THE MINI ADVENTURES OF SHRUTI

CHAPTER 4

She sat in one of the small thrones. It was soft and comfy.

If someone comes and screws me for sitting in a courtier's place, I'll tell them that my legs were aching and there was no other place to sit... How would Shri Ram look on that throne with Sita? Where would Hanuman stand, or sit? What kind of cases will Ramji solve?

Questions like these filled her mind. She kept imagining court scenes and made up weird and magical stories. She exercised her mind well by doing this for a long while. Then when her mind was bored of it, she looked at her watch.

11:55? I have been here for more than an hour now! Where are the guards? How long will they take to come?

She waited a little more, or maybe a lot more. It was 12:40 pm by the time she ran out of patience. She finally got up and strolled out of the court room. She began roaming the silent and lonely corridors. The walls were not as filled with designs as the other walls. She walked slowly near the walls, stopping to look at every closed door. The doors were made after long intervals. She wanted to see inside the rooms but she could not peek inside, as the doors were closed, and it is bad manners to do so. So, she walked on. After a while of walking, she came across an open door. She hurried towards it and slowly peeped inside.

There was nobody inside. She could only see a long table with all kinds of things on it. She went inside and directly went to the table. She looked at whatever was kept on it. A few leaflets with something written on them, a big circle, a triangle, a rectangle, a square, a few medium-sized white stones and a rectangular stone. There was something carved on the rectangular stone, which was covered with leaflets. She put the leaflets aside and picked up the stone. There were many similar stones with things carved on them, below the stone which she picked up. She decided to look at all of them one by one. She sat on one of the many wooden stools near the table.

She was surprised to see numbers carved on it in English. It should have been in Hindi, as nobody in this country knew English, currently. There were math sums carved on it. The first one was a simple one of simplification. She tried to do it mentally, but failed. She needed a pen and paper for it. She turned around subconsciously, and discovered a black coloured wall. She went to it and touched it. Her fingers didn't get black after touching it. She knocked on it. It shook a bit. Then she noticed, the black colour ended at a short distance before the door. She went to that spot and discovered that it was actually a blackboard. It had been placed against the wall. That's why it shook. She wanted to solve the sum on the board but needed chalk to do that. She saw a small wooden stool near the other end of the blackboard.

She went up to it and noticed few more white-coloured stones on it, which resembled the stones on the table. She picked them up and put the rectangular stone in their place. She rubbed them and white powder settled on her fingers. She used it to put a stroke on the blackboard. It made a white streak. Only then she understood that it was chalk. She looked around for a duster. She only found a piece of cloth. She had no choice but to use it as a duster, maybe it was a duster. She copied the sum on the board with the white stone.

I didn't imagine chalk to be like this in olden times. But how did these English numbers and sums land up here? Oh Yes! That challenge.

She solved the sum in minutes, and looked at the second sum, which was also solved by her in no time, and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth and soon, she was done with the stone and the chalk. The chalk was now too small to hold. She put the stone and the small piece of chalk back on the table and took another stone and chalk with her to the black board. Simplification had been easy, but boring. Fractions were a little more interesting.

She got on with the second set of sums which were also solved. It was 1:15 pm by then. Shruti was about to go to the table to get the third stone, when she saw a lady walk past the door. She had seen her. She was now more nervous than she was before. What if she told on her? She had not seen the lady clearly, but she was decked up in ornaments. And she was also, a little beautiful. Shruti did not believe in thinking about useless stuff like this and continued solving the sums. She could do them very easily and was enjoying it.