An Exercise Book
I am an exercise book with a neat and colourful hardboard binding. On my body, there are hundred sheets of paper all of which have small squares printed on them. I understand that, I look beautiful and neat and that, I am a very useful item of studies for school children. I am an exercise book as men call me and I am used to write for a subject people call Mathematics. I believe this subject is a subject of numbers and the tiny squares on my body make it easy for children to write one number in one square. When I look back at my life it has throughout been an eventful one, full of love, thrill and excitement.
Some time back, I was bought by a shopkeeper.
I was first brought into this shape of a copy a few months back. A hundred sheets were put together, all of the same appearance and size, the loose sheets were put together evened out and then bound together by a binder to give me this shape of an exercise book. I still remember the day when my sheets or rather, my organs were all put together and bound into one piece of a copy book. It was a lot of pain each organ of mine felt when the binder used hard pointed instruments on each organ of mine to put us together. Once the organs that is all my sheets got integrated into one whole we all forgot our pain and enjoyed to see ourselves bound into one beautiful piece.
Once I took the shape of an exercise book, I was taken with several others of my clan to a stationery shop. At the shop I had great company of, firstly my own kin, and then the customers who came to the shop. These people coming in and going out of the shop gave me and my other colleagues a lot of entertainment. Customers coming, giving long lists of stationery items they wanted, arguing with the shopkeeper kept all of us entertained all the time.
However, everything can be enjoyed for a certain length of time only, after which it becomes boring. Hearing the same arguments, same demands etc, gave me the creeps and, after some time I wanted a change. The same routine was now getting on my nerves and, the thought of having to stay here for any indefinite period made me sick. After some time I do not know how much, I started waiting eagerly for a customer to come and take me away from here and give me a change. Though I was very eager to go yet, at the same time, I also wanted to get a good customer who would purchase me and take me to a new and good environment. The desire for a change took such a hold on me that, I lost all interest in my shop’s surroundings, and felt lonely and dull all the time.
However, I must admit that, I was very lucky. This depression did not last for a very long time.
One fine morning when the shop had just opened, a lady customer came and asked for fifty copies of my clan. Now my heart missed a beat, wondering if I would be one of the lucky fifty, and if I would now get my cherished dream fulfilled. Lo! and Behold!, Lady Luck smiled at me and I was among the fifty chosen by the lady. We were all packed together and the lady took us in her car and drove off.
Now was the time for more excitement, a new life would be my routine but even this was not without its woes. I was now worried about the hard fact of being separated from my friends and about the treatment I would get by my new master/ mistress. All these thoughts were just keeping me busy when I saw the car stop. Mrs. Shiela, that is the name of the lady, had brought all of us to a school and now she was to give us one by one to each of the children of her class. Her class is, I hear Class V of the school called Spring School. Now again, luck was to be tested. I wondered whom I would be given to, how would that child treat me?
The distribution started and my heart came into my mouth with all the worries in my mind. I was handed over to a small girl Tina, and I am still with her. I was very lucky as, Tina handles me with utmost care. I remember, as soon as she reached home with me, she put a brown paper cover on me, and her name’s label on the cover, and, I started looking all the more sleek and cute. She keeps me with great love and care and, what is best about her is that, she loves the subject of Mathematics and so treats me all the better. When she carries me to her class I am able to meet and see some of my friends also. Oh! God some of my friends are really very badly off. Their masters keep them so badly, they are often thrown about and kept very untidy and unkempt. I feel pained to see the plight of some of my very dear friends but, I can do nothing for them. This makes my heart bleed for them. Seeing my ailing colleagues, I understand how much of luck I have.
I am having a wonderful life with my little mistress who loves me, takes great care of me and also loves to work on me. Now, it remains to be seen how long I will live. As soon as all my sheets are full, I will be of no use and then my little mistress will throw me and buy another like me. Aha! I forgot to tell you that, she is working out Mathematics problems in me so, she will not throw me even after my sheets are all over. She will definitely keep me till her final exams. Only after that I will cease to be of use to her. So, I get a lease of life for another six months. After that my fate is sealed. I will find place in a waste paper basket.
