In a quiet part of the world, nestled beside a vast national park filled with tigers, leopards, elephants, and exotic birds, stood an old stone mansion shaded by tall trees and surrounