Once during winter, when I was in my home town, I saw two of my
nieces, 3 years old Prathana and 5 years old Lochana fighting. I don't
know the reason why the fight started. When I saw them, they were
already fighting. Prathana was telling her older sister that she will
never call her sister and she is no longer her sister. It was amusing
to see them fight because it was reminding me of my childhood days.
However, keeping my thought aside, I went to them to resolve their
issue. Their issue was resolved when they started chatting with me. To be
honest, they had forgotten about their fights while chatting with me.
They started playing so I decided to do my work.
Later that day, I was chatting with my cousin, when we saw Prathana.
As she is clever and is good at avoiding the difficult situation, I
decided to play a prank on her. when she was near to us, me to my
cousin, "Pankaj, do you know what Prathana did today?"
"What did she do?"
Prathana was already staring at us.
"She fought with her elder sister."
"Is it?"
Even my cousin was acting along with me.
"Yes, you know she told her sister that from today, she won't call her
her sister and that she is no longer her sister."
Pankaj turned towards Parathana and asked her if it is true. Prathana
was quiet. She was looking down at her feet. Pankaj asked again. She
didn't reply. He asked for the third time. but she was
determined to be silent.
Pankaj to her, "so you have decided not to speak. Let me see your dad then."
Prathana coughed.
Pankaj to her, "oh! you got a cough that's why you are unable to speak?"
She nodded her head yes.
My cousin took crocin tablet from his pocket and showed it to her and
said to her, "since you have a cough you can have this medicine and let
I know why you fought with your sister and whether you will fight with her in future?"
She was silent. I was closely looking at her of what she will do next.
Since she couldn't think of anything, her expression was changing
and she was about to cry. So I signalled him to stop.
He then lovingly asked her not to fight with her sister and she
needn't take the medicine as she coughed only once. We then let her
go. With this, this episode got over for us and we got busy with our
work.
One day when we were outside, one of our
neighbours came and asked my cousin if he tried to poison Prathana.
We both were surprised to hear that. Why would we want to poison our
niece? Unable to understand what she meant by that. We asked her to
explain her question to us.
Then she said, 'Prathana came to me and told me that you tried to kill
her by poisoning her."
Then we understood why she asked this. We laughed at her answer and
explained to her what had happened a few days back. Even she could not
stop her laughter.
Then I decided to go to my brother house to see my niece and to know
what has she told her parents and my aunt. My aunt confirmed that she
did tell them too that Pankaj tried to poison her and that my aunt
should speak with Pankaj and ask him not to poison her.
My aunt bought her to our house, in front of her told Pankaj that she
won't fight with her sister and we should allow her to play at our
house without trying to do anything to her. We agreed to it and things
became normal again.
My niece and her wild imagination almost got us into trouble. It was
our home town and neighbours were like family so they understood that
it was one of our niece exaggerated stories as they have seen us
grown-up from a toddler to an adult.
So many years have passed but this incident still brings a smile to my
face. My niece is still the same, there is no change in her.