One of the most difficult tasks was to decide a name for this story. I couldn’t name it –“My Town” as the story begins when I leave it, neither could I name it – “My city” as I never accepted that city as mine.
Let me start from the beginning. I am Rhea Jaiswal and am 13. I have two brothers- Ishaan Jaiswal and Rover. Rover is not a human being if you are thinking so. My pet dog is named Rover. My Grand mom lives in Shegaon, a small village in Maharashtra. After all Maharashtra is not only about Mumbai. We used to live with her. Our parent work in Mumbai and rarely visits us. They often ask us to join them but we refuse. But this time Ma forced me to come to Mum and did not stop till I agreed. How was I supposed to adjust?
Reluctantly, I set my first step in the so called “City of Dreams” where maybe the first time someone is breaking a dream. I hate fast moving places instead I love slow villages which still lack modernisation. Maybe because I daydream a lot. I prefer being away from the crowd than being within it. After typing every word I am looking at the number of words column to see whether I am exceeding the word limit or not.
So when I entered my home I waited for guests to turn up. In our Village whenever a new member comes the whole village visits the house to welcome them. But in Mum no one came. Maybe in metros they are so self- centred that they do not care about others. Next morning no one came to ask for a cup of tea. There every morning either kamalabai or Latabai used to come to demand a cup of tea. In my school I am always left out. My classmates talk about the latest dress they bought from Pantaloons or any such Exotic place. In that school we had millions of other topics to talk about. The only way to celebrate is to watch movie but there to celebrate anything we planted a tree. I often call my friends over there like – Gayatri, Aashka and Meghna. I used to skip friends meet. There is no reason actually but I have only one friend Ishita. One day I went down to play. There was no one. No one in Mum liked to go out from their houses and be with nature. They liked being with television, Internet, laptop and other electronic devices. Maybe this is because there is no playground to play. Everything has been captured to build hotels, apartments etc. Thank god I have Rover to play with or I would have died.
The whole village was like a small family. But Mum cannot be one as no family could have 13 million members. I am not saying that Mum is bad but for me my village is better. It is more homely. When you go to Shegaon you feel as if you are in your home but in Mumbai you are in a lost land. Whenever someone asks me where do I want to go when I grow up I instantly reply Shegaon.
PS: I am sorry if it hurts anyone's emotion but this story is only to be enjoyed. Mumbai is shown only as any other metro not to hurt the sentiment of a reader. Sorry again
- Author
