Ranina and Her Red Car

Ranina is a real princess who lives in a tiny palace in a faraway land. Her parents call this palace a "flat" that has only two small rooms. But Ranina believes this is her royal fortress. Her father, the King, deals in spices and stacks them inside the palace. She often hears of the names of spices: turmeric, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel, cinnamon and some others. Ranina loves to take smell of the spices kept in large vessels. Her mother, the Queen, draws pictures of flowers, birds and animals. But her mother never use colours. All her pictures are drawn with a black sharp pencil.

The palace has many storybooks for Princess Ranina. But she doesn't like to read them herself. She only enjoys the pictures of her books and makes her own stories with them. One day she finds a box of crayons in the drawer below the television. She asks her mother, "Mumma, look what I've found here. Is that mine?" The Queen while busy with ironing clothes answers, "Yes, my little girl. That was a gift from your Kutty uncle on your fourth birthday. Why don't you draw a picture with them?"

Ranina engages herself in the study table and turns over a blank page of her drawing book. She spreads out the crayons, all twelve colours, on the white page. They look like the pillars of a fortress, erected one by one. She thinks for a while and draws three wavy hills using the green colour. She fills them with dark green shade. Can't there be a river flowing downhill? She picks up the blue crayon, and draws a thick blue line in between the two hills. The river comes down steadily and gushes out of the page. She also imagines some trees on both sides of the blue river and draws them with maroon and red. The sky still looks blank and dull. She quickly paints three fatty clouds using orange, and the sun shining in yellow and red. Her picture now looks complete and pretty. Ranina brings her eyes closer to the picture and blinks. All of a sudden she feels a magic happening to her. Where is the touch of her study table and the pages? Her tiny palace travels to a new picture world. 

She is standing at the foot of a green hill she has just drawn. She counts three hills in total just like her drawing book. Not only that, there is a river flowing down too. What a big wonder it is! She walks towards the river and finds the that shade of blue tinged with a little pink. All around her there are colours which she can enjoy and explore. The green bed of grass below her feet is spotted with small violet and magenta flowers. What are their names? She doesn't know that. There are tall trees standing sleepless like the palace guards. They carry red and maroon leaves shaking gently in the air. It's a bright sunny day. One of the trees has yellow and red mangoes hanging atop. She can't pull them down. Below the mango tree there is a small shiny red car waiting for someone. Ranina opens the door and rides into the car. But she doesn't know how to drive a car. She holds the steering wheel and moves it round and round. To her wonder the car makes a roar and starts. It takes a pebble road lying side by side the blue river. Ranina looks at everything that comes into her sight. There is a rainbow looming in the sky. The car moves fast and the blow of wind lets her two plaits flying. This ride is so much of fun that she never had before. A sweet smell of something reminds her of the stacks of spices in her palace. Is that cardamom, or clove, or cinnamon? If her mother is here she can tell her. Ranina looks up and finds the orange fatty clouds floating in the backdrop of a light blue sky. Everything is so similar to her picture that she can't believe.

Suddenly she hears some heavy footsteps running behind. She looks back and gets scared. A large elephant is chasing her car. There is still some distance from her car, but it's running fast. The red and maroon leaves are left aside when the animal is moving. Ranina takes into notice that the elephant has no other colour except black and white. It must have come straight from her mother's pencil sketches. But is the elephant angry or playful? She hears the trumpet which makes her afraid of a possible danger. She moves the steering wheel swiftly so the animal can't catch her. The red car crosses a wooden bridge on the blue river and takes another route to make a trick to the animal. But the clever elephant still runs after the car. Ranina can see its black bordered trunk coming closer. She tries to tell the red car to be fast. It takes her order but Ranina loses her balance and topples over into the blue river. She hits the water with a big splash! Swush! Out of fear she closes her eyes and opens them again. What a wonder it is once again! She is leaning her chin on the study table. The drawing book is still open in front of her. This is the land with many colours which she has just been to. But where is her red car gone? Has it drowned in the blue river? She says to herself, "No, my lovely red car can't be lost. I will draw it soon in this land of colours."

Ranina is driving her red car in the land of colours
Picture: The drawing book of Little Miss Shino