Bringing Up Dosa

The Puffin Book of Funny Stories for 7-year-olds.
Puffin India.
130 pages.
Paperback.
 2012.

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I have one funny story in the Puffin anthology above. It is titled, 'Bringing Up Dosa.' That's a major event in my life because I have never written for children this young before.

The story is about a girl of seven who does not like the baby brother in her life. And how ~ about a thousand words later ~ she loves him like crazy.

This is how the story begins:

“Mahika, where are you taking Dosa?” asks Ma. She blocks the way out of my baby brother’s room. 

I look at her through my round, pink-rimmed spectacles. I’m a big girl. I turned seven a week ago.

“To the postbox,” I say.  

“But why?” says Ma, kneeling. She’s puzzled.

I cling to Dosa in his blue blanket. I’ve stuck stamps, with Gandhi’s bald head, on Dosa’s forehead.

The blanket bundle goes chee-mee-kew, chee-chee-kee. It stinks of yucky pee.

Ma curls her arm around me and Dosa.

“Last year, at the post office, we saw letters and packets with stamps on each,” I say. 

“Meenakshi Akka said: the postman whisks it all away from a postbox. And sends it far far far away,” I add. “I’m sending teensy-weensy Dosa to Antarctica for the summer. Bangalore’s too hot in April…”

Ma laughs. Loud and long. Kew-mew-chee, goes Dosa.