The Momma Clan

The Roy couple decided to plan a holiday trip as soon as the exams of children ended in the last week of March. Being religious, they finalized to visit the temple town of Puri, as they had never been there before.

Before March ended, Mr. and Mrs. Roy with their two eight and ten years old daughters packed their luggage and were on board the train from Howrah to Puri. They all were very excited to go there.

Once in Puri, all four of them landed in the reserved hotel to get refreshed. After taking a bath and putting on new clothes, the family first of all, straight went to the temple. They offered prayers to Lord Jagannath Ji and received Prasad too.

Outside the temple complex, the family had a hearty breakfast and then headed off to the famous beachfront. The girls were jumping with joy while facing the sea waves for the first time in their lives. Their mommy Mrs. Roy tried to hush them, telling them not to shriek so much.

Her husband, Mr. Roy advised her to relax and not curb the girls’ instinct to have fun on the beach. He now tried to hold her wife’s hand to rekindle some romance, while their daughters played with each other splashing water. To this, Mrs. Roy hastily removed her hand and looked around.

Mr. Roy laughed at this and teased her, “Come on yaar, can’t I romance with my wife? Then I better go to that foreigner lady, hold her hand and take a selfie…”

“Don’t you dare do that?” Mrs. Roy asserted and quickly held her hubby’s hand to prevent him from going astray. 

Her Hubby couldn’t be more pleased but he hadn’t stopped laughing also. After strolling for some time, the couple glanced at a notice indicating a sand sculpture contest for tourists only. Mrs. Roy seemed to be interested in this and called out to her daughters to participate in it. Even Mr. Roy wished to take part just for fun.

It wasn’t that crowded at the time, but more than a dozen or so odd tourists took part in the sand sculpting competition enthusiastically. A local resident sponsored the prizes for the contest. So, all the fifteen contestants, including the entire Roy family got down to work on the sands.

Each one of them was making a simple yet beautiful structure out of the sand in their capacity, in the one-hour time frame. Some of them out of overzealousness created something that fell off after an hour, unable to hold the weight from the top. The elder daughter of Roys’ tried to make a Barbie doll out of the sand, but unfortunately, the head toppled under the slender neck of the body. That disappointed the girl, who had painstakingly created a perfect Barbie doll.

In comparison, her mother created a perfect snowman, all round in shape from head to bottom. She put her younger daughter’s blue cap on its head, her husband’s black goggles on its face, and covered its neck with her red dupatta, assuming it for a muffler. The snowman looked very cool. 

After a while, the judges declared all three winners, according to the finishes as well as the overall presentation. And Mrs. Roy’s happiness knew no bounds upon hearing that she stood second in the contest. The first prize went to a teenager from Kerala who created an amazing temple structure.

“Hurrah!!… never in my life, have I taken part in any contest, leave alone securing any positions.” Mrs. Roy almost had tears in her eyes. 

Now she was jumping with joy in gay abandon along with her daughters. Her saree lifted off a little bit while doing so. At this point, her husband lifted her body, to her surprise. And both whirled around for a while smiling at each other. He and his daughters had never seen mommy jump like a child before.

Putting his wife down, Mr. Roy and the girls, all four of them hugged each other. After receiving a large beautiful fruit bowl made of seashells as a prize, the family celebrated Mrs. Roy’s runners-up position by having a double dose of ice cream, on the famed beach just like cheerful children. 

-Shashi Thakur