Aisha, his six year old niece, was on the other side of the phone call. In an usual cute voice of hers, she demanded a bed time story from her favourite uncle. Last winter, when he had visited his sister, he had pampered Aisha with a bed time story every night and the ending of these stories marked the beginning of Aisha's night dreams. And today in the lock down when he cannot visit her, he obliged her with a story instructing her to switch off the lights, tuck herself in the blanket, put the phone on the speaker mode and close her eyes to listen to him. He asked her to choose one: a butterfly, an elephant or a star as the protagonist of the story. She chose "butterfly".
The story:
The yellow butterfly was once flying bored in a garden until she noticed another butterfly, the white one with blue polka dots on it. The yellow butterfly tried approaching her to say hello but then the white butterfly gave a cold shoulder with an arrogant and a rude vibe. The yellow butterfly came back to her own plant and to escape the hurt of the arrogance of the white butterfly, she tried delving in nostalgia of her childhood. She was reminded of her carefree caterpillarhood, how easy life was, how no one expected much, you just sit on one leaf and chill. Obviously, back then you have dreams of being a butterfly and flying freely here and there but then its only when you become a butterfly, you realise that it is just a hollow dream.
And then sitting on her plant, deep in her nostalgia, she noticed another caterpillar lazing and chilling around on a leaf nearby. Smiling at the caterpillar, the butterfly felt that the caterpillar was well mannered to return her smile and also with a smile which seemed quite genuine. The butterfly flew to the caterpillar and started giving him gyan about how to relish the caterpillarhood and that it would not last long. And in between the long gyaan, the caterpillar noticed his mother back with the nectar. The yellow butterfly realised that the mother was the same ill-mannered white polka dot butterfly who had evaded her hello few minutes back. Before the yellow butterfly could fly back, the mother butterfly started shouting expletives at her and threatened to de-wing the butterfly if she came near her son next time.
The yellow butterfly feeling a bit sad left the garden and started looking for another garden. She stumbled on a garden of bougainvillea where she met a group of butterflies discussing about humans. They were gossiping on the weirdness of adult humans and waited for their six year old friend who would be there anytime. And then Aisha, the friend they were waiting, arrived at this bougainvillea garden to play with the butterflies.
(Narrating the story, he checked whether his niece was still awake or had he bored her to sleep. Pleasantly, Aisha was awake and excitedly shouted at him to complete the story.)
Aisha started playing the game of pakdam-pakdai with the butterflies where one player had to touch fleeing players and the one who was caught had to chase others. Aisha was good at the game and whenever the butterfly would come near her, she would duck or sway so smoothly that it was difficult for the butterfly to catch her. The yellow butterfly also joined the game. Due to her lack of stamina and newness of the game, she was most of the time chasing other butterflies and Aisha. At the end of the game, when Aisha's mother asked for Aisha to return to her house, she like a true sportsperson went to the yellow butterfly to wish her well and asked her to practise daily to get better. The yellow butterfly promised that she would come daily and that she really had a good time. That night, the yellow butterfly tired after the game slept happily like a log and dreamt a beautiful dream of stars and elephants.
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Epilogue: His sister called him (the storytelling uncle) the next morning to complain as to what story had he narrated to Aisha last night that she is vehemently denying to wear her erstwhile-favourite-polka-dot frock.
