Once Upon Many Nights
Bedtime Stories with Life Lessons
By Salim Ansari
© 2025 Salim Ansari. All rights reserved.
Dedication
To every child who dreams big, laughs loud, and wonders endlessly—these stories are for you.
Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1: The Little Cloud and the Rainbow Race
2. Chapter 2: Rohan and the Time-Travel Train
3. Chapter 3: The Elephant Who Wanted to Fly
4. Chapter 4: Meena and the Magical Library
5. Chapter 5: The Dragon Who Feared Fire
6. Chapter 6: The Candy Mountain Mystery
7. Chapter 7: The Owl Who Couldn’t Hoot
8. Chapter 8: Diya’s Festival of Lights
9. Chapter 9: The Golden Feather Adventure
10. Chapter 10: The Birthday That Changed Everything
Chapter 1: The Little Cloud and the Rainbow Race
In the faraway skies, above hills green as fresh paan leaves and rivers that shone like spilled silver, lived a tiny cloud named Chintu.
Chintu was smaller than the rest, a soft puff no bigger than the haystack behind the village temple. On sunny afternoons, he liked to drift lazily, watching the farmers below shout instructions to their bullocks and children chasing marbles in the lane.
It was early summer, and the air smelled faintly of mango blossoms. The sky was gathering for the Annual Rainbow Race — the most exciting day of the year for clouds. The rule was simple: whoever made the brightest and longest rainbow after a rain shower would win.
Big clouds like Golu, Motu, and Bindu laughed loudly as they rolled in. They were heavy with water, their bellies rumbling like distant drums. Chintu, with barely a handful of raindrops inside him, floated quietly nearby.
Bindu spotted him and called out, “Arre Chintu! Are you racing this year? You can barely wet a neem leaf!”
Chintu’s cheeks turned a soft grey. “I… I’ll try. Who knows?” he said, though his heart thudded like a tabla in his chest.
The whistle blew.
Golu let out a booming roar, pouring rain so hard that a shepherd below ran for cover. Motu drenched an entire sugarcane field in seconds. Chintu? He drifted to a small garden where three children were sitting, drawing in the mud with sticks.
I can’t outpour them, he thought, but maybe… maybe I can outshine them.
He let his few drops fall gently — tap-tap-tap — on the dusty marigolds. The earthy smell of fresh rain rose up, and Chintu positioned himself right where the sun peeked through a gap in the clouds.
Swoooosh!
A rainbow appeared — not the biggest, but so bright it looked as if someone had polished each colour by hand. The red was the deep red of sindoor, the green like fresh coriander, the blue like a brand-new sari.
The children below gasped. “Dekho! Dekho!” shouted the smallest boy, pointing up. They ran to fetch their grandmother, who smiled toothlessly. “This one will be remembered,” she murmured.
When the race ended, the judges — three wise eagles with eyes like gold coins — announced, “The winner is Chintu, for bringing the most joy with the least water.”
Golu and Motu were silent. Finally, Golu said, “Looks like size isn’t everything.”
Chintu blushed, drifting away slowly, a small smile spreading across his soft face.
Moral of the Story:
You don’t need to be the biggest to shine the brightest. Use what you have, where you are, and you can still create your own rainbow.
Chapter 2: Rohan and the Time-Travel Train
The Shantipur railway station was half-asleep. Ceiling fans groaned overhead, the chai-wala poured steaming tea into clay kulhads, and the smell of fried pakoras hung in the humid air.
Twelve-year-old Rohan sat on a cracked wooden bench, sketching trains in his old notebook. He knew every arrival time by heart — even the ones that were always late.
That evening, the sunset sky turned an odd purple, like jamun juice mixed with milk. From the far end of the track came a glimmer — not of metal, but of gold. A deep whistle echoed, richer and slower than any Rohan had ever heard.
And then it arrived.
The engine was golden, its wheels shining like brass thalis, its headlight a warm amber glow. Instead of numbers, the clock above the door had years written on it: 1850, 1947, 2025, 2050…
The door slid open with a hiss. Out stepped a tall man in a deep-blue coat, a brass pocket watch swinging at his side.
