Putting Kids to Sleep

By Hiranya Borah

The book is based on some bed time stories which I heard from others or read as a student of a school. To make it suitable for present generation, I have changed the stories up to an extent. Every story is carrying some moral teachings and expected to inspire the young generation to do something good for the society.These stories are bed time stories and therefore, I am not claiming any originality nor I am claiming any authenticity of the original stories. In other words, the origins of the stories are from some famous books but now I am presenting those in my own language and along with my own interpretation, with few twist and turn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hiranya Borah
• Release date: Mar 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310565571

Hiranya Borah

Born in a teachers' family in a village of Assam, a province of India, Borah started his journey of writing at a tender age of eleven. He published two novels in Assamese language and other fictional and non-fictional stories in Assamese periodicals during his college days. Then Borah almost stopped his literary activity for more than three decades. In the meantime he became a Gender specialist.However,so far, he has published more than one hundred and sixty five books on this platform in English and one book in Hindi within a span of five years. The books are on different topics like inspiration,romance and love, humour, ghosts, suspense thriller, children etc and those are written both in prose and poetry.Eight English and two Assamese books are also available in printed form. 2nd edition of his first book, 'Random Thoughts' is also in the public domain.

Book preview

Putting Kids to Sleep

Hiranya Borah

Copyright 2016 Hiranya Borah

Smashwords Edition

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Preamble

I have three children; the first two have only two years gap whereas the third one is nine and a half years younger than the second one. When the first two were in schools, I was posted in Guwahati and then I had to move to Delhi. So entire schooling of my third child, second daughter, Anwesha was at New Delhi. She has one major complain amongst others, is that I have not told her enough bed time stories which I used tell my two elder children. Am I biased against her? Am I becoming older to tell sufficient bed time stories to her? No, the actual culprit is un-interrupted electricity supply in Delhi, particularly, New Delhi area where I use to stay now. Guwahati was infamous for load-shedding of electricity, particularly in summer season when I used to live in Guwahati. I am not sure whether the situation has improved or not in last thirteen years or so. During those load shedding time, I used to tell bed time stories to my two children. Some of those stories were retold and some of them are out of my cheer imagination. Telling every day a new is itself a real challenge. I told them Aesop’s stories, stories from Panchatantra, stories from Mahabharata and Ramayana, folklores of Assam, compilation of Rasaraj Laxminath Bezbarua. Whenever I had to repeat any story, I had to use lot of spices on the original versions. Sometimes they like those and sometimes they dump those.

Due to her persistent demand I attempt to jot down some stories in my own rustic ways in this book. These stories are bed time stories and therefore, I am not claiming any originality nor I am claiming any authenticity of the original stories. In other words, the origins of the stories are from some famous books but now I am presenting those in my own language and along with my own interpretation, with few twist and turn.

I am thankful to all the authors who originally wrote these stories and my elders who used to tell me these stories for the first time.

I place my sincere gratitude to all the readers, my family members for encouraging me to write this compilation by putting old wine in new bottles. I am always thankful to Smashwords for giving me a platform to share my writings with the readers.

Finally, I dedicate this book to my younger daughter, Anwesha for her persistent demand for writing this book.

Author

Horse and donkey

As a part of moral study, in Assamese language, this story was read by Sewali when she was a student of class three in her village school. Sewali was not sure the origin of the story. Therefore, acknowledging the contribution of the original writer of the story she was trying to reproduce the story in her own language.

One fine morning, a donkey singing a song in the praise of the king, was walking by the side of a highway. He was very happy as his master had given a one day off from his tough duties of carrying household goods from one place to another place on his back due to Gandhi Jayanti, birth day the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. But his happiness was short lived.

A horse was coming from the opposite side. The horse was also on a holiday mood as his master also gave him a holiday to break his monotony of carrying his master on his back.

But seeing the donkey sharing the highway with him, he lost his cool. On the other hand, the donkey seeing the horse coming towards him, knowing the social status of the horse, he bowed to him and said, ‘Good morning sir. Have a nice day.’

Instead of wishing him a good morning, the horse shouted to the donkey at the top of his voice, ‘You rascal, how dare you to share the same road where I am walking! Lay off from the road.’

‘Why you are so angry on me, sir? The road is wide enough for both of us to walk and cross. I shall stand at the edge of the road so that even my shadow does not obstruct your free movement.’ The donkey politely