Features | Online edition of Daily News

Have you ever heard of the Russian musician Igor Stravinsky who is considered one of the most influential conductors of the 20th century? Whether his name rings a bell or not, what he has said about you – children - is indeed impressive. – Children and animals understand better my music. What do you think he meant when he said this? It could be that both animals and children are genuine and there’s no hypocrisy involved in their behaviour.

I am sure that most of you rear cats and dogs as pets, sometimes even squirrels and birds. It gives you pleasure to be with them, feed them and look after them. Some of you may even be maintaining feeding tables in your garden so that squirrels and birds who come to your garden can have a feast

Does any of you rear birds as pets? Remember that they do not like to lead a life confined to a small cage. Keeping them with you may give you pleasure but their caged life is not a happy one. What is most important for them is freedom.

We have to be compassionate towards all animals, they are innocent and need our help for survival. Never harm them or be hard hearted and ill treat them. But I am sure you won’t do that.

The birthday present

Every year, on the 1st of January, Marshi wrote down a list of New Year resolutions in a new diary. “Arrange my school bag every night before I go to bed” was one resolution she wrote down every year but never managed to keep after the third or fourth day of the new school term.

“Write a letter to grandma every week” was another resolution she tried to keep however busy she might be. Looking back at the year just passed Marshi was happy to recall even though she may not have written every week to her grandma she had sent at least one letter every month.

This year there was one extra resolution on her list,collect enough money to buy a birthday present for her sister Hasini.

Marshi knew, what Hasini wanted more than anything else in the world this year for her birthday, was a violin. Whenever Hasini visited her friend Emasha she took Emasha's violin into her hands and stroked the strings lovingly. Sometimes when she thought she was alone in the sitting room Hasisni kept an imaginary violin under her chin and played to an imaginary audience.

Marshi knew her sister had asked Emasha's music teacher if she too could join her class. The teacher had said yes, of course, she could, but she had to bring a violin when she came to class.

One day Marshi overheard Hasini talking with Emasha on the phone. “It is not easy to buy a violin” said Hasini. “Violins are so expensive it would cost a fortune”.

Marshi wondered what Hasini meant when she said a violin would cost a fortune. She looked the word up in the dictionary. A fortune, she read in the dictionary “is a vast amount of money...”. This explanation was of little help, but Marshi made up her mind to save enough money this year to buy her sister a violin for her birthday.

There were two questions that bothered Marshi when it came to this resolution. One, how was she going to collect such a vast amount of money? Two, how was she going to do it within the next four weeks because this was all the time she had before Hasini's birthday, which fell in early February.

One morning while she was having breakfast Marshi's eyes fell on the label on the bottle of jam. “Return the bottle and save Rs. 5” Marshi read the words aloud. Here was one way of collecting the money she needed so badly. Next Saturday when Marshi's mother went to do her weekend shopping at the supermarket Marshi went with her carrying a bag of empty bottles. She had found the ten bottles in the kitchen cupboards the day before.

“Yes, you can” said Marshi's mother. “It is always good to recycle used bottles and jars. This way you can save a lot of natural resources”.

When the lady at the supermarket handed Marshi fifty rupees for returning the bottles and jars, Marshi felt extremely happy because she realised she was helping not only herself but the whole world as well; she was helping the world by saving Mother Earth's limited resources through recycling waste material.

Marshi started to look for other ways of earning money as well. She searched the children's section of the Sunday newspapers hoping she could win the first prize in the short story competitions.

After spending one whole night thinking of a story to send to the children's page she finally wrote about her grandma's dog Rover who was a vegetarian like grandma and whose favourite food was ripe papaya. Two weeks later Marshi was happy to see her short story had won third place in the competition.

She was overjoyed to receive a cheque of Rs.300 which she gave her father in return for three hundred rupee notes.

In spite of all her efforts Marshi knew she still had only a meager amount of money in her purse, which she kept hidden under the pile of her best clothes in the cupboard she shared with Hasini.

