THE SINGING WELL

There was once a tiny radio.

The elders always called it transistor.

I don’t know why.

Its name was radio!

The radio was tiny but the sound it made was big.

So big, that if it was played in one end of the big house it was in, it could be heard at the other end!

The five sisters in the house loved the radio.

They would all sit together listening to songs while they helped their mother with her chores.

They would memorize the songs and sing along with it.

Sometimes, it would play even while they studied in the light that the kerosene lamps threw on their books.

The radio was their friend and companion.

There were books of course. And children’s magazines.

But if someone asked them who their best friend was, they would all say, RADIO!

There was no TV then. Or telephones.And no electricity.

But no one noticed because their radio was always there for them – to entertain them, to tell them stories from all over the world and to sing them to sleep.

One day after school, when they turned the radio on, it began to cough, stutter and stammer.

Father walked over to the radio and removed its batteries.

It had four huge batteries.

Father put in four new batteries and turned the radio on.

It groaned at first and then began to sing as usual.

“There. Your radio will never stop singing now,” he said.

The girls clapped their hands in glee.

One day, the girls put the radio on the wall of their favourite well.

Their house had three wells but this one was their favourite because they had seen it being dug and

there was a lot of room to run around near this well.

They were playing ball today.

Do you know what happened next?

That’s right.

While the girls were playing, the ball slipped out of a hand and fell on the ground.

But it did not stay there.

It bounced.

The girls looked at the ball with horror as it bounced towards the well.

And before they could stop it, the ball hit the radio and fell into the well.

Splash.

The radio moved and fell sideways into the well too.

SPLASH!

The five girls ran to the well but the radio was nowhere to be seen.

Sadly, they walked back to their big house and stayed indoors for the rest of the day.

That night, father saw them all sad.

They told him about the radio.

Father quietly stood up, opened the big door of the big house and stepped outside.

The girls followed him.

It was a starry night.

They saw their father’s shadow walking towards the well.

“Listen carefully,” father said.

The girls stared at the well and tried to listen.

They could only hear the tadpoles and the crickets.

Father looked at the youngest daughter and asked her to sing her favourite song, the one she had heard on the radio.

She started singing.

The other four sisters joined in.

Father only knew the first few lines but he hummed beautifully for the rest of the song.

Mother looked at them from the kitchen and smiled.

Years have gone by.

The four younger sisters have grown up and work as engineers.

The eldest sister however got the best job.

She became my mom.

And till date, she tells me the beautiful tale of the singing well.