“Good evening, young sir,” he said, tilting his hat. “Where to?”
Rohan blinked. “Where does this train go?”
“Anywhere… and any time,” the man replied, his eyes twinkling.
First Stop – 1850
Rohan climbed aboard, and the train moved without a jerk — the scenery outside melted into streaks of light. Moments later, it slowed, and he saw endless green fields dotted with mud huts. Bullock carts creaked along dusty tracks, women carried pots on their heads, and barefoot children played gilli-danda.
The air was thick with the smell of hay and woodsmoke. A farmer offered Rohan sugarcane juice in a clay cup, and he sipped, the sweetness flooding his mouth.
Second Stop – 1947
Next, the train rolled into streets alive with celebration. People waved tri colour flags, shouting “Vande Mataram!” Sweet shops overflowed with jalebis, the syrup clinging to people’s fingers. Rohan felt the electricity in the air — not from wires, but from hope.
A boy about his age handed him a ladoo. “One day, we’ll make our country proud,” he said, eyes shining. Rohan wanted to believe him.
Third Stop – 2050
The train soared past familiar landscapes into a city of glass towers and flying cars. Robots cleaned streets, and vending machines handed out meals. Everything was efficient… but strangely quiet.
People hurried past each other; eyes fixed on glowing wrist screens. In a park, an old man fed pigeons alone. “We have everything now,” the man said softly, “except time for each other.”
Back to Shantipur
The train slid back into Rohan’s station, the purple sky now a deep indigo. The conductor handed him a silver whistle. “Blow this when you’re ready for another journey,” he said with a knowing smile.
As Rohan walked home, the cool night air on his face, he thought: Every time has its beauty, but the best time is the one we’re living — if we choose to live it well.
Moral of the Story:
Time changes everything, but kindness, connection, and gratitude never go out of style.
Chapter 3: The Elephant Who Wanted to Fly
The forests of Sundarvan never kept secrets well. Parrots announced gossip before dawn, streams hummed rumours down the stones, and the wind told stories to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
In the middle of all this lived Gajju — an elephant with slate-grey skin, a patient smile, and a dream too big for his body. He wanted to fly.
He’d climb the tallest hill till his feet tingled and watch eagles draw silver stitches across the sky. “If I could just touch a cloud,” he would whisper. His best friend, Tiku the turtle, would blink slowly. “And if I could just catch you when you fall,” Tiku would reply. They always laughed, but Gajju’s chest hurt a little afterwards.
One noon, when the air smelled of ripe jackfruit and wet earth, a shadow circled the hill. The old eagle Aakaash landed, his talons clicking on rock like small drums.
“You look up more than you look around,” the eagle said.
“I want to fly,” Gajju blurted out, then flushed. “I know it’s foolish.”
“Foolish is wanting something and never trying,” Aakaash said. “Come tomorrow at sunrise. Learn the manners of wind.”
Training tasted like patience. Aakaash taught him to face the cliff and close his eyes until he felt the wind’s fingers combing his ears. “This is a south wind — warm, bossy,” he’d say. “This thin one is from the river. Polite, but quick.” Gajju learned to lean a whisker to the left, a breath to the right, until breezes began to feel like old friends.
When the monkeys discovered his lessons, they whooped. “We’ll help!” In a week they’d woven a carpet of vines and giant banana leaves, a glider as wide as a bAnanyan’s smile. Parry the parrot lined the edges with sturdy feathers shed by peacocks, “for luck.” Even Tiku contributed a coil of river-reed rope. “For landing,” he said, and didn’t explain.
The day of the test, clouds stacked like dumplings along the horizon. The forest gathered below the cliff. Gajju’s heart thumped tuk-tuk-tuk, the way it did when mangoes fell on tin roofs during storms.
“Run,” Aakaash murmured, “but listen more than you run.”
Gajju ran. The glider snapped, bellied, then caught. For one impossible, generous moment, the earth unclenched its fist and let him go. He floated above the startled parrots, above the jackfruit smell and the gossiping stream, above his old heavy doubts. “I’m flying,” he laughed, which came out as a trumpet that made the monkeys cover their ears.
