Melody for Mother

 

      Written by: Najia Nijat

First Lane:

Shughla and Muska are playing with dolls in the alley. Muska sings a cradle song(lullaby?)  to her doll. Peddler arrives and they greet hem warmly.

Muska asks the peddler to tell them a melody.

Peddler turns on the talking box. they listen to a child who is singing a melody about the mother.

Shughla and Muska like and learn the melody and they want to tell the melody to their other friends too. Peddler goes to the next alley.

Second Lane:

Nazir, Tahira, and other children are laughing in the alley. Peddler comes and after greeting, he asks the reason of their laughing. Nazir says that Tahira said a joke and we laughed. Peddler says that why they did not wait for his coming. Tahira says that she would tell another joke to the peddler too.

Tahira says: “a beggar was begging some money from passersby and he was saying that he is blind. A man asked him how could he accept that if he is really blind. The beggar asked the man if he could see the donkey far away from them. The man said yes. The beggar said that he could not see it. Peddler likes the joke and asks the children to learn more jokes for next time and he goes to the other alley.

Third Lane:

Ajmal and Atal are playing cricket with some other children in the village ground. Ajmal insults him and calls him in bad names. A quarrel takes place between them. Meanwhile, peddler arrives and asks the reason for their quarrel. Atal tells him the whole story. Peddler blames them and says that good children never fight and do not use bad words to each other and says that calling someone on bad name might create some problems for them. Children ask about the problems.

Peddler turns on the talking box. A boy, Omid says: “one of my friends insulting me by calling bad names when I was playing football with him. Now I do not talk to him.”

Nabila says that one of her friends was insulting other girls with bad names and her all friends decided not to play with her anymore.

Peddler turns off the talking box. Children promise that they would never insult anyone by bad words. Peddler appreciates them and he goes to the alley of the story.

The Story Lane:

Farida and Nawab are telling the previous part of “Dirty Water” story to each other. they say in the previous part the doctor asked Fahim’s father that what has Fahim eaten. Fahim’s father says that they always drink clean water and avoid any contaminated foods. the doctor said that some other children were also transferred to the clinic and they had the same problem. Fahim’s mother asks the doctor if Fahim would recover. The doctor assured her that Fahim would get better but do not forget to take his medicines on time. The doctor dismissed Fahim from the clinic.

Farida hears the flute voice was coming near to them. In a few seconds, the peddler arrives and the children greet him. Farida asks to tell the new part of the story. Peddler asks them to repeat the previous part to him. A golden wing fairy says from inside the peddler’ bag that they have already told the previous part of the story to each other. Peddler says that a few days later, Fahim got his health again and started to play with his sister, Sana. One day they went to the ditch side.

the golden wing fairy says that she wants to tell the third part of the story to the children and she starts the story as follow.

Part Three:

Sana is happy for Fahim’s recovery. Fahim said that he had a very bad body ache. Sana was thankful from the doctor for prescribing him good medicines. Fahim said that he had missed the water ditch. Sana said that now they are back to the ditch and they would play. Fahim removed his clothes and wanted Sana to take care of them. Sana says that she would wash her sandals in the ditch water. While Fahim wanted to enter into the ditch, he heard a voice that was preventing him from entering the ditch. Fahim searched here and there but saw no one.

He asked Sana to see behind the trees and he would check around the ditch but they found no one.

End of part three.