Ekalavya was a little boy, born in a poor family, many many years ago. His people lived a little away from Hastinapura, the capital of the Kuru kings. They used to clean other people's dirt for a profession.

And for this reason they were shunned by society. Ekalavya and other kids of his group knew they too had to follow their parents' professions.

Their parents often told them, "You are not meant to go to school. What use is school for carrying garbage which is your only job?"

"Don't go near those people; they are high born, we are low born."

Ekalavya didn't understand.

"Why, but why?" he asked his mother. She replied "God set these limits."

"God! Why would God want nice things for them and dirty things for us? Hasn't God made all of us?" Ekalavya asked.

She sighed, "Darling I don't know, but there are bounds we cannot cross, this is God's rule."

Ekalavya became quiet. From that day the only important thing for him was to understand the meaning of "limit".

You know, kids (and grown ups) are sometimes cruel. One day Ekalavya and his friends trapped a little ant and were watching it try to escape. The ant tried and tried till it found a little opening at the edge of the trap and escaped.

Other children moved to trap it again but Ekalavya stopped them shouting, "The brave ant has broken the bounds. Limits are meant to be broken. I am free, free".

One day, Ekalavya saw beautiful chariots come into the forest near his village. He saw boys of his age get out of the chariot one by one. What lovely clothes they wore!

Last, an old man with snowy white hair and spotless white clothes came out looking stern and calm. The boys seemed a little scared of the old man but with one dusky handsome boy, the old man's behaviour was different, he smiled and patted this boy on the head.

"It's my turn tomorrow," mumbled Raghu to himself as he climbed the stairs of his school building, very slowly as if he were sleep-walking. He had been dreading this day ever since Pal declared his grand class prodigy scheme, two months ago.

Pal was the much feared History teacher."It has been said that genius is 99 per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration," he had said in his usual pompous manner. "I suggest we test this theory. Beginning next week, we shall have one student present a chapter of this book (he dangled the History book like the Sword of Damocles), as if he were the teacher."

The teacher had announced that each student would be given a week to prepare for class. He even invited the boys to "chew my brains during this process if he so wants". Saying this, Pal had grinned, while the class gave an involuntary shudder - it would take a very brave man to seek out Pal's company outside the classroom.

"Twenty-four chapters for twenty-four of you - that's neat arithmetic. And, at the end of the term, we will have a poll to see who is adjudged the best teacher of all. That boy shall be the Class Prodigy. I shall personally recommend the golden star for him," Pal droned in his usual style.

And so it started. Week after week, Raghu saw the best and the brightest of his classmates being reduced to quivering jellies during their teaching sessions, under Pal's merciless sarcasm. The weeklong preparation might never have been, for each student found that he could never do it right.

And now it was Raghu's turn. Worse, he had done virtually nothing to prepare the chapter on the French Revolution that had come his way. His mind was a complete blank.

He had tried, of course. For a week now it had become a routine for him to sit with his History textbook open at the page where the chapter on the French Revolution began. And somehow, he did nothing but stare at the sketch of Marie Antoniette, Queen of France in the late 18th century when the Revolution broke out. Marie Antoniette, with her hair cut in a pageboy style, just before she was executed.

Raghu felt very close to her for some reason. Actually, the reason had a face - that of Pal's.

And then there was only one day left for his ordeal. Deep down Raghu knew that even if he stayed up the whole night and studied, he would still be a sitting duck for Pal's snide comments the following day.

Sometimes, though, he felt that Pal couldn't help himself, as if something, some inner force egged him on to be nasty.

The day passed by in a haze. Raghu's classmates observed his unusually quiet self. Unlike other days, no one tried to snap him out of it or snigger.

Once it started raining, it just wouldn’t stop. The sky wept great tears in an endless stream until the clouds had entered everyone’s hearts and made them feel as grey and weepy as the weather. But still it rained on and on.

Everyone stayed at home, gloomy and bored. "I wish we could DO something," moaned Geeti, "Nothing exciting ever happens to us" said Vikki.

Mummy wouldn’t let them go out but she tried to cheer them up by baking a cake. The children helped too. The cake was yummy and they ate it hot. The rest they covered and left on the table.

"I wonder what the animals and birds do?" asked Geeti thoughtfully.

"They must be cooped in their cages."

"No, silly, I mean the wild ones. The tigers in the jungles, the birds on trees, what do they do in all this rain?"

"At least they’re free. Think of the animals in the zoo. How awful for them."

And it was true. The animals in the zoo were worried and irritable. The wetness was terrible for the creatures big and small.

