In the neighborhood, Bablu Chacha had a peculiar habit—he exaggerated every small matter. If a dog barked in someone’s house, he would spread the news across the entire lane as if a major fight was about to break out.
One morning, Mohan’s little son was playing with a ball in the street when he suddenly slipped and fell. He got a small scratch and began to cry. Mohan quickly picked him up, took him home, and applied some ointment. The matter would have ended there—if Bablu Chacha had not arrived on the scene.
Bablu Chacha began roaming around the neighborhood saying, “Have you heard? A big accident has happened at Mohan’s house! The child has been taken to the hospital!”
People panicked. Someone asked, “Which hospital?” Another person started spreading the news over the phone, assuming something serious had happened.
After a while, Mohan himself came outside and said, “Oh please, the child is perfectly fine. It was just a small scratch.”
But Bablu Chacha would not let go of his version. “I saw it with my own eyes,” he insisted. “The boy fell very badly.”
Gradually, the story grew bigger and bigger. One person said the child had fallen down the stairs. Another claimed he had been hit by a bike. Someone even added that an ambulance had been called.
By evening, the neighborhood atmosphere felt as though a major disaster had occurred.
Mohan, frustrated, kept explaining, “Please don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. It was just a small incident.”
The next day, Bablu Chacha was sitting at the tea stall when a man remarked, “Chacha, because of you, there were so many rumors yesterday.”
Bablu Chacha smiled and said, “I was only sharing the news.”
The shopkeeper laughed and replied, “You weren’t sharing news; you were stretching it.”
Bablu Chacha fell silent and began to reflect that sometimes blowing a small issue out of proportion can create unnecessary trouble.
From that day on, the neighbors decided they would verify the truth before passing anything along.
RAJEEV VERMA 