A sudden crosswind shoved him sideways. The glider tilted. Below, a thorn thicket waited with mean patience. Gajju’s throat went dry.
Left ear, south wind, river-thin, he repeated Aakaash’s lessons inside his skull like a prayer. He leaned a breath right, lifted his trunk to change the drag, and the glider answered like a friend who knew what you meant even when you didn’t say it right.
Something small fluttered ahead, tangled in a creeper above the thorns — a baby myna, crying hoarsely. Gajju’s belly tightened. “Not on my first day,” he thought. But his trunk moved before his doubt could argue. He reached as he floated over the thicket; the tip of his trunk brushed the vine, slipped, then caught the chick’s twig-perch and bent it gently toward a safer branch. The myna scrambled free, shook itself, and scolded him soundly. Gajju laughed again.
He landed ugly — knees first, pride second, trunk last — in a hay-soft patch Tiku had chosen on purpose. The forest burst into applause that sounded like rain on leaves.
“You didn’t fall,” Parry squealed.
“I did,” Gajju said, grinning, “and then the wind picked me back up.”
Aakaash folded his wings. “You wanted to touch a cloud. Today a cloud touched you back.”
That evening, when Gajju climbed the hill alone, the sky was the colour of roasted brinjal. He could still taste the wind — dusty, sweet, a little like coriander left out in sun. He looked at his footprints and then at the empty air above them and felt, not heavy, not light, but held.
Moral of the Story:
With patience, friends, and a little courage at the wobble, even impossible dreams can find honest sky.
Chapter 4: Meena and the Magical Library
Meena discovered the key by accident, which is how the best doors introduce themselves.
It lay tangled in her grandmother’s old dupatta drawer, a small rusty thing with a red thread around its neck and three letters scratched untidily on its heart: F C L.
The storm outside drummed on the windows. “Find-Collect-Listen,” Nani said when Meena showed her the key. “That’s how your Dada read books. He found a question, collected clues, and listened till the story answered back.” Nani’s eyes went somewhere rainy and long ago. “There used to be a door in this house…”
The door was at the end of a corridor that smelled like mothballs and turmeric. The key turned with a stubborn sigh. The room beyond swallowed the storm and replaced it with hush: a library without a ceiling, shelves climbing into sky, books drifting in slow circles like lazy kites.
A thin golden book came down and bumped her shoulder, almost shy. When Meena opened it, heat breathed on her face. Sand spilled over her toes.
She was in a desert. Camels groaned like old swings. A woman with hennaed hands pressed a cool date into Meena’s palm; it tasted like the sun pretending to be sugar. “Where are you going?” Meena asked the caravan leader.
“Where the wind finishes its sentence,” he said, and the desert chuckled.
The golden book fluttered in her grip. Pages turned like sparrow wings. Salt smacked her lips; she was riding a green-backed sea turtle over a reef so bright it looked like a festival had fallen into the water. Dolphins arrowed past, clicking jokes. “Hold tight,” the turtle said in a voice of bubbles. Meena laughed and choked and laughed again.
A heavier book tugged at her wrist, silver vines stitched into its cover. A trumpet blared; she stood inside a castle courtyard where armour clinked and banners snapped. A girl in trousers under her gown winked at Meena and handed her a wooden sword. “Come on,” she whispered. “We train at dawn because they say we shouldn’t.” They fenced until their wrists ached and their cheeks ached more from grinning.
Back in the library, Meena leaned against a ladder and closed her eyes. The desert was still in her throat, the sea still on her skin, the castle’s drum in her bones.
“F C L,” she whispered. “Find the door. Collect the world. Listen when it answers.”
Nani padded in, carrying two steel cups of hot milk that smelled faintly of cardamom. “We used to come here when your Papa was your size,” she said. “He liked the book about the boy who built a kite big enough to shade a whole bus stop.”
Meena laughed. “I’ll find that one next.”
“Don’t just find,” Nani said, tapping the F on the key. “Collect what it teaches. And listen when it changes you.”
