could still see the magnificent blue planet beneath them. Their speed increased as they zoomed past the solar system! Oh, so many stars around and they are in so many different colors and sizes---some are blue, some are red, some yellow too! As if someone has scattered colorful marbles all around!

They crossed the Milky Way and headed straight with high speed. Look, our home is a spiral---so beautiful! “I wish our moms and dads could see this,” said Meghna.

Suddenly there was a bang! When Jalpari and Meghna opened their eyes they saw a different world around them! All the creatures around them look similar to Earth’s but they were changing their forms continuously. They saw a human being transformed to a cat and in a next second to a dog and then to a peacock….and so on! Everything was beyond their understanding! But the place was filled will music. The most interesting thing was that they could listen and understand what the other creatures were talking even though none of them were speaking verbally!

Suddenly a saint-like-human appeared in front of them.

“Don’t get perplexed! We have a universal binary language,” said the saint.

Meghna’s parents are scientists and spend most of their time on computers. So Meghna was aware of binary codes…0 and 1. The saint immediately read her mind and interrupted her. “Darling, our binary code consists of love and trust, and we can express our feelings using these. Our hearts communicate through this. It’s a very easy language—it can express emotions too. In ancient times people used 1 and 0 but those were not able to express emotions.”

“But I cannot understand how you all are changing your identities instantaneously?” said Meghna.

“It’s a long story. At the beginning there was nothing, not even light! Everything was created afterwards and all of us are made of the same particles,” replied the saint.

At this point Meghna nodded her head, she had heard of protons, neutrons, electrons from her dad.

The saint continued, “When you use love and trust binaries to communicate you will see all the same, just with different sequences of those particles. When you feel it you can transform yourself to what form you want by an empathy transformation!”

“What about the joyous music?” asked Meghna.

“My child, this universe is filled with joy, it is filled with music…everything is music! You have a golden heart therefore I will give you an instrument to take home,” he smiled.

He gave Meghna a violin…not any ordinary one; it’s a special violin whose strings are love, trust, honesty and empathy! It produces heavenly music. It has special powers.

“Everyone who will listen this music will be turned into a golden hearted person.”

Meghna thanked the saint and with that violin she returned to Earth with Jalpari.

The next morning she woke up and found that violin next to her pillow. As soon as she bowed it, everything around her started changing……birds started singing with her, butterflies flattered their colorful wings to her melodious playing…a big rainbow appeared in the clear scorching sky! Everything was so musical and joyous! Her heart was filled with love for everything around her.