FREEDOM
Dear children, this STORY is for you and your Siblings and for all your friends.
FREEDOM
(ADVICE: Stealing
something such as ‘Freedom’ that belongs to someone else is not a good habit.)
We lived in a little
wooden house on a valley. The valley was known as the silent valley. The house we
lived was a bit old and it was built by my grandfather. My grandfather was a
town man. According to what my father told me, he did not like to live in the
town and had come to the ‘silent valley’. There was dense of wood adjacent to
the valley and on the right side a range of mountains. The wood was named as
the kings’ wood and the mountains as the ‘pleasant mountains’.
I enjoyed climbing
the pleasant mountains and viewing the valley from the woods, sitting on top of
my favorite tree. If any stranger enters the valley I was the first to know.
We lead a happy life.
We received rain and sun, adequately every season. Our stores were always full
of grains. We had enough water to cultivate and we even sold the excess grains
to the foreign traders who often visited our valley. We enjoyed swimming in the
little stream which flowed between the valley and the pleasant mountains.
My mother was very
fond of singing. She used to teach us beautiful songs and poems and narrated
stories before we go to sleep.
My father used to
work at a farm in a village next to the valley. The farm was owned by one of
the rich landlords of the area. The landlord was very fond of cultivating
cotton. By the way, my father was wholeheartedly a peasant. Rather, he was
pleased when others called him a peasant. He worked there when there was no
cultivation of his own to look after. The landlord did not mind him working
during his leisure time because there were not much labourers around who wished
to work for a wage.
Unfortunately the
landlord was unkind to the workers who worked there. No worker was happy
working there, including my father. But my father told me that all those
workers who worked at the farm were honest and did not cheat their landlord.
One day he met a kind
entrepreneur from Spain who visited the farm for a business matter. My father
was offered a job as a farm keeper. His job was to look after horses and ponies.
The kind entrepreneur owned a huge yard of ponies and horses. He took a
decision to leave the valley for our own sake. And he also decided to handover our
land to his own brother to cultivate corn until he returned.
We all felt sad on
the day that he left us to Spain. I am the one who missed him most because my
father and I were very good friends and were not just a father and a child.
Back then there were
no telephone in the valley. But my father used to write to me long and lengthy
letters explaining the chores he had to do and the things he observed.
My father told me
that every horse had a name; Super Wind, Strong Earth, Massive Rain, Speed Hunter,
Quite Fighter including very active ‘Freedom’. There were many others as well, I
can’t recall their names right now.
I had seen horses and
ponies who used to go across our valley with their masters. Ever since I wanted
to own a horse.
On one fresh summer
morning, my father returned home, one week prior to his official vacation.
Guess who came with
our father? It was Freedom who came with him.
Freedom was the best gift
I have ever received from my father. I like its long swinging tail and rhythmic
walk. It didn’t like to live a caged
life. Although there was a fence around our land, it lived freely because we
didn’t tie it or locked it inside any room or hall.
My father knew how to
deal with horses and ponies. He taught me how to take care of Freedom. I had a
companion since then. A good trustworthy one.
Since Freedom came
into the valley, to our family, I didn’t have to bother about not having many
friends around or near me in the valley we lived. We walked together, ran
across the valley, in the wood, and climbed the mountains so happily.
As you all know very
well, the horses can’t talk. But there was a particular way that I used to
communicate with it.
Whenever I had
something in my mind I used to share it with Freedom. If it agreed to whatever
I said, it used to shake his head frontward. If it disagreed it used to shake
his head left and right. If it got confused with the questions I asked or
things I said, it used to stay quite.
About a few months
later, my father went back to Spain to accomplish his duties.
On a particular Sunday,
my brothers, sister and my mother went to the church except me. I was not well,
so I had to stay at home.
About a couple of
hours later when they left the house, I heard a big vehicle full of men with
weapons entering our land.
“Collect
every single grain they have.”
A person with a big beard
ordered the other men in a tuft unkind voice. Another man came quickly to me
and said,
“Oye
lad come here, bring every grain & bread you have.”
But I said that
“I
can’t give you anything. There is only a few grains left until my father
returns from work.”
He didn’t even bother
to listen to what I was telling. He even dragged me from where I was standing
and asked me to show him the grain store. I screamed for help…
“Help!
Help!”
But there was no one
in the valley because all have gone to the church.
I thought that they
were bandits. They took everything we had. My coin box, a valuable book named ‘Libertyfull
Island’, and my Freedom.
Ever since, I lost Freedom
and a good friend. A few months later, my father decided to send me to the
school that my father studied and then to a high school in the town. It helped
me to adjust and cured my wounded mind.
But Freedom lived in my mind forever. I wanted to grow older as quickly
as possible. But I had to wait patiently till I complete my education.
I know how to
recognize Freedom. And I know who took it away from our family, our valley, and
from our land. My vision of life now is to find Freedom and bring it back to
our land, to the silent valley. I believe that one day I will be able to find
it.
Till I come to rescue
you Stay Safe Freedom!
I will let you know
what would happen during my search for Freedom.
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