That night Meena fell asleep with sand in her hair, salt on her lips, and the feeling that the world had grown a size bigger without moving the walls.
Moral of the Story:
Books aren’t just places you visit; they are places you bring back with you — in how you see, taste, try, and dare.
Chapter 5: The Dragon Who Feared Fire
In the Misty Peaks, winter arrived like a careful guest — first a cool hand on the stones, then white breath on the pines, then silence that made even waterfalls speak softly.
Zoro the young dragon hated winter. Not for the cold, but for the requests it brought.
“Could you light the cooking pit, beta?” the mountain goats would ask, stamping their hooves.
“Our burrow is freezing,” squeaked the marmots. “A little warmth, please?”
Zoro’s chest clenched. Fire lived inside him like a shy animal. When he tried to coax it out, it scratched his throat and ran deeper. Once, as a hatchling, he had singed his own whiskers and smelled burnt hair for a week. The elders never forgot. “A dragon who fears fire,” they’d say, and their sighs made frost grow faster.
Only Mimi the rabbit never sighed. She brought Zoro carrot tops and stories. “Courage is a door that opens from the inside,” she said, as if it were an ordinary thing like a cupboard.
“What if mine is stuck?” Zoro asked.
“Then we oil the hinges.” She grinned and tapped his chest. “With kindness.”
The storm that came that year had teeth. It chewed branches, swallowed paths, and laid a sheet of cruel glass over the valley stream. By dusk, animals huddled under ledges, their whiskers rimmed with ice.
Mimi’s nose was pale. “The little ones are shivering,” she said. “We need heat now.”
Zoro stood at the mouth of his cave. Snow hissed against rock. The air smelled of iron and pine sap. He closed his eyes and remembered Mimi’s words. Oil the hinges.
He pictured not flames and failure, not elders’ sighs, but tiny paws warming, steam lifting off wet fur, bread rising on a hot stone, laughter returning. He breathed in through his nose until his ribs pressed against the cold and then let the air go slow, as if handing it to a friend.
A coal winked behind his tongue. He cradled it, fed it with careful breath. It brightened, then blinked out. He didn’t curse it. He called another. The second stayed. The third purred. Heat unfurled like a cat.
When the first ribbon of flame curled from his mouth, it shocked him so much he almost swallowed it. He steadied. He aimed at a ring of stones stacked by the goats. Fire kissed wood. The smell bloomed: oak, resin, promise.
Mimi whooped and shoved her paws toward the blaze. “Hinges,” she whispered, eyes wet. “Told you.”
Through the night, Zoro lit small fires from the first — each new flame teaching the next, the way lamps teach one another on Diwali. He melted the cruel glass on the stream, and water remembered how to run. He warmed burrow after burrow until the mountain looked, from above, like a constellation that had dropped to visit.
At dawn the elders arrived, beards stiff with frost. Branthor, who had the longest memory and the shortest patience, peered at the steaming valley and then at Zoro’s sooty chin.
“You found your fire,” he said.
“No,” Zoro replied, surprising himself with the steadiness of his voice. “I found who it’s for.”
Branthor’s laugh cracked the ice on his whiskers. “Keep it for them, then.”
All winter, Zoro’s cave smelled of bread crust and pine pitch and a little pride. He learned the size of flames — a thumb for tea, a fist for stew, an arm for a festival — and that fire, like anger, becomes safe when it is given a good job.
Moral of the Story:
Fear loosens its grip when love gives you something better to hold — and courage grows when your warmth is for others.
Chapter 6: The Candy Mountain Mystery
Sweetville was honest about what it loved. Shop signs curled like icing. The bakery’s morning song smelled of butter. Even the school bell sounded like a spoon on a glass jar.
Ananya, Kabir, and Shiva could find trouble as easily as ants find sugar. On the first day of summer, they decided to find the one thing even grown-ups only found in stories: Candy Mountain.