The more it rained, the more everything filled up with water. The moat around the lion’s enclosure filled up too. The lion watched. He was an old fellow, who had never been out of the enclosure. He had never seen anything like this before., As the water lapped the sides of the moat temptingly, the old fellow decided to make a go for it. He sniffed here, and he sniffed there. He put one paw delicately into the water and then, with one big breath, he jumped right in.

At first he sank. Then he panicked. He thought, for one awful moment that he was going to die. But he didn’t. His mighty head popped up and he paddled along until he could feel the wall just under his chin. Putting his big paws onto the wall, he heaved himself up. And then he was out. Out and free. Free to walk around the world, just as he had seen hundreds of people do. Now he, the mighty raja was going to have the adventure of a lifetime.

No one saw him for it was night and all the zoo keepers were fast asleep. Lion walked out, king of everything he saw. Softly, softly, he crept on padded feet to the enclosure next to him. He grinned in at the bear who woke up with a start.

He looked in at all the cages and thought how wonderful it was to be free.. Then he had an idea. He was going to be really free. What was the point of freedom if he was still within the four walls of the zoo? So, asking the way at every cage he passed, Lion reached the main gate.

He could smell a human. He carefully peered into the ticket booth. Sure enouch, the guard sat there. Lion was a clever old fellow and knew that the guard wouldn’t let him just walk out. So he waited and watched. The guard didn’t move. He snored gently. When lion was sure that the man was fast asleep, he padded his way past him gently.

"Hmmm – humph…" said a guard in his sleep. Lion almost roared in fright. But he didn’t, he waited quietly until he was sure that all was safe. And then he was FREE! Really free, for the very first time in his life.

He walked around, looking with wonder at the big, black, wet roads. He stared up at the high buildings and he sniffed at people huddled up, asleep in the driest corners they could find. One little child peeped out of his thin blanket and saw him. "Papa," he whispered, "there’s a lion on the loose!" "Yes. Yes," said his Papa sleepily, "he’ll go away, now get back to sleep."

And lion went on. This was the longest walk that he’d ever had. He was in the bazaar now. But, of course, everyone was fast asleep. He peered into shop windows, fascinated by the glittering things that shone there.

He walked on and on. On and on. Until he was one very wet, hungry and tired lion. He now suddenly caught the smell of freshly baked cake. He’d never smelled anything so invitingly warm or warmly inviting. Sniff! Sniff! Sniff! He found the window to Geeti and Vikki’s room open. Quickly, quietly, he jumped right in. He saw the children asleep in their soft, warm beds. And he felt like getting in with them. But first to find out where that delicious smell was coming from. Sniff! Sniff! Sniff!

Of course, with his sharp lion’s nose, he found the cake. And with his sharp lion’s teeth, he quickly gulped it down. It was delicious. Not like the smelly raw meat he got.

And now, to bed. Slipping back into the children’s room, lion tried to get into Vikki’s bed.

But it was too small for one big lion. So, he crawled under the bed and found it wonderfully cosy and just right for one big lion. Soon he was fast asleep.

Next morning, mummy woke up to find the cake missing.

"Did you eat the cake?"

"No mummy."

"Then who could it have been?"

"It must have been the lion!" said Geeti.

"What lion? Geeti, don’t be silly."

"She’s not being silly" said Vikki.

"There’s a lion under our bed!"

"What?" shouted mummy as loudly as she could. And she rushed right away to look for the lion under her children’s bed.

She looked, but there was no lion there. "Oh children," she said crossly, "You gave me a fright. Of course there’s no lion there."

"But there was mummy," protested the children. "Look, there are lion paw prints on the carpet."

"And a big wet patch on our beds."

"And lion hair on my sheet!"

Mummy had to believe them then, but try as they might, they couldn’t find the lion any more. And do you know why? The lion had a good snooze and decided to get back to his cage before there was any fuss. So he had slipped away at dawn and no one saw him going. He slipped past the guard who still lay asleep and swam back into his cage. What an adventure it had been! But he was glad to be home.

As soon as the rain stopped, Geeti and Vikki went to the zoo. They stood outside the lion’s enclosure and whispered to each other. I’m sure that our lion recognized them too, and let out a big rumbling ROAR of a thank you to his little friends.

Maybe, next time it rains very hard, Lion may come to YOUR house, so remember to give him some freshly baked cake!

Once upon a time in India, there was a town called Boring. It was by the side of Dull Lake. The residents of Boring never smiled. They did not know how to -- grownups, and even the children, never, ever smiled. All the children ever did was go to school and after school ended for the day, they would return home, do their homework and prepare for class tests.