Even though she saved the Rs.10 her father gave her as pocket money every Monday morning she knew this would not cover even half the cost of a violin.

With only a week to go before Hasini's birthday Marshi was happy to hear her father's brother Uncle Prasanna, who lived in New York, was coming to spend a few days with them on a short vacation. He had been Marshi's favourite uncle ever since the day Marshi accidently broke one of her mother's expensive vases and he helped her to glue the pieces back together making her mother less angry than she would otherwise have been.

Uncle Prasanna who had never got married (because he liked to be free he had told Marshi once), always said he loved Marshi and Hasini as if they were his own daughters. Even though the problem of finding the money for Hasini's birthday present still bothered her, Marshi jumped with joy when Uncle Prasanna suggested they go to the children's park that afternoon. When their mother wanted Hasini to stay back as she had a slight fever, Uncle Prasanna offered to take Marshi this afternoon and Hasini on another day after she recovered from her bout of flu.

Marshi had a wonderful time at the park. She specially loved creeping through the dark tunnel in one corner of the playground.

“Would you like an ice cream?” asked Uncle Prasanna when he saw a man on a bicycle selling ice cream.

“Yes please” said Marshi. But when Uncle Prasanna started to take out a few notes from his wallet Marshi remembered her New Year resolution.

“No” she said keeping a hand on Uncle Prasanna's arm. “I don't want an ice cream. Can I have the money instead?”

“Could you please give me the money you would have spent on the ice cream? I do not want an ice cream” Marshi explained.

“OK, here it is” said Uncle Prasanna. “But can I still buy you an ice cream?”

“No” Marshi shook her head. “Can you give me the money of the second ice cream too, please?”

Looking more and more puzzled Uncle Prasanna did as Marshi suggested and said “In that case we'd better hurry home and drink some water because I am dying of thirst”.

That evening while Marshi did her homework at the dining table in the sitting room, Uncle Prasanna sat on the chair next to her and watched Marshi.

“What was all that about not having ice cream this afternoon?” he asked Marshi.

Uncle Prasanna laughed. He made a face and repeated Marshi's words. “Sweets are bad for our teeth”. Then he stopped laughing.

“Why are you collecting money?” he asked her. “Did you break another vase?”

“No” said Marshi. She looked around the room to make sure no one would hear her. Then she told Uncle Prasanna her secret.

By the time it would be Hasini's birthday Uncle Prasanna would be safely back in New York so her secret would be safe with him, thought Marshi.

When Uncle Prasanna heard about Marshi's New Year resolution he gave her a hug and said “Hasini is very lucky to have a little sister like you”.

The day before Uncle Prasanna left for New York he brought a large parcel into Marshi's room. When Marshi opened the parcel she found a brand new violin inside a black velvet case. “But... I don't have enough money....” stammered Marshi.

“It is a loan” said Uncle Prasanna. “You must pay me back when you grow up, find a job and earn money of your own”.

“Oh, I will, I will” promised Marshi, happily. They shook hands on the new deal.

Marshi was so happy she had managed to find the best birthday present for Hasini. She made up her mind to study extra hard so that she could find a good job one day and pay back Uncle Prasanna's loan.

It was days after Uncle Prasanna had left Sri Lanka that she realised she had not asked how much she had to pay him back. A fortune? She did not mind. She knew she would pay him, somehow, someday.

Going to temple	A duck	Humpty Dumpty

Sinali Karunarathne Sujatha Vidyalaya, Nugegoda, Class - 2EC	Stefana Yudacelvai Kingston College International, Colombo - 15	Mahnoor Ahmed Sailan International School, Negombo, Grade - 2A
Vesak	Buddha	Vesak decorations

Imasha Karunarathne Sujatha Vidyalaya, Nugegoda, Class - 3EC	Ishanee Rangaana Wickramasinghe Sailan International School, Negombo Garde - 10	Chamodini Gunarathna Sujatha Vidyalaya, Nugegoda, Class - 2EC

Be kind to animals

The birthday present