They carried serious explorer items — water bottles, tamarind candy, a hand-drawn map that looked like it had been sneezed on, and Kabir’s lucky whistle. They followed hints Sweetville had been dropping for years: a row of lollipop-coloured flowers pointing north, stones that tasted faintly of caramel (they checked), and a breeze that came from nowhere and smelled like orange peel.
By noon the path grew suspiciously pretty. Jellybean beetles ticked through the grass. A dragonfly with wings like stained glass skimmed a creek, and when Shiva slipped, the water tasted like thin hot chocolate. “No way,” he whispered, then took another sip to be sure.
They reached a hill that glimmered like sugar under a torch. At its foot stood a sign, letters piped in perfect frosting: For those who share.
Kabir licked the S by accident. “Whoops.” The S repaired itself with a patient sigh.
Candy Mountain didn’t look real until they touched it — the way dreams don’t feel true until you say them out loud. Rock became honeycomb crunch. Boulders became giant gumdrops. Clouds hugged the peak, and when the sun pushed through, the whole world glittered like a fair stall at night.
They ran like the ends of their laces were on fire. Ananya slid down a caramel slope; Kabir discovered a spring that burped clear lemonade; Shiva found a grove where lollipops grew with swirls so deep you could drown in them if you stared too long.
And then the mountain dimmed.
The lemonade spring thinned to a sulky trickle. The caramel slope became sticky and mean. The lollipop grove grayed as if someone had pulled the colours out and left them to dry.
An old squirrel wearing a crown of sugar pearls appeared on a rock. Her whiskers were dusted with powdered sugar. “You’ve taken first,” she said, “and thought of joy later.”
Ananya felt heat crawl up her neck. She looked at her bulging pockets. She thought of Mrs. Pinto, who ran the corner shop and always sliced extra bread for kids who pretended not to be hungry. “We were greedy,” Ananya said. The word tasted like old gum.
They went back the way they’d come, past the suspiciously pretty creek and the jellybean beetles. On the edge of Sweetville, they found the empty noon of the street behind the school where kids sometimes sat pretending it wasn’t their turn to eat last.
Ananya tipped her pockets into little hands. Kabir broke his lollipops into suns and moons. Shiva gave away his best find — a marshmallow that never melted — to a boy whose eyes were more tired than a boys should be.
The street grew noisy in the good way, the way soups do when you add one more kind of bean. Laughter stuck to the walls like posters.
When they turned back toward the hill, Candy Mountain was blushing. It brightened as if someone had remembered its name. The lemonade sprang up with a splash, the caramel ran smooth as song, and the lollipops unfurled their colours like peacocks that had decided to forgive everyone.
The squirrel queen nodded once. “For those who share,” she repeated, and this time the S didn’t need repairing.
For the rest of summer, the children brought new explorers in small, noisy batches. They never left with more than their pockets could carry after they’d filled someone else’s first.
Moral of the Story:
Magic grows where sharing goes — joy tastes sweetest when everyone gets a piece.
Chapter 7: The Owl Who Couldn’t Hoot
The forest of Niligrove woke when the sun slept. Crickets tuned their violins, night-blooming flowers opened like tiny lanterns, and owls took their places on tall sal trees, ready for the nightly concert.
All except Oliver.
Oliver could see a beetle blink from fifty steps away; he could glide without stirring a leaf. But when it came to hooting… his voice tripped.
“Hoo—” he tried.
“Peep!” said his throat.
Hooting in Niligrove wasn’t just song; it was language — storm warnings, hunting signals, rescue codes on foggy nights. Oliver pressed his beak to his chest as the youngsters giggled.
Myra the fruit bat hung upside down beside him. “Your voice isn’t broken,” she said. “It’s just different.”
“Different is a polite word for wrong,” Oliver muttered.
“Come to Bell Hollow,” Myra said.
In the rocky bowl under a ridge, an old iron bell stood tilted in the earth. Myra clapped; the hollow answered with soft echoes.
“Low hoots fill big spaces,” she said. “High, thin sounds slip through where heavy sounds cannot.”
Oliver peeped. The valley tossed his note back — peep-peep from the left, peep from the bell’s arch, peep from the rimrock. He could hear the shape of the hollow.
