A painter who, when young, used to paint for a pound or two. In those days, a pound or two for a painting was enough. But after two or three decades, his paintings found a lesser clientele as people ventured into buying other art forms.
Every once in a while, one or two of his paintings got sold. Soon he started selling chocolates alongside his paintings.
He went home and began giving art lessons to children, and he would get a few shillings for each child for every class that he used to teach them.
After a month, the village school authorities contacted him and he got a job there as a drawing teacher.
All the students used to attend his classes sincerely and he too would teach them drawing, sketching and painting sincerely.
Unknown to all, he used to keep a diary from the day he began selling his first painting. His name was Martin and, on the diary, in calligraphy writing he had written Martin’s diary. The diary was given to him by his father. He had learnt calligraphy from his mother.
He used to make sketches in it, and drew. When he began teaching at the school, by that time he had filled ten diaries with his sketches.
Now thirty years have passed.
His grandson, Joseph while looking for his ball in the attic, pulled out a trunk from a corner. He was astonished to see such an old trunk in his home. He opened it and a gust of dust hit him in the nose. He gave out two loud sneezes.
Inside the trunk were twelve diaries and each of them were covered with a cloth.
He dusted off the dirt of a diary and was very astonished to see the word- “Martin’s Diary No.7”.
His grandfather was sitting in the garden sipping his evening tea, when he rushed into the garden and showed Martin his old diary.
Martin looked at his old diary in disbelief. He had not thought about them in a long while and had nearly completely forgotten about them.
Joseph looked incredulously at his grandfather and said- “Grandpa is this diary yours?”
Martin took some time to answer
Martin- “Yes, little Joseph. It belongs to me. A long time ago, I used to keep record of my daily activities.”
Martin opened his diary with great reverence and respect and found his old drawings. Seeing those marvelous sketches, tears ran down his cheek.
By this time Joseph had called his parents. Edmund (Martin’s son) couldn’t bear the sight of tears in his father’s eyes and hugged him tightly. Edmund had seen those diaries in his childhood. He too had a nostalgia of his childhood. He remembered his childhood days when his father used to draw a small sketch on every page with a little pencil.
Edmund too began crying like a small child. Those were beautiful days for him. Then and there he decided to preserve the diaries with great care, so that they won’t remain locked in a trunk anymore.
Martin took each of his diaries, cleaned the dust of each of them and placed them on his bedside table.
That night he dreamt of his youth days, where he used to sell drawings for a pound or two.
Adios!
Before You Travel. 