Story - 3 | September 2025

Contents














Tublu’s Piggy Bank



SABITA Ray Biswas
Kolkata, West Bengal


What a surprise! The same Tublu who always fussed about eating now comes running to his mother and says, “Ma, ma, give me a biscuit.” Sometimes he even asks for a handful of puffed rice. 

Tublu’s mother, Monisha Aunty, was very happy. At last, no worries. If only he would drink his milk eagerly! Then she wouldn’t have to scold him so much. But let’s leave Aunty aside and listen to Tublu’s story.

Last week, Tublu went to his grandmother’s house in Madhurapur. He is always delighted to go there. There are mango, jackfruit, guava trees, and even two pomelo trees. Seeing an ants’ nest on the pomelo tree leaves made him jump with excitement! He kept calling, sometimes his grandmother, sometimes his grandfather — “Look, look, the ants are carrying away a grasshopper!”

Grandmother was frying his favorite malpoa then, but she had to leave because of Tublu’s constant shouting. Then came a barrage of questions about ants! To keep him quiet, Grandma recited a funny rhyme and promised to tell him more stories about ants in the afternoon.

Would Tublu listen to the story alone? Never! We’ll listen too. So here’s the little rhyme:

 

“Creeping ants walk on six feet,

          Whispering secrets as they meet,

          Sit quietly and lend your ear,

Count the grains they’ve gathered here.”

 

Hearing just this, Tublu’s eyes grew wide. “So many legs! Why don’t they have hands?” And so many more questions followed. Just then, he spotted some tiny red ants dragging a grain of puffed rice across the floor. A few others were carrying biscuit crumbs. Off he jumped from Grandma’s lap, curious to see where the ants were going with the food.

The old house had many cracks in the floor, and the ants quickly disappeared into them. Tublu shouted, “Grandma, I want to see their house!”

But silly Tublu didn’t know only weaver ants build nests on trees where their eggs are visible. Most ants live underground, where their homes cannot be seen. Grandma patiently explained that ants are small but clever, and not always safe. Carpenter ants are the most dangerous if five or six bite together, one can get a fever from the pain. The little red ants sting badly too. And then there are the big, fat black ants, the “denyo” ants. If they see an enemy, they raise their back end, lift their front legs, open their jaws wide, and bite so hard that blood may come out! Hearing this, Tublu exclaimed, “They are bad, very bad.”

But not all ants are bad, Grandma assured him. The small black ants are nice; when they crawl on your skin, it feels ticklish. She also told him more that ants store food for later, carry loads twenty times their own weight, and never waste time. Scientists like Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya even wrote books after studying them. Poets too have written many verses.

One by Birendra Chattopadhyay goes:

 

“Ants —

 What do they do in the pantry?

They eat this, eat that,

          And even sing to the queen.”

 

And even Tagore, in his childhood, wrote about ants enjoying sweets.

But back to Tublu, Grandma was clever. When Monisha Aunty phoned her about Tublu’s sudden love for biscuits and puffed rice, Grandma instantly guessed he was storing food. But where? Asking him revealed the secret — in his piggy bank!

What a sight! The showcase piggy bank had become an ants’ kingdom. And why wouldn’t it? They had found biscuits, toffees, puffed rice. When the bank was opened, sugar grains and melted toffees had spoiled all the money inside.

But Monisha Aunty didn’t scold him. He was just too young to know you shouldn’t store food in a piggy bank. After all, he was only copying the ants. And even in that, there’s a lesson — ants live together in colonies, work hard, and never waste time.

But one more secret: don’t tell Tublu, or he’ll be heartbroken. He had planned to use the birthday money (which got spoiled in the piggy bank) to buy sweaters for the street dogs, Bholu and Neru, so they wouldn’t suffer in the winter. His aunt will now buy the sweaters instead.

And that piggy bank? Apart from biscuits and toffees, Tublu had been storing chilies, beans, pieces of brinjal, potatoes, and even tomatoes in it thinking his mother could cook them when his father couldn’t go to the market.

You’re laughing, aren’t you? Shhh, quietly like the ants, so that Tublu doesn’t hear!


Contents