Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Less is More

Hello,

Last weekend was for a short visit from children and grandchildren, and I missed my column, my apologies to the readers.

I wanted to write about Less is More.  Hmm, children and families visiting for less time, and that certainly did not feel like more. Then again, the story that follows is about collecting more things as we go through life when our aim is to collect less. 

Meera


                                                                      Less is More


Sapna and Sagar talked as they packed their books. Their eight-year-old sibling twins, Suchi and Soori walked in.

Soori frowned, "Bhaiya, why do we have to pack? We just finished our exams." 

Suchi, "Yeah, and why do we have get rid of the dolls and toys that we love?"

Sapna interrupted, "I don't think Bhaiya asked you to get rid of ALL your toys, just some."

Soori pouted, "I don't want to get rid of even one toy. They are my favourite."

Sagar laughed, "All toys are your favorite, I understand. I'll help you pack."

Suchi smiled, "Will you help me also, please?"

Sagar nodded and followed the twins to their room.

Twelve-year-old, Sapna raised her eyebrows, "I am confused. Bhaiya, I guess you know what you are doing. I am going to put my things in the boxes." She left.

Sagar said, "Okay, girls, let's do this quickly and then I can do mine. Soori, please get the biggest box here-that's for your toys."

Suchi said, "Shall I get mine?"

"Yep, both the boxes side by side. Now each of you pick up your most favorite toy and put it in the corner of the box."

Each twin brought a big doll and put it in the box. The dolls took more than one third the space in the box. They kept piling more toys and soon the boxes were full. The twins still had most of their toys in their closet.

The girls stood by their boxes, Soori said, "We don't have more space and we don't have another box."

Suchi pouted, "I don't want to leave the closet-toys behind."

Soori said, "How did we run out of box?"

"The doll, the doll is too big!"

"Let's carry the dolls in our backpacks."

"Yeah, let's."

The girls pulled out the toys, threw the dolls on their beds and repacked toys.

Sagar stood aside and played with his cell phone with one ear on girls' conversations.

"Bhaiya, we don't have room for the rest of the toys."

Sagar said, "You did fine with the dolls, take some toys out, and rearrange."

The twins stuffed some smaller toys in the backpack and put more toys in the boxes. By lunch time they collapsed on their beds.

Sagar asked, "Suchi-Soori, what about the leftover toys?"

"We need another box."

"Mom said only one big box for toys. Even if we stuff smaller toys in our clothes box, we have too many toys."

Sagar clapped, "You got it kiddo. You have too many toys. What can you do?"

"Uh, leave them behind, or give them away?"

"We'll take them to India for the poor kids."

Sagar said, "We're not going to India for two years."

"Oh."

"I got it, we'll give them to the veterans."

"Veterans are grown up people, they don't play with toys."

"Maybe we can give them to children's charity."

"Bhaiya, can we do that? Give the toys to a charity?"

"You sure can. Less is more, girls, less is more. We'll ask mom or dad about the charity names and you can help give them away. Suchi-Soori, now maybe you can do the same with your clothes."

"Yeah, less is more, less is more. Let's get rid of more of our clothes and keep less, let's start now."

The twins got busy with the clothes box and Sagar went to finish his own packing.

The End


© 2014, Meera Desai Shah




   






1 comment:

  1. Valuable lesson, even for adults. Oh, the clutter we keep.

    ReplyDelete