Treasures from the past – The Hindu

It had rained at night, but the water had drained away quickly, and the ground was dry. The three friends ran to a mound ahead of them.

“I can see something shining!” cried the girl and began to dig with a pointed stick. The two boys scraped away at the mud, too.

It took almost half-an-hour for their efforts to bear fruit and the girl cried, “Look! A tooth. MY tooth!’

The boys scrabbled faster and one by one held up their own treasures.

“MY seal!”

“MY pot!”

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Mali, his sister Serri, and their friend Bala loved their busy town on the banks of the river. Bala’s father was one of the town leaders and lived in the grander section of town. Mali and Serri’s father was a potter and lived close to the river.

Rescue act

Bala had met Mali and Serri when friends and he had been playing near the river. He had landed in the water after a tussle and been swept away downstream. His “friends” fled, but Mali, tending his fishing line nearby, jumped in and pulled him out.

Mali and Serri had had some unpleasant experiences with the “grand” townspeople in the past, but Bala was different. Normal. He liked spending time with them. He learnt to fish and enjoyed it, though he never took his catch home. Mali and Serri were okay with that. Additional food was always welcome.

Mali helped his father, but he did not have his father’s “hand” when it came to shaping clay. Often his efforts ended in mini messes. Today, he was about to smash one such “mess” when Bala and Serri stopped him. “Save it! Maybe when you grow up, you can look at this mistake and laugh!” said Serri.

“I’ll add something I made a mess of, too!” said Bala, holding up a half-done seal he had been “carving” in imitation of the seals his father used.

“We’ll bury our mistakes,” suggested Serri, “and dig them up in five years and see if we’re still making the same mistakes!”

She brought a dolphin’s tooth from the house, split open at the top. “A dolphin got caught in a net, and we tried to ‘help’ it out, using a piece of wood,’ she explained to Bala, ‘It bit the wood and left a tooth behind! I tried to make a hole in the tooth, so I could use it as a pendant … see what happened!’

It took a long time to decide on a place to bury their treasure but, at last, they settled on the mound behind their house.

Danger ahead

Then the rain came and continued for three days without a break and they forgot all about their “treasure”. The river’s level rose alarmingly and Mali and Serri were worried. They spied pots and broken furniture swirling by.

“That’s from the town upriver!” said Mali.

“We have to warn everyone!’”cried Serri.

Though close to the river, their own home was on a hillock and relatively safe. But the town was on low-lying land and, if the river overflowed its banks, it would be in danger.

“Run! Run! The river will soon overflow!” they screamed, as they ran into town.

Townspeople spilt out of their houses in response but they didn’t get a chance to escape. There was a sudden roar as the banks of the river gave way and a wall of water raced towards them.

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Illustration: Shivani Lakshman

The girl and the two boys examined their treasures. The seal and the dolphin tooth were more or less intact, but the pot was in two pieces.

“Another seal! Wonderful!” said the local guide. ‘Every time it rains, something is unearthed. This is probably a dolphin’s tooth … imagine a dolphin this far upriver!”

“Upriver?” said the children in confusion, looking at the dry and barren land around them.

“Yes, this was once a thriving river-bank town of the Harappan civilisation,” said the guide. “There was a river here and it probably destroyed this town 4000 years ago.”

Published – February 20, 2026 10:05 am IST