If ever the children met each other in the evenings, they did not play. They avoided each other's eyes and tried to fool friends by pretending they had not studied much. They also lied to each other about which chapters were important and which were not for the coming test. All they wanted was marks, marks and more marks.

They did not know how to smile, they did not know how to joke and they did not know how to giggle and laugh. Life was really dull and boring.

One day, the town had a visitor: an old grandma with silvery hair and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Her smile reached up to her eyes. She had come to visit her granddaughter, Ekta, for the first time.

At the end of her first day in the town, she understood that something was wrong - terribly, terribly wrong. When she smiled and nodded, no one smiled back at her, not even Ekta, her own granddaughter! When Grandma smiled and said she had made Ekta's favourite 'gajar ka halwa' for her, what did Ekta do? She just said: "The history teacher cut three marks in one answer. God knows how many marks she has cut over the years. By now she must have a treasure chest full of marks. I wonder what she will do with them? Maybe I should steal her trunk some day, then the marks will be mine." She did not eat the 'gajar ka halwa'.

Grandma was amazed. How could anyone talk at such length about marks and tests and nothing else? But she heard this nonsense day after day and not only from Ekta, but from all her friends as well. And -- if that wasn't bad enough -- from all the parents too!

These parents were always pushing their children to get more marks. Just as people in other places go to temples to pray, the parents went religiously to a shop called The Marks Bazaar, which kept a range of pens with which one could write secret messages. The parents would buy these pens for their children, who would then scribble answers on their thighs, ankles and elbows. It was called preparation for exams.

What the parents did not know was that the shopkeeper secretly stocked infra-red detectors that could make out any secret message on any surface. The children ended up getting caught, and their parents were forced to return to The Marks Bazaar to buy better 'secret messengers', as they were called.

When Grandma saw all this she decided that she must teach the children of Boring to stop thinking about school work and marks and to start playing and laughing and smiling. That was the only way to save the town. It was time to use her secret weapon!

Nobody knew it, but Grandma was a friend of the Goddess of Laughter. Her name was Hasyaa. And, it was Goddess Hasyaa's habit to take a human form from time to time and tell jokes to humans. She knew more jokes than there were stars in the sky. Good jokes, funny jokes, that made people laugh and feel warm towards each other.

It was hard to say when Neeti got double vision. It wasn't there one minute and the very next it was. Suddenly, the road turned terribly crowded. People were jostling each other, pushing to get ahead. She rubbed her eyes, shook her head violently. But that instant crowd didn't disappear - it rushed on at her.

Then…she realised what had happened. All of a sudden, everyone had multiplied into two, sprouted a twin - like a shadow walking next to them. Neeti's heart leapt up.

Dazed, she turned to look for her own twin, a skinny, bright-eyed 11-year-old, but for some strange reason she didn't have any. She felt disappointed, relieved and scared at the same time. There was a feeling of being left out, but also a sense of relief. She wasn't sure she wanted an instant twin.

She made her way down the road, turning this way and that to avoid the crowd. All the same she couldn't avoid bumping into one or two people who gave her irritable looks. What a problem! Neeti fervently hoped it would go off soon on its own the way it had come.

Then she saw Shreya, or rather two Shreyas coming down the road. Shreya was in her class - a girl she didn't like. She had the habit of saying the nastiest things to your face.

"Hi Shortie!" Shreya cried. Neeti wanted to kick her. She knew she was the shortest girl in her class. Nobody needed to rub it in.

Then, she saw it - a huge spider crawling up Shreya's arm! In a moment it would reach her face. She had to do something. No matter how awful Shreya was, she couldn't let a spider crawl all over her. Immediately, she reached out to brush it off.

"What are you up to?" Shreya cried, "waving your arms about like that. Have you gone nuts!"

Oops! She'd got the wrong Shreya! "There's a spider on you!" she exclaimed, brushing at the real one.

"Oooh!" Shreya screamed, as she saw the spider scuttling off.

But Neeti's head was spinning. Suddenly she couldn't take any more of this. She had to get home. Maybe she would suddenly wake up and find it was just a bad dream.

When she got home, sure enough there were two Mammas instead of one and she didn't know which one to hug! Then, as she looked from one to the other, she noticed something. The expressions on their faces were different. One looked tired and careworn, the other bright and perky.

On an impulse she leapt forward and hugged the cheery-looking Mamma. And turned out to be right. Because she hugged her back, saying, "What's the matter? Why are you looking so puzzled and confused? Well…come, have lunch."

"Okay!" Neeti said, trying to sound as normal as possible. If only she could tell Ma what was happening to her. But would she believe it?

Suddenly she felt horribly tired. So tired that she couldn't even do her homework after lunch and found herself flopping on to her bed and dozing off right away.