The legend of Jaissy Jai

 

In the last decade of twentieth century in a village ‘Panwail’, unaffected by the leaping development of big concrete cities, a place where time seemed to flow slowly, flanked by pearl white peaks of Dhauladhar, surrounded by pine forest and inundated by gurgling streams, sprawled over a valley in the lower hills of Himachal Himalaya where lived Jaissy Jai with his grandfather Mr. Murli Jai. Owing to splendid terraces; fructuous garth, people here were generally well off though few anomaly. Mr. Murli being one owing he was landless except for in which he had small house and little cultivable land he had down in the market place of village was donated for the construction of playground of government school and a dispensary on the request of his son who would say, “ Insufficient and uncompetitive government facilities are the root cause of exploitation of common people by private one.” So after the demise of his son and son’s wife in an unfortunate bus accident he would do leaf picking in the tea estate for their livelihood. 

 Jaissy ! well he was twelve years old boy and was a reticent yet amiable, wise yet not worldly clever boy with slightly brownish hairs, black eyes, sharp nose (not very long), small ears, rosy lips and thin body that made him look as innocent as one could be. Everyone in the village and in his school (he reads in eighth standard) was his friend. Wait! Wait! He did have few adversaries, three to be precise -Rajan, Kundan and Sandy. They used to tease him for his being poor every time they confronted with him. In fact, they were not friendly to anyone there. Rajan was tall and sturdy; Kundan, fat and Sandy neither tall nor fat, indeed he was short and skinny still belligerent . One could wonder where he got all his smugness and rudeness from. Well ! his father Mr. Rattan, a policeman was a impetus in back of his perversity . Sandy was the head of devil troupe always bullying, mocking and vilifying coeval while Rajan and Kundan would do all the fighting for him.          

                      Chapter 1

                 A skirmish 

It was another usual ordinary cold day of winter rather special day for Jaissy and his grandfather as it was fifth of December and thirteenth birthday of Jaissy and Mr. Murli was out to town to buy a gift for him, a much awaited one, as he was not able to give him anything for long. 

It was dark outside already, a chilling breeze was blowing across the valley coming from whites and Jaissy was waiting for his grandfather ever since he had arrived from school. He was eager to see his gift and more than that he was worried for his old grandfather. “ Grandpa should have come before dark, ” he thought, “wild animals and ghosts especially one that lives in banyan tree, stroll in dark outside village. ”Actually he was more concerned about ghost who according to folklore lived in banyan tree and caught people in dark. 

He was worried and lost in thoughts when he heard footsteps outside. He knew it was sound of his grandfather footstep. He strode over to the door and opened it before Mr. Murli could tap at it. 

“You are late grandpa, ” he said with great resentment, “there are wild animals and ghost in the dark outside. ”

“They afraid of your grandpa, ”he laughed “ look what I have brought for you . ”He tried to shift the ground. “ Here’s a suit, a shirt and a matching hat, ” he said while showing inside of grocery bag. 

“ Don’t try to shift, ”he pretended to be angry, “ have a sit. You would be tired. Let me bring you a glass of water first then I will see. ”

He leapt to the kitchen and brought a glass of water for Mr. Murli sitting on old looking chair. He then took the bag and searched inside. 

“With care son –” he gulped wate

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r “ there are sweets inside too. ”

He took out a rectangular box, opened it, a sapphire coloured suit is in the box. 

“Beautiful suit! ” he tweeted, “It must be very costly. ”

“ Cheaper than your smile, ”he chuckled, “ you will look like a gentleman in it. ”

He blushed. “I am hungry let’s have the sweets ” 

Jaissy took out the box of sweets, put on the table and opened it and ate the sweets together. They are very happy. 

Next morning, Jaissy was ecstatic dressing up in his new suit and wearing matching hat. He happily went to school as ever, of course today bit happier than usual. But he must had taken wrong foot out first as he was encountered with devil troupe in the way. He tried to sneak off. 

“ Look who is coming, ”Sandy said to Rajan and Kundan, “ Jaissy the beggar! ”They laughed profoundly. 

Jaissy turned a deaf ear to them and strode over, but Sandy hold out his leg in the way, Jaissy stumbled and fell down. His hat went for toss too. They laughed on his falling down. 

“You dropped me down. Made my new dress dirty, ”he cried, “very bad of you. ”

“New dress! ”he exclaimed, ”who gave new dress to a beggar! ” they laughed again. 

“My grandpa bought it for me, ”he corrected Sandy . 

“Beggar don’t buy they beg. ”

“Stop calling me beggar! ” he shouted. He was getting to loose his head. 

“I will. ” ”What will you do? You are a beggar. “

“I’ll complain to Math's teacher in the school. ” He strode over to the school. 

“ Catch him, ”he yelled, “Let’s teach him a lesson today. ”

Rajan and Kundan leapt and caught him. They held his arms. “Complain! Cut his dress, ”shouted Rajan. 

Sandy pulled out scissors from his school bag and stalked to Jaissy who was struggling to get rid off from their clamps. 

“Please stop! ”he urged, “ don’t destroy my dress. ”

But he didn’t stop as he didn’t want to and made a cut at collar lapel. At that moment, there came a rush of blood in his head, a wild energy waved in his arms, he released himself with a strong jerk and smashed a hard punch. It struck with Sandy face with great force and one of his incisors went airborne. Rajan and Kundan received a punch each too. For a while they didn’t move an inch, Jaissy stooped to pick his hat and walked away towards school. 

Today devil troupe got a taste of their own medicine and learned in a very hard way that people aren’t weak,they aren’t afraid of you but they are afraid of getting into an unnecessary conflict while Jaissy discovered some muscles in him and learned that sometime it’s absolutely imperative to fight out the fear inside you and pose strong against the evil .

Rod is the logic of fool! Isn’t it? 

Devil troupe, that was shocked by what had happened, moved only after Jaissy had faded away from their sight and went straight to Mr. Rattan . He boiled on seeing Sandy's broken tooth. “Who the hell dare to beat you, ”he rebuked. 

“It’s Jaissy, the grandson of that beggar . ”

Fuming with anger, he ran towards school, Sandy and his friends are behind him. In about ten minutes they are in the school where Mr. Rattan showed broken tooth of Sandy to Principal and asked her to call Jaissy right then .He was called in the Principal office. 

As Jaissy came, the very sight of his made Mr. Rattan revengeful and he slapped him many time. 

“ Mr. Rattan! ”shouted Principal, “ you can’t slap him like that. ” Her face was red with anger. 

“Jaissy is the most well behaved student of our school. Let me first hear from them what had happened. ”

“ Mam, he has beaten us without any provocation, ” Sandy said quickly, trying to be innocent. Other two also repeated rhetoric in chorus. 

Jaissy was standing there quietly, perplexed by the lie they all told to Principal and couldn’t say even a word in his defence. His silence was taken as his conviction, his grandfather was summoned and later he was expelled for a month from the school.