All the beautiful daughters of Mara by Ashok Aatreya (books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

silence and must then start speaking to each other. Anand was at loss of words. He stood there dumbfounded, nervous and excited. He preferred to stand a little away from her, maintaining a safer distance hence avoiding any possible complication.
Two days back, Anand had thrown a crushed piece of paper onto her direction to get Shaheen’s attention while she was on her way to school. That perhaps annoyed her, he thought for once...but Shaheen was on a different playful mood it… seemed she liked Anand’s initiative.
“You threw a paper at me…but why did u leave it blank…Couldn’t you think of anything to write”? Shaheen asked him.
“I did not know what to write, Anand whispered. The truth infact was that he was just playing safe. By throwing a blank paper at the girl, he would gauge her reaction. It would also be pretty non-committal way of expressing his fancy.
“In that case, I want to give you, your paper back! Here, take it. Shaheen handed him back the crushed paper and before Anand could react, she ran away. Anand unfolded the paper…and to his surprise, it contained a message.
“I… l o v e you…”
Shaheen had expressed her love to Anand. Anand flushed with excitement. He folded and put the paper in his pocket and speedily paddled his bicycle…Till he reached the public park. There, he opened up his letter…his first ever love note…from the beautiful girl he fancied… and read it over and over again… That moment was special to him. He felt as if he were on cloud nine, floating freely in streams of thoughts.
It was like a dream coming true. Shaheen, by being bold and fearless, had won the game. She had conveyed effortlessly, what he had been hesitating to, for a long time. She was bold and beautiful, his first love...Shaheen. Their affair took off and Anand and Shaheen continued meeting, only for a short while though. With time, their childhood infatuation, fell prey to societal pressures. The Hindu Muslim divided came in way of their love…it was no way; they could abridge this gap… Anand and Shaheen felt hapless and eventually parted ways.
Now, after so many years…they met again…Was that a design of destiny? Was their love supposed to grow and bloom again? Anand had no idea.


4/ FAMILY TREE
Anand’s life was full of upheavals, uncertainties, difficulties. As a child he lived in Bikampur. It was around the time, when Monarchy and feudal system were breathing it's last breath. Anand’s grandfather was the priest and Rajguru of the princely state of Bikampur and he used to perform a daily ritual-worship of goddess Durga in the old fort temple. The royal family had given several privileges to the Rajguru. One of which was particularly exciting for Anand, and in fact all other kids in the family-coming of Nathiya. Nathiya was royal Mahawat. Among various duties that he carried out for the royalty one was to take the elephant to attend to the Rajguru. Nathiya would often come on the elephant and offer joy ride to the children, which they thoroughly enjoyed. At many Occasions, Nathiya would bring the children to the temple for pooja performed by their Nana and after the ritual, dropped the kids back home.
Nathiya’s visit was an everyday thing. Children of the house would wait by the window of the divankhana that opened on the road. They would spot Nathiya’s elephant from a distance and get ready for their joy ride. Mahawat would stop the elephant right at the window so that even the youngest kid in the family could effortlessly hop on to the spacious brass seat, cushioned with colourful velvet bolsters.
During festivals and other special occasions, the state had granted grand Lawazma with the elephant in the honour of the family. That honour made Anand feel special, much to the jealousy of other kids in the locality. With the passage of time, things changed. Monarchy ended and with that; ended the privileges of the Rajguru’s family. Nathia’s elephant didn't visit the Haveli anymore.
Though the times had changed, nevertheless, his family still commanded respect and was known to have great integrity. Whenever people from the locality, passed by the Haveli, or met anyone from the Rajguru family anywhere, they would stop and greet them with reverence nce. And, for that reason, though Anand did no longer to have any material wealth, he always felt special...
A few years later after his mother passed away due to a chronic illness, Anand came to live with his Nani who was a school teacher. The financial condition of his nani was not so good. She managed the finances, raised the kids, and looked after their education all by her, as his Nana, who was an activist, had left the house a lot time back, to join the revolution against the British. In those days, revolutionaries were considered to be a bad influence on society and people generally considered, it wise not to associate with them. Following Nana’s absentia, Nani was thrown out of her husband’s house. She had nowhere to go after becoming rootless.
