This story ‘Brought to book’ written by Madhumita Gupta insists on the proper maintenance of books and note books by the students. Mahesh dreams that he had been taken to the court to be punished for his ill-treatment of his books and notebooks.
The story begins with Justice Mathematics striking the hammer for silence in the court. He glared at Mahesh and the crowd and called for the first witness. Mahesh chewed his nails nervously. Ms. English, the first witness, complained to him that she wore a pink and grey dress, when she came to the house of Mahesh. But at present, she looked unrecognizable, covered with ink, grease spots, mercilessly dog-eared and the two comers chewed away. She looked worn out and tears rolled down her cheeks. She told the judge that Mahesh brought her home a few months back, but never bothered to cover her properly with the nice brown paper, that his father had brought.
Though he was scolded and punished by his teacher for that, he did not bother to rectify himself. He mined her looks by dropping her carelessly, stuffed her anyhow in his crammed bag and sometimes stuffed her next to the lunch box dripping with oil. Listening to all this, Mahesh got worried and realised his mistake of not listening to his mother’s advice to take care of his books. He was otherwise a good boy and even managed to stay within the first five ranks in class. But he was extremely lazy.
Next Mr. Geography complained that he was in a worse condition than Ms. English. He had no cover, the content page was hanging in and the maps were filled mercilessly with colours. He envied his brother who belonged to Shobitha. She handled him neatly. Mr. Pencil box complained that Mahesh never cleaned it. He sometimes chewed him whenever he got stuck for an answer.
The school bag complained about his broken straps and buckles. Master Notebook complained that he threw him against the wall, as he failed to solve a problem in Mathematics. So, finally all of them decided to punish him by thrashing him.
When everyone was almost upon him, Ms. English asked the Justice Mathematics to give Mahesh a second chance because that was his first offence and he deserved a little consideration. The others saw reason and slowly backed off. Suddenly he heard his Mother shouting at him to get up. It was a dream. He got up and covered all his books. The following year, Mahesh Kumar got the prize for the “Best Looked-After books”.
