THE BOY AND THE SINGING BIRD - TRANSFORMATION OF "GINGERBREAD HOUSE"

Once upon a time in a small village lived a boy with his aunt, her husband and their son. The poor boy never saw his parents -- he was told that they died in some accident.

He was viciously treated. He was never given a good food to eat or proper clothes to wear. It was often cold in that part of the world and the boy never knew the pleasure of the warmth. His aunt beat him, her husband kicked him and their son pinched him. He made no complains, not even to God, for he had befriended the pain. Tears gave him company during the kind solitude of the night and the happiest memory he had was yet unknown to him.

One day when he was trying to sleep he heard mumbles of his uncle and aunt from their bedroom. “Oh Vernon, I am sick of this boy. Leave him in the middle of the woods and let the beasts have him.”

“But … Petunia darling …” Vernon sounded hesitant.

“Oh mercy and heaven talk again. Oh Vernon, are we not being merciful to those starving beasts, who are but a creation of Lord, like us?”

“Bu..”

“If you don’t leave him in the jungle, I shall not eat for weeks and die in front of your ‘merciful’ eyes.”

Vernon was never kind to the boy but his heart did not allow him to kill someone intentionally. But he had no choice this time.

The boy who was listening to all this, trembled in fear. He closed his eyes and made himself abundantly clear of his fate. He decided to revere the death. He decided to greet the death happily. How long could it hurt, he thought.

The next day, he was unusually composed. His face was white and his eyes red. The scar on his forehead had darkened. He worked the whole day like he did every day and in the evening when he was staring at the mirror, Vernon called him, “Boy! Come here. We are going to the forest to get the woods.” He was not exactly angry but he tried to be. The boy did not object. He quietly obeyed; it was a different quietness -- it was something holy.

Now he was on his journey to death. Vernon offered him breadcrumbs. He politely refused. He thought he heard some music and he enjoyed it. He thought he felt happy. Oh yes, he felt happy, his heart rejoiced for no reason. But then he remembered he was to die and felt sad again.

At the middle of the forest Vernon stopped and stammered, “I am go … going to fetch some woods, you si … sit here and w … w… wait.”

He gave no response. Vernon paused for some time and left slowly, turning back to see the boy occasionally. He knew Vernon would not return. He sat under a tree for a while and fell asleep.

After a while, he woke up. He had a strange dream. He saw an old man holding his hands and smiling at him. He sighed and looked around. It was morning and he was still alive but too much hungry.

He decided to walk. He sauntered around for a while when he thought he saw smoke in the air. Yes, it is a smoke he thought. He hurriedly followed the direction of the source hinted honestly by the floating smokes. At last he found himself in front of a small hut. Wait! It was not an ordinary hut -- it was a Gingerbread house! He looked up in the sky. Oh God, thou art so great, he thought. He ran to the house, threw himself to the window and devoured! Never in his life had he eaten so much! His tummy inflated, he felt lazy and he felt sleepy. But then a lady opened the door abruptly and shouted, “Dear Lord what the devil is destroying my house?”

The boy was terrorized. He hadn’t thought it might be a home of someone. Hunger had shadowed his conscience. But blessed as he was with unparalleled humbleness, he explained his situation in the softest manner possible -- how his aunt and her husband left him in the jungle, how they had treated him in the past and so on.

The countenance of the enraged lady gradually calmed. She then took boy in her hands and kissed him on his forehead, “I live here alone, sweet boy, all by myself.” She asked him in and told him the stories of her horrible past -- how her son and his wife kicked her out of the house and how she came to this part of the jungle. She also wished him to stay with her and he agreed in delight for he had nowhere to go and she seemed to be a nice woman. Consequently they started living together. She loved her like her own son. And within no time, the boy was fat and handsome, despite the rough hair and the scar on his forehead.

Everything was fine but then one morning, when he woke up, the boy found himself locked in a small dungeon. He could not believe his eyes -- where am I and where is nanny, he thought. He was perplexed and terrorized at this dramatic turn of event. Suddenly a voice reached his ears, “Wake up stupid boy. Your death awaits you eagerly.” That sound was familiar … Nanny? No, that cannot be, he thought before he found himself in front of the smirking “Nanny”, whose pretence of hospitality lobotomized him. His jaws dropped, he was literally stupefied.

“Delay not you fool, for I am anxious for the delicious meal I have awaited for years. No breadcrumb is a match to the flesh of human as healthy as yours!” She spoke cunningly. “Now, now the wait is over.” Her excitement concocted with casual brutality was most unpleasant to behold. She was in fact a witch; she took out her wand and flicked it to open the dungeon, after which she tied him with some magic and dragged him out of the dungeon. The boy screamed in pain.

She dragged him to the garden. There was soft music in the garden, the same music he heard when he was brought to the jungle by Vernon. He, surprisingly, felt relaxed in his heart. He felt no fear of any kind.

There was a large pool of hot boiling water. She stood on the one side and made him stand on the other. And then he found himself free from magical rope when she ordered, “Now jump my boy - jump for your Nanny! Why? What had you planned? To grow and kick Nanny out of the house!”

The boy was the victim of blind and erroneous vengeance. Recall the fact, dear readers, how she mentioned about her son and his wife who kicked her out of the house and left her in the woods to die. But then the music suddenly loudened.

Wait! Then, in a matter of no time a phoenix flew towards the witch and kicked her with its wings in the pool of boiling water. The witch died almost instantly. The boy was staring at himself! He could not believe his eyes! The singing phoenix of the jungle had just saved him.

The Phoenix flew to his arms and dropped some tears on the wound. Woh! The wound healed and he felt no pain! Oh yes, he had heard somewhere - Phoenix tears have healing power. The Phoenix then invited him to clutch its legs. The boy did and they flew far far away before they stopped in front of a spotless white building in a solitary land. As soon as he reached the door, an old man appeared in front of him. He is the man, oh dear lord, he is the man I dreamt of in the jungle, he thought.

“I hope you had no troubles Harry?” The old man said smilingly.

It was the boy’s happiest memory.