Left So Soon - Reveda Bhatt

The year 2019 gave me a new life (Let’s not get to that), but the following ones, 2020-21, took many of my beloved ones’ lives away!

I’ll roll back the rim of my life to the year 2021. Someone really close to us all was my grandmother’s niece, Kanchan, my aunt, just a young girl with dreams and hopes for a bright future like any other.

One odd day, she got her hand fractured, went to the hospital, and surgery was to be performed for implantation of K-wire in her hand. After that, tests were conducted, and the results diagnosed her with MEN1(Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Link Type 1 syndrome, a rare genetic disorder mainly affecting the endocrine glands). The message spread virtually on WhatsApp to us in our family group, and after reading it, all of our hearts sank in. But, not losing hope, we wished her a speedy recovery and gave her mom, and her brother hope for her stay! 

Surgery after surgery, treatment after treatment, our prayers and everyone else’s, and meanwhile she was stable, with all of us crying out our mixed emotions, I sat there, scrolling through her Instagram profile-her smile, her sweet voice, and her charm-all faded behind the beeping of machines. Even though her, being in Noida, and me in Dehradun, it hurt, you know, in such situations, the gap does not matter; it’s the prayers from the bottom of hearts that do! But God plans a bummer for everyone’s lives, and his plan for hers was different. The disease could not be cured, maybe controlled, but not cured.

 Stable…Stable… Deteriorating …Survival hard…

 I remember the last time I talked to her was the previous phone call we ever had, the night she passed away. My dad spoke to her when I requested to have a word and hear her voice-her feeble voice saying my name THE LAST Time, and I reassured her to stay strong and not lose hope. That was it!

The next evening, her brother called and cried out that she was no more; our hearts sank more profoundly, and we moaned. Like that, her dreams, future and her smile in photos evaporated against the garland over it.

Postscript 
Her Instagram account remains a remnant of her existence in our hearts and this world. `

Reveda Bhatt
Grade 9
The Aryan School

Autobiography of a school bus - Rishona Chopra

I am a bus. A school bus, to be precise. Unfortunately, I can not remember much. You see, I had gone through several surgeries, and that is why I don’t know much. Some think that I had gone through so many surgeries because of my carelessness. I assure you that my surgeries happened because of the selfish plans of some people. They wanted to make me beautiful and comfortable for them! They did not think about me at all. Now, you must be thinking, why didn’t I shout for help? I did call for help, but those selfish creatures did not listen to me.

Before my surgery, I called … Van. Then I was called Bus and then finally I was called a school bus. Despite all the pain I went through, I like only one thing. I want to meet children. Many children come and sit on me, and I love talking to them. They hate wearing my friend Seatbelt, but what can I do? Those cute little faces bring a smile to my face. That is indeed the best part of my job.

School Bus

Rishona Chopra Grade V Gyanshree School