“It’s only sound,” she murmured, gently releasing his small hand.
“It’s loud,” he replied quietly. “It hurts my head.”
“I know, my love. But it’ll pass soon.” She smiled reassuringly. “Why don’t you solve problems from the new book I bought you?”
She knew he enjoyed them.
“I finished them this afternoon,” he said softly. “I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”
A faint smile touched her lips. She wasn’t surprised that he had finished an entire book in a day.
Earlier that week, the mathematics tutor had come to her study looking deeply unsettled.
“Your Highness, I would like to speak to you about something,” the tutor had said carefully. “It’s about Bharat.”
Ram had forgotten his homework after spending the afternoon playing cricket in the palace courtyard. The tutor had wanted to discipline him, so he had given him a week’s worth of advanced math problems.
But the next morning, the notebook was complete. Every answer was correct, and every step was written clearly. The tutor had assumed that Ram worked through the night.
But Ram had told the math tutor the truth. It wasn’t Ram. It was Bharat.
The tutor hadn’t believed Ram, so he had asked for Suchitra to intervene and find out the truth.
When she and the tutor went into the study, Bharat had been sitting at the far end of the table, not looking at anyone.
“I didn’t want Ram punished,” Bharat had said calmly.
“You understood all of it?” the tutor asked, disbelief clear in his voice.
Bharat had looked up then, his light-brown eyes steady and unblinking.
“They weren’t difficult.”
The tutor, feeling unsettled, gave Bharat more problems. Harder ones and from a much higher level. Bharat had completed them in less than ten minutes.
“Do you have something that takes longer?” he had asked quietly.
The tutor had fallen silent.
Suchitra had not been surprised. She had known Bharat’s mind worked differently.
What warmed her heart was not the brilliance itself, but the reason behind it. Bharat was protective of his older brother.
While Ram protected his younger brother with his presence. Bharat protected Ram by removing the problem efficiently.
“Let’s buy more books tomorrow,” she said to Bharat with a smile.
She rose from the floor. “Come. Both of you must be hungry. Let’s have dinner.”
The three of them walked together to the family dining room.
Ram took his seat and sat upright, composed and steady. Bharat sat next to him, equally composed but with his eyes lowered to the table.
Samar, nearly three years old and already hot-tempered, was protesting loudly when his water cup was taken away. But the sight of his older brothers calmed him down instantly. Samar adored them, especially Bharat.
Suchitra recalled the event from a few months ago when Samar’s expensive foreign mechanical horse had shattered across the corridor floor. The palace staff had desperately tried to fix it and calm Samar while he wailed loudly in frustration.
While everyone else tried to soothe Samar, Bharat crouched beside the broken pieces and studied the toy.