For a week they practiced. Oliver learned to place his “peep” on an invisible ladder of notes, to count echoes, to measure distance in the time between sound and return. At last, Fogfall came — a sea of cloud that turned hoots to wool.
Somewhere below, a fawn cried.
Oliver launched, aiming his beak like a needle.
Peep—peep—peep! Short-short-long. The note knifed through fog and stitched a path. Deer lifted their ears. The fawn, Lali, followed the bright thread of sound as Myra and her cousins formed a chain, repeating the pattern across the forest.
Beacon Oak rose from the fog. The herd emerged, first as smudges, then as warm bodies. Elder Hira landed beside Oliver. “I’ve never heard a light for the ears,” she said softly.
From that night, Niligrove honoured two languages: the old deep hoots and Oliver’s bright stitches of sound. They named him Keeper of the Smallest Sound. He lifted his beak. One soft peep rode the clear air up to the stars — and came back, as if the sky itself answered.
Moral of the Story:
What makes you different isn’t a mistake — it’s a map to the place only you can guide others.
Chapter 8: Diya’s Festival of Lights
The morning before Diwali, Gopalpur woke to a broken sky. Night winds had bullied the mango trees, and a lightning fork left the market transformer a blackened brick. By noon, the whole village was dark.
Diya loved Diwali the way bees love sunflowers. Every year she and her mother polished brass lamps until they reflected smiles. This time the sarpanch’s message boomed through the drummer boy: No electric lights. No fireworks. Stay home.
Nani poured tea in the dim room. “The first Diwali I remember, there was barely any oil,” she said. “Your great-grandfather cut his old turban into wicks. We lit three lamps. Brightest Diwali of my life.”
Diya’s chest warmed. “If we can’t plug in the lights,” she said, “we’ll be the lights.”
She borrowed two hundred diyas from Kallu Kaka the potter with a promise instead of money. Friends collected a spoon of mustard oil from every kitchen. They tore old dupattas into wicks, scrubbed the cracked lamps with flour paste, and set them to dry in a lazy sun.
At the temple, Diya chalked a map: a river of lamps from the bus stand to the banyan, splitting into a braid and tying itself in a bow at the courtyard.
Rain tried to bully them. Sana covered the flames with empty pickle jars; each jar became a small star. The wind sulked; Diya made banana-leaf windbreaks with twine. When the school watchman panted that an ambulance was lost near the canal, Diya and Farhan ran to the darkest road. “Light one, then teach the next,” Diya said, cupping a match. A line of small suns unrolled, pointing safely to the clinic. The siren wandered, then remembered, then followed fire.
By sunset, Gopalpur looked like someone had written the village in gold ink. Three wicks were lit — the first to show the way, the second to keep faith when the sky was stubborn, the last to remind them there is enough when they share. Children ran with tin-foil sparklers, somehow brighter than fireworks.
Electricity returned shyly later, but nobody noticed. They had already learned to be bright without it.
Moral of the Story:
Real light is something people make together — from courage, kindness, and a hundred small flames shared.
Chapter 9: The Golden Feather Adventure
The first day of spring in Nandipur smelled like mango blossoms and wet rope. Aarav, who never left home without a sling bag of “important things” (a marble, a compass, two sweets, and a crumpled drawing), found a feather in his
grandmother’s yard — not white or brown but golden, as if the sun had signed it.
It was warm in his palm. A breeze-soft voice said, return me to my owner, and you will find the treasure of your heart.
Dadaji shelled peas on the veranda and squinted at the feather. “Sky Eagle,” he said after a long pause. “Guardian of the Valley of Gifts. Far beyond the Blue Ridge.”
“What’s the Valley of Gifts?” Aarav asked.
“A place where what you give returns tenfold. But only to those who help the eagle in need.”
Aarav packed water, laddoos, a rope, and courage that felt smaller than it needed to be. He followed the river east past the bAnanyan grove into the part of the forest that smells like pine and ideas. The Blue Ridge wore clouds like shawls. Golden feathers, each lighter than breath, breadcrumbed the path upward.
