My Plastic Plane

story by Sameer Raote

A young kid named Bheet Mal was going to a hill station with his parents in their car. He recently had his fifth birthday when his father got him a toy plane. While on their way he had his hand out and was pretending to make the plane fly. It had a string that he was holding and the plane was flying behind.

At some point in the journey the string broke and Bheet lost his plane. Later when he realized the plane’s not there, he started crying. Bheet cried all night. Next morning Bheet forced his parents to take him back to the same road. They looked everywhere but couldn’t find that plane. Eventually Bheet’s tears dried as he gave up the hope of seeing that plane ever again.

Many years later Bheet was going to his new friend Shikhar Ritz’s place. Bheet calls this guy his savior because he was the clever flight engineer who’s out-of-the-box thinking saved the lives of a hundred passengers. Bheet was one of the passengers.

While most of the passengers casually thanked the engineer after the plane safely landed. Bheet had this gut feeling to befriend him instead. Bheet invited Shikhar over for dinner several times and it was the first time Bheet was visiting Shikhar’s house.

It is there Bheet was reunited with his long lost plastic plane. Considering the fact that Shrekar is a flight engineer it was very much possible that this was a similar model that Shikhar bought when he was little. But no, it was that plane Bheet lost on the road. This became clear when Shrekar told his story.

Shikhar’s family was a refugee from Reizan. He was very young when they came to Kunj. Although they were allowed to live in the homeless shelter, their family got no financial support to build a decent life.

Shikhar was one of those children who wandered around day and night next to a highway doing nothing. His life was aimless until one day when he found this broken plastic plane fallen on the roadside.

It is this toy that allowed Shrekar to dream big. It got him through those tough times. It pushed him to work hard to one day be the person he dreamed to become his entire childhood.

Well, he dreamed of becoming a pilot but later realized that his talent was more towards the engineering side. Nevertheless it is this toy plane that put Shikhar in the right place right time so that he could save many lives. When Bheet was reunited with his toy plane he cried again but this time they were the tears of joy.

END

written by Sameer Raote

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