Tinu - The Dino

It was a hectic Sunday for Nisha. A pile of uncorrected papers was lying in front of her. She had to finish correcting them today. She sat for four hours at a stretch and corrected the papers. It was tea time and there were 15 more papers to go. She pushed the papers aside, stood and stretched. God, how her back was aching. Her back would have kicked her if it had legs for troubling it so much. She smiled and thanked God for all the small mercies. She went to the kitchen and made tea for everyone. The aroma of the brewing tea filled the whole kitchen. After so much of tiring work, a cup of tea was all one could ask for. She served tea and biscuits to her family, took her cup and went into the balcony. While sipping the tea, she enjoyed the view, the balcony offered. Kids were playing in the park. Seeing them enjoying she envied them. Sometimes she felt one should never grow up. Alas! But that was not possible. She went back to the kitchen. Made a few rotis and the always popular aloo ki sabji and got back to doing her work. 

Nisha had told her family members that she had to catch up on a lot of pending work and that they should not wait for her to have dinner. She got back to her paper correction work again. Finally, at 10.30 PM she finished the task at hand and got up. She decided to skip dinner as she had late lunch and it was already very late to have dinner. She ate an apple, cleaned the kitchen and went off to bed. Only when she lied down did she realise how her body was aching and how much she loved the comfort that her bed offered. She closed her eyes and in a minute or two she was fast asleep.

She woke up by the sound of the alarm ringing. She put off the alarm, got up, finished all the chores and got ready to go to work. She chose a pink Calcutta cotton saree today. Bangalore was no longer a garden city or a pensioners paradise. It was just like any other overpopulated metro cities of India and the summers here were becoming unbearable. So what better than a Calcutta saree to beat the heat. She picked her bag, papers; locked the door and started walking towards the bus stop. The bus stop was at a distance of 1 km from her house. She reached there and didn't have to wait for long as she immediately got a bus which would take her to the destination- Shivananda Circle, that's where the school in which she worked was located. She boarded the bus. She was lucky today as she got a place to sit. She didn't have to buy a ticket as she had a bus pass. She would need at least another 40 minutes to reach her destination. After about two stops Nisha dozed off. 

When the bus came to a halt she woke up with a jolt. She looked around, there was nobody next to her or on the adjoining seat. This would happen very rarely in the bus at this hour. She stood and looked around and saw there was no one on the bus. No passengers except her, no conductor, no driver as well. How strange! If any passenger would fall asleep also in the bus the conductor would scream so loudly at the last stop that all those who would be in a deep slumber would also wake up and get down at the last stop. Why did that not happen today? Strange. The place where the bus was standing did not even look like a bus stop. My God, where had she come? She wondered. 

She moved towards the door and got down from the bus. The place looked like a forest. How had the bus come to the forest? Where were the other passengers? She walked a few steps gingerly. There was no sign of human habitation here. There were no tall buildings, no roads, no vehicles. Where had she come? How had she landed up here? Nisha's eyes welled up with tears. She now understood the meaning of the phrase, "Heart beating into your mouth." She walked a few more steps but couldn't see anyone around. Fear was building up in her. She kept walking. After some time she felt she could hear someone walking behind her. First, she thought it was her imagination but after a few more steps she was very sure someone was behind her. Gathering all the courage that she possessed in every cell of her body, she turned around.

And lo behold, it was a Dinosaur right behind her. The sight of the Dinosaur made Nisha run instinctively. She kept on running without giving a backward glance. She kept on running till her legs gave up. She resigned herself to her fate. What next? Probably the Dinosaur would eat her up? What else? She stopped as she didn't have the energy to run any farther. The Dinosaur who followed suit behind her was also tired due to the long run. It came and fell down on the ground near her. Both of them were panting to catch their breath. Once Nisha caught her breath, she looked fearfully at the dinosaur. 

"What happened? Why were you running?" asked the dinosaur.

Her mouth was open with astonishment.

How could a dinosaur talk?

"You can close your mouth. There are many mosquitoes and flies around here," said the dinosaur.

"And yes I can talk. I'm Tinu. Now it's your turn to answer my question."

"I am scared that you will eat me up. So I was running." She replied meekly.

"Oh! You don't have to worry on that account. I'm herbivores," replied Tinu.

Nisha heaved a sigh of relief.

She took out the water bottle from her bag and drank a few draughts of water. That was heavenly. Tinu was looking at her. "What's that?" He asked. 

"Water," she replied. "That I know," said Tinu. "Oh, this, it's a bottle," answered Nisha.

"Can I have some water?" Asked Tinu.

"Sure," said Nisha.

"I like this thing that you call a bottle. You must give this to me. I can carry water everywhere in this and don't have to go to the river every time I want water.

Nisha smiled and agreed.

"Now tell me, How did you come here?" asked Tinu. Nisha then told Tinu about all the strange things that had happened with her. They easily built a rapport with each other. 

Nisha told Tinu that she belonged to the human species and they had come into existence after the extinction of dinosaurs, but now she was sure that dinosaurs had not become extinct as she was talking to one. 

"And how do you spend your lives?" asked Tinu. They had started walking slowly now.

"Oh! We pass through different stages like infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Infancy and childhood are the most blessed stages of our lives. As infants, our parents take care of us; in childhood, we live carefree lives, learn a lot about our culture and surroundings and then the real struggle begins. Struggle to acquire education and a cutting edge over the others where you can be better than the rest. Carve a niche for yourselves, and as adults acquire more and more materialistic possessions to satiate our greedy nature. In the process, we have exploited nature. Towards the fag end of our lives we realise the ultimate truth. We have to leave everything here and go on the ultimate journey. Some of us then turn towards spirituality. The spread of the pandemic is nature's way of teaching us a lesson. Hope we learn and undo the damage that we have done or soon the time will come when human beings will become extinct and dinosaurs will again rule the world." 

"Right Tinu," said Nisha. But Tinu was not there with her. Tinu... Tinu... she yelled and the alarm rang. 

Nisha woke up rubbed her eyes...