On the right side of the big walled structure of her husband’s house, there was a neem tree. For a few days, nani took shelter there. She didn’t have enough money…but she chose to stand with pride. She chose to stand bravely and did not give up. After few days of hardship, Nani was helped by her distant cousin, who got her a job of a teacher in Missionary School. Her cousin was a scholar of Sanskrit and was associated with a very big religious institution. And on his recommendation, she got the job. Though Nani was educated and deserving, she was paid a very low salary for being a revolutionary’s wife. Still that was barely enough to run the family… Nani somehow managed to build a kachha house initially and later, when she had more money, got it made as into a brick house. Nevertheless, she never looked out for help from anyone…
Anand’s Nani spent all her life in struggle and fighting against her bad time and the odds of society. She had seen hardships to the extent that sometime, she slept without meals for two days only to keep enough reserve for her kids. It was very unfortunate that she was expelled from the family along with her children when she was in her prime, youth and beautiful. Her ‘fault’ was that, her husband joined hands with the revolutionaries and was fighting for country's freedom.
Anand did not have early birth time memory of his Nana. When he was born, his Nana was in jail. But in his teens, his Nani told him about Nana’s first arrest outside the Baldau Temple. It was an early hour of the day. The pratham seva of lord Krishna "Mangala" had ended in the temple. Nani and Anand’s mother were coming out the temple when they saw his Nana waiting for them little away from the temple door near a barber’s shop. But as the two were approaching him, some 4 to 5 persons encircled his Nana. It was the police dressed in civil clothes. After the arrest they took him to the kotwali.
Months later, It was after a very long gap that his Nana again came to see them for little time, and that too without anybody’s knowledge that he was in the town. His entry in the erstwhile state was restricted and the warrant of his arrest was already made public.
His arrest was deeply registered in the mind of his mother and she always remembered him. Anyhow he managed to come out of the legal clutch and gone back to Mewar region leaving his family again in troubled waters.
Anand’s childhood was spent partly at Nana's house and partly at his father’s house. Wherever he went, he carried along the bad and good old memories. Anand’s life guiding force was the integrity of his Nani's behaviour.
Anand spent his childhood playing mostly with the street children or with the kids of low strata people of humble origin…He would spent his afternoons in streets in the dark alley of an old abandoned closed city theatre under the big Banyan tree with other children of his mohalla, most of whom attended properly by their parents for lack of money. The alley was generally crowded with gamblers, pick pockets and local goons. They would usually collect there to distribute the money earned in theft, loot or gambling. Within these goons, there were occasional fights too!! Among these goons, was Chanda the wife of oil mill worker, very shrewd lady, she was the gang’s ring leader. A stout, green-eyed, brown shorted haired beauty, Chanda always wore a shirt like a jacket over her sari. In case, her guys got caught, she settled matters with local police constables. She suffered from Polio and had two complicated operations because of which she had difficulty in her movements.
Chanda had great respect for Nani. She always bowed before the house whenever she passed it…even when there was nobody in the house. She would enquire about Anand whenever she met Nani and wished him a bright future…
Perhaps of everyone in the locality, only Chanda regarded Nana for his rebellious life and had high words of praise for him. Whenever Nani met Chanda, she gently urged her to give up her ‘agent’s’ role. Chanda would only smile and say, “Ai pulisia mhanain o dhandho chhodan koni devai ‘(Police don’t allow me to leave my job).
Another’s of Chanda’s speciality in that locality was that, she loved to play the role of Dooti…messenger of lovers. She would offer magical herbs to those who sought help. Chanda had some authentic knowledge of erotic herbs which were very effective and lucky for lovers. Chanda maintained a ‘character-voucher book’ of the people in her locality. She would keep an eye on people and knew all about the ongoing affairs. Anand learnt about that quite late.
Anand and Chanda had a strange association. Both of them would get out of their beds, would go to various thadis and pan shops to collect left over dibbees soda water and caps. It was a routine they followed religiously. After sunrise, they had little chance of getting the caps as sweepers would clean the pavements and roads and take away everything including the lids of soft drinks. Anand would return home only around lunch. Then, Nani would cook food in her mud stove using dried dung cakes and dried twigs. She would sometimes prepare the cow dung cakes herself and often got these from the nearby milk suppliers. The ladies and children of these milk suppliers collected cow dung from the open courtyard surrounding their clusters and made the cakes by hand mixing little dry fodder and after soaking and baking them properly under the sun, stored the old dung cakes for sale. Even the side walls of their mud clusters, roof tops and walls of abandoned old buildings, broken parts of the city fort and the entire ground of their huts exhibited beautifully new made cakes. That display was no less than any cottage industry producing alternative energy in those times. The regular fuel for the houses was also supplied by Ladawala’s the camel-owners who would carry fuel from nearby forest area…In those days wrought-iron Borsee was also in use. It was a sort of stove which was mostly used for heating water…also for cooking as it would produce less smoke. To make fire, saw dust was used. It was a specially designed stove, assembling different parts as outer orbit, Bhonga, a hollow iron pipe opening from both sides, would very perfectly keep intact and also separate the burning areas not allowing the dust to fall.