Like most other days in school, Babloo got bullied again. One would think that in a beautiful classroom of a prestigious school, there would only be friendly children and no bullies. There were lovely, clean desks with no scratches. There were four big display boards that had sheets of paper pasted everywhere. These sheets contained Mathematics problems and drawings and stories written by the students of class 5C. There also were cupboards filled with pencils, compass boxes, books and other stationery. But no one knew what was going on within the walls of this classroom.

That day, three big bullies pushed Babloo into an open cupboard. He was hurt both outside and inside. He did not want to get up. He just sat inside the cupboard with his back towards the bullies. As he sat there rubbing his arm, he saw something glittering hiding on the edges of the notebook boxes. He took it out. It was an hourglass filled with diamond dust glittering with the colours of the rainbow. Babloo started shaking it to see all the glitter sparkle. Almost at once, everything went blurry, the hourglass stopped shaking but Babloo found himself shaking instead. Then, suddenly, everything became still.

Babloo had been transported. He found himself in a battlefield. He saw chariots everywhere. Standing in these chariots were warriors. These warriors were holding weapons that he had only seen on TV. Babloo saw bows and arrows, spears, swords and maces. He walked around so he could see the faces of the warriors. The faces looked familiar. Then he realized where he was; he was in the Mahabharata battlefield from the morning TV show that he used to watch regularly. 

Babloo was lost. He was lost in place. He was lost in time. He was scared and started walking backwards. He bumped into a chariot and turned around. He saw Krishna, as the charioteer, holding reins of four white horses. Standing behind him was Arjun. Arjun looked sad. He too looked lost. Krishna was talking to him.

Babloo knew this was part of the famous Bhagavad Gita. He moved closer to listen. Krishna was saying, “Understand what you must do and do it without delay. Fortunate are those warriors that are a given a chance like this to do what is right.” Babloo understood the words of Krishna. He had heard them before. But to act upon them, he needed to get back to his classroom. He scanned the hourglass slowly and remembered how he got here. He had shaken the hourglass, so if he shook it again, he could get back.

Babloo started shaking the hourglass as fast as he could and once again everything started going blurry and he found himself in the cupboard. The hourglass was no longer in his hand. Just like Arjun, he had to stand up for himself. He had to fight his Kauravas by talking to them face to face. He went to the bullies and said fiercely, “Hey, you meanies. When I look at you, I remember the Kauravas from the Mahabharata. Do you know what happened to them? History has been mean to them. How do you want to be known?” The bullies’ expression changed. It went from angry to serious and from serious to calm. Babloo noticed that they were thinking about his words. The bullies took a step back and walked out of the classroom. As Babloo saw them leaving the classroom he felt that he was no longer lost. He had found courage. He had found himself.

// This piece has been penned by 9-year-old Bani Kathuria as a part of the story writing challenge given to kids during “Pack a punch with words” workshop on Innovation Shuttle //