Pudiyathu

A Christmas Story for the young at heart: Part 5/5

Chirp. Chirp. The birds chirped. The morning sun was rising.  

Sundelli followed the laughing men as he tugged along his heavy diary. He found it challenging to keep pace with the men, but it did not deter him, for he was curious to find where the men were going. He ran as fast as his tiny legs could take him, yet avoiding being seen by them.

The men stopped at a small room tucked away in the corner of the city. The room emitted a light that was quite different from the rest he had seen. As he drew closer, the light became brighter. Sundelli did not want to get caught entering the main door, so he slipped away and entered from the backdoor.

“There is something different about this place”, he thought to himself.  

When he entered the room, he saw a few cows lying down, two sheep were bleating, and a horse tied at the corner of the room. In the middle of the room, he saw a young woman. He recognized her immediately. He thought to himself, she was the kind woman who had given him bread and cheese.

“I wonder if she has anything better to give me today”, he muttered to himself.  

Next to the beautiful young woman, he saw a handsome man piling the hay to one side of the room. 

Sundelli looked around, wondering from where was the light coming. He noticed that the light was emitting from the stone trough. He was curious and asked what was in it. 

Sundelli was surprised when he saw the woman bend down, reach her hands into the trough, pick up a baby and cradle him in her arms. He gasped. The source of the light was the baby! The light was so bright that it seemed to fill the world. Sundelli’s eyes turned wide with amazement. At that instant, the baby looked straight at him. The baby smiled and gurgled something in baby language. 

It sounded something like, Puthiyathu. The baby looked at Sundelli and repeated the same word, Puthiyathu.  It dawned on Sundaelli maybe that was a name that the baby was calling him.   No one had given him a name before.  It definitely sounded much better than Sundelli53.

He was happy, in fact, overjoyed.  

After a while, the woman carried the baby and placed him back in the trough.  The men with the sheep followed her and surrounded the trough. 

Sundelli wanted to take a closer look at the trough because he, too, was drawn to the light. 

When he came near it, his little feet tapped against something in the straw. Sundelli pushed the straw away with his tiny hands and feet. And underneath the straw, he found a shiny book with little stars and hearts on it. He turned the cover. It was a brand new book. There was nothing written on it. 

He was excited because he had found a new book to write his story. He noticed that he had lost his old heavy diary in the hay while running to the baby. He thought to himself, “This book was much lighter and easier to carry, much better than the heavy book I brought all along.    

He ran across the room with his new shiny book. He went to the corner of the room, opened his book and wrote in bold – 

Presented to Pudiyathu 

With love, Light of the World 

He smiled and closed his newfound book.  

Pudiyathu walked out of the room into the city as the sun shone brightly in the sky.

Thank you for reading the Stories of Sundelli. I do hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have enjoyed reading Sundelli’s stories, please leave your comments below.

Wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous New Year.