There was a little 8- year-old girl, Bhuvana. She is a sweet, obedient girl who barely demands anything and belongs to a typical middle-class South-Indian family. Her father was an auto-rickshaw driver, and her mother was a simple homemaker. Bhuvana’s maternal relatives are more financially sound than her family because her maternal uncle is a Government Servant.

One day Bhuvana’s uncle came to their house to invite them to his son’s birthday party, which was on the next day, and the venue was their own house. Bhuvana did not want to attend the party because she thought her cousin was very arrogant and told her mother that he was always rude and do not even share his toys with her. Somehow, she agreed to attend the party with her mother after she heard about the delicious cakes, chips, balloons and sweet juicy gulab jamun prepared by her granny.

The next day, Bhuvana went to the party. Granny’s house was filled with balloons she could smell the samosas frying in the kadai, so many kids with the birthday cap on, and a cake box, the same Bhuvana who was unhappy until this moment, suddenly her excitement and joy came out of nowhere. At the time of the cake cutting, her cousin got a birthday present, a brand new remote control car worth Rs.5000. The little boy immediately took the remote control, placed the car on the floor and started playing with it. Bhuvana thought to play with the car after everything was over.

After everything was over, Bhuvana asked her cousin to give her the remote control to play with the car only once, but the kid refused and started to yell at her, “This is my toy. Go get yours”. Bhuvana looked at her mother and then at her granny, but nobody asked him to give the car to her. Only his father asked him not to yell at her.

Bhuvana was very sad and didn’t want to stay there even for a second. She started crying and wanted to go back to their house asked her mother to take her back to home and even called her dad to pick her up. She was very adamant about going back. Her father came and took them back in his rickshaw. Throughout her ride, she complained to her father about how the birthday boy was rude and did not give her the remote to play with the car, and nobody supported her and said that nobody like her and everyone loves  him because he has a remote control car. She said, “I want a remote control car too”. For which the father agreed and asked about its cost, and the mother replied in a sarcastic tone, 5000 Rupees.

After reaching home, Bhuvana was very excited about the new car because she wanted to show it to her cousin and play with it and slept with the same excitement of her father giving the brand new remote control  car. The next day, her father bought a remote control car and gave it to her. The car was about half the size of her cousin’s car, the remote control was about the size of a mobile handset with only two buttons, and the antenna was thin, like a wire strand. Its price was Rs.100 bought from the famous Majestic local market of Bengaluru. She was not at all happy about this. Her cousin has a big expensive car, but she got a cheap car. She did not want to play with it which made her mother furious. And her father felt very upset.

After some days, Bhuvana’s uncle and her cousin came to their house randomly. The boy came with his remote car and started playing with it. His big car went near the small car of Bhuvana lying in the corner. The boy took the car, and asked to whom this tiny car belonged. Bhuvana said that the car belongs to her, for which the boy made fun of her car and asked about starting the race between the two toy cars. Both of them placed their toys on the starting line, and as soon the remote buttons of the big car were pressed, it started controlling the small car too. Maybe, the signals from the advanced remote control overthrew the signals from the local remote. Bhuvana got very angry and switched off her car. And the boy started dancing happily that he had won the race.

Later the boy went to the balcony and told his father about the race, who was having tea with Bhuvana’s father and started playing with it again. At full speed, he moved it forward towards the opening of the balcony, and the car fell and broke into pieces within seconds. The boy started crying. His father hit him and shouted at him for being negligent and went home after collecting its broken pieces and throwing them into the garbage.

By looking at all this, Bhuvana took her car and hugged it. Although it was not expensive and she did not want to play with it, it was still with her. Even though she did not like it, her father bought her whatever possible from his credibility. She understood it later, went to her father, hugged him for bringing her this gift even though it was not her birthday and dreamt of buying a real car for her father.

People often ignore small bits of happiness for a large cup of luxury. In Bhuvana’s case, this was true, but she was quick enough to grasp the lesson life offered her at the right time and saw her father’s hard work, sweat and, satisfaction of fulfilling his daddy duties from that toy car.