Near a cliff, thorns had stolen a prize: the Sky Eagle, vast and patient, one wing bare. Aarav spoke softly, slid the feather into the empty place, and felt a tremor of rightness run through the bird. Feathers knitted; the wing woke. The eagle lifted him with careful talons. “Hold tight,” it said — yes, it spoke — and the valley spilled open like a secret.
Trees bore fruit with careless generosity. Streams tasted like someone had whispered sugar. Flowers opened to reveal tiny silver coins. Children played with toys that seemed to have arrived because someone had thought of them kindly.
“This is the treasure of your heart,” the eagle said. “Not gold. Abundance that wants sharing.”
The sling bag grew heavier — a pouch of seeds had appeared inside, mango and guava and jackfruit. “Plant them,” the eagle said. “Let your village learn the shape of plenty.”
Back home, Aarav pressed each seed into the earth like a promise. Saplings yawned upward faster than trees are supposed to. Years later, Nandipur ate shade and sweetness in summer and stories in winter — of the boy who followed a feather and found a way to make hunger forget their names.
Moral of the Story:
The truest treasure is the kind that keeps giving — because you planted it where everyone could reach.
Chapter 10: The Birthday That Changed Everything
Riya had been measuring the week by balloon colours. Wednesday was yellow, Thursday red, Friday the shiny blue she had saved for last — her tenth birthday.
Two days before, Papa called from the city. “Emergency meeting, beta. I’m sorry.”
Mummy called from the hospital. “Emergency duty, jaan.”
Riya said “It’s okay” in the brave voice she kept for grown-ups and then went very quiet.
Her birthday morning arrived with rain doing drum practice on the window. The house smelled like toast and tea and not like cake. Riya sat by the glass and drew smiley faces in the fog her breath made.
A knock. Then a chorus of shhhh!
She opened the door to Ankit, Maya, Rohan, and little Chiku under a ridiculous umbrella that could have been a parachute in its previous life. Maya held a crooked cake in a steel dabba. “We baked,” she announced, chocolate on her nose.
Ankit lit one candle. The flame wobbled in the damp. Riya closed her eyes, wished nothing dramatic — just that the day would feel like a day — and blew.
They marched to the community hall, which smelled of old wood and new rain. They set up a picnic of Shivaosas from Chiku’s mother, mango juice boxes, and biscuits Maya had not shared with her brother (which made them special). Rohan’s Bluetooth speaker failed, so they sang badly on purpose until it sounded like a choice.
Halfway through, Maya handed Riya a small jar. Inside were folded paper slips.
“Open one when you feel alone,” Maya said.
Riya opened one now. Remember the time we played cricket in the lane and you hit the scooter (sorry, uncle)?
Another: You always save the last momo for someone else.
Riya looked away so the tears could get themselves together before anyone saw them.
On the walk back, the rain turned into the gentle kind that forgets to be serious. They jumped over puddles and into some of them on purpose. At home, Riya’s phone buzzed.
A video call: Papa in a taxi with traffic painting stripes on the window. Mummy in a quiet ward, mask under her chin. “Show us the cake,” they said together.
Riya held up the crumbed remains. “Too late,” she grinned. “It was perfect.” And it had been, in the way small, honest things often are.
That night, after she had brushed her teeth with the minty paste that always made her think of snow, she opened one more slip from the jar.
It said: On the worst days, open the door. We are usually there.
She put the jar on her windowsill where the morning could find it first.
Moral of the Story:
The best gifts are made of time, thought, and messy love — the kind that shows up at the door with a crooked cake.
A Note to Every Young Dreamer
Dear Reader,
Every story in this book hides a small light: a way to be kind, to be brave, to share, to listen. When you feel ordinary, remember Chintu’s rainbow. When you feel scared, remember Zoro’s warmth. When you feel different, remember Oliver’s smallest sound. When you think the night is too dark, be like Diya and light one lamp—then teach the next one to shine.
Dream wildly. Help gladly. Try again gently. And wherever you go, carry an extra spark in your pocket for someone who needs it.
With belief in you,
Salim Ansari
