This post is written by Chhavi and me. I will tell you the backstory. I recently took out my Tintin figure given to me by Hassanein. We met once in Delhi and that is when he gifted the toy to me. But our connect was over the Everest Base Camp Trek in Nepal. While I was writing the posts on EBC, he was on the trek. We connected over those posts and we were lucky to meet once. I decided that I would keep that Tintin for my travels. So, when Chhavi would have asked me for the toy, I would have told her, you have so many this one I want to use for my trips. Recently Chhavi saw that Tintin in my hands and then she told me the story narrated below. Over to Chhavi!
When I was six years old, I had a very serious mission in life: to own the little toy named Tintin that my mother had. It was a small figure, not flashy, not new, but something about it just captured my heart. My mom had received it from someone, and for some mysterious reason, she was not ready to part with it.
I remember one day asking her with all my innocence, “Can I have the Tintin?” And she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “No.” Just like that. No explanations. No negotiations. Naturally, I was furious. I frowned. I sulked. I gave her my best angry face. But still, no Tintin.
Then I noticed something: every day, she would keep that toy safely tucked inside her travel bag. And every day, my curiosity and determination grew stronger. So one morning, after she left for work, leaving her other bag behind, I looked through that bag like a detective on a secret mission. I unzipped the bag, dug my tiny hands inside and bingo! There was the “stupid” Tintin!
I ran to the backyard and buried it in the sand, pretending it was on a grand adventure. I played with it until it was covered in dirt. “Good!” I thought, “Let it get dirty!” Then, like a secret agent cleaning up a mission, I wiped it, stuffed it back into the bag, and pretended nothing had happened.
This sneaky ritual continued for a while until one day, my mom caught me red-handed. “You cannot play with the Tintin!” she scolded, grabbing it from me. Well, that only made me want it more.
She hid it somewhere I couldn’t find but I was a persistent little troublemaker. When I got it again, I was so annoyed that I did the unthinkable: I bit off Tintin’s fingers. Yes, I chewed that toy’s fingers out of pure revenge and tucked it back like nothing happened. Later, I even chewed his nose.
Fast forward to when I turned seventeen, my mom randomly pulled out the same old Tintin from some box. I gasped. “This is the Tintin! The one you never gave me!”
She looked at me blankly and said, “Really? I think I told you I wanted to use it for my travels and you have so many toys!” So I told her the whole story the stealing, the sand, the chewing. She laughed like she never had before. I think in that moment, both of us realized how silly and special that little toy had become.
It wasn’t just a toy. It was a memory. A story. A reminder of childhood mischief and a mother’s love even if she never gave me the Tintin willingly.
PS. It is Mridula again. I really laughed and laughed when she told me this story recently and showed me the chewed fingers! I also remember the face getting dirty but I never related it remotely with Chhavi.
