Relate an incident which shows that you were not worthy of the trust placed upon you and also suggest some measures to regain that trust.
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The short novel “The Blue Umbrella” is a delight to read because it drives home the fact that human emotions are as old as the hills! Love, compassion, sacrifice, anger, jealousy, fear, courage – these are the human emotions that have kind of defined mankind since time immemorial!
The story takes us to one of the hill towns in Himachal Pradesh where Binya, a 10-year old girl lives with her widowed mother and elder brother Bijju. While Bijju goes to school, Binya is left with the onerous task of grazing her cows – Neelu and Gori – a chore that she does day in and day out and never tires of it. A girl from the hills is innocent, brave and courage and Binya is no exception.
One day Binya notices a group of picnickers and is enticed by the variety of the food items spread out. Soon her eyes catch the splendid view of the blue umbrella that one of the woman has. The way Bond has described the blue umbrella in the story – you start aspiring to have it ! That explains his mastery over the craft.
Despite being illiterate, Binya is a smart kid. When the woman aspires for her pendant with the claws of a tigress, Binya refuses to part with it in exchange for cash. She eventually succeeds in giving away her pendant to the woman picnicker in exchange for her blue umbrella. The pendant has always been Binya’s lucky charm that wards of all evils but Binya is so fascinated by the blue umbrella that she doesn’t mind foregoing her lucky pendant.
Like a small child who goes berserk at the sight of a new toy, Binya walks around the tiny hamlet with the blue umbrella showing her prized possession to one and all. Some of the villagers are envious but they stop at merely grumbling about the poor girl’s luck. The richest man in the village is the shop keeper Ram Bharosa who starts longing for the blue umbrella. He knows that it is an umbrella that is generally used by ladies – yet he wants to possess it. He doesn’t want to sell the blue umbrella but merely possess it.
It is clear that Ram Bharosa’s desire for possessing the blue umbrella is driven by an ego that refuses to accept that a poor mountain girl can have something as pretty as the blue umbrella. He starts developing an emotional attachment with the umbrella. Binya is gracious enough to lend the blue umbrella to anyone who wants to use it but she would not part with it. In one such instance, she almost loses the blue umbrella to gutsy winds. But she manages to recover it back with ample fortitude and risks death and nettle bites to repossess it.
Ram Bharosa’s avarice for the blue umbrella gets the better of him and soon he takes the help of one his shop assistants to steal the umbrella from Binya. But the assistant Rajaram is caught while stealing the umbrella and he spills the beans that Ram Bharosa had instigated him. The simple people of the hills cannot accept the fact that one of their denizens can go to that extent to steal a blue umbrella from a poor girl child.
Soon the villagers start boycotting Ram Bharosa. The once prosperous shop keeper is now forced to lead the life of a social outcast – someone who is shunned by all the villagers. His business prospects start dwindling day by day until it reaches a point when he is all alone in the shop and is forced to lead a life of solitary existence. He is now a paler version of his original self. He starts ruing the fact that his greed for the blue umbrella led him to stoop to such low levels.
Binya somehow feels responsible for Ram Bharosa’s present predicament. The young child in her is unable to come to terms with the fact that Ram Bharosa’s fortunes have overturned due to his avarice for a possession that she was proud of flaunting to one and all in the village. She decides to give away the blue umbrella to Ram Bharosa without any sort of expectation. An overwhelmed Ram Bharosa who is now a reformed man accepts this gift from Binya but decides to gift her a silver necklace that has a bear claw in it. He requests Binya to accept it and the young girl respects his request.
It was my friend Riya who trusted me a lot.But I broke her trust when I lied to her.
Many of my friends had planned out a day out but they didn't want Riya to come. She asked me if she could join us but I said that I was also not going there. I didn't want her to feel sad so I just lied. But later that day she was coincidentally at the same place were all my friends including me were hanging out. Riya didn't shout and fight. Instead she just came to me and said ," I used to trust u a lot." And then she walked away.I tried to tell her that I didn't have any bad intentions , that I didn't mean to hurt her but she wouldn't just listen.She is one of my good friends and u really miss her company. I regret having lied to her and going out with my other friends.I wish I hadn't lied....I wish I had stayed home that day.
This trust is a very sensetive thing. Its like a paper. Once you crumble it you can open it and make it straight.But it would never be the same. It will have creases. Regaining trust is very hard once that you have already crumbled it like a piece of paper.Maybe you regain trust but it will never be as strong as before. Riya forgave me.But she knows and I know that its not the same anymore. All I do to regain her trust is be honest witb her and be there for her when she needs me...
hope it helps.....