Ram Baba | Short story 1

A boy, a mother, a stranger and the simplest way of learning.

The sun was setting down to give way to the wintry nights. Like every other evening, Mrs Bhatia took Aarav to the garden to play and for her, it was the evening walk with her friends, she had made there. Aarav got too engrossed in taking the first turn in every ride and started running to next ride completing the previous one.

A half-hour passed and Mrs Bhatia, who had not missed a single opportunity to talk to every other woman whom she knew there, finally moved her eyes to look for Aarav. Quenching her thirst with water she looked but was not able to find him. The search lead to curiosity, which in turn lead to anxiety. She started looking for him here and there; questioning his friends. Furiously looking, before her anxiety would turn into tension she found him. Deep west in the garden, adjusting his hair, again and again, Aarav was sitting with a group of many young ten-year-olds’.

…..

As she walked towards him, she saw an old man wearing a kurta and pyjama sitting in the corner and addressing those young kids. He looked old enough to be seventy-five. Moving closer she noticed each of those kids had a pen and paper in their hands and they were jotting something down. As she reached, she exchanged a smile with the old man and asked Aarav to stand up. As he turned up, Mrs Bhatia looked into his paper and found the word “Ram, Ram” being repeatedly written on the whole paper. She asked Aarav to continue and took a side seat. As the session got over, the old man took all the paper slips and left.

On her way back, she asked the security guard about the old man. He said the old man was known as “Ram Baba” who stayed nearby and had retired from his work. He lived on his pension with no family and so spent his evening with kids to make them understand and realize the importance of the almighty God in life. Mrs Bhatia was deeply impressed. From the next day, Aarav went there again. She was happy to see that without any force from her end, Aarav started going to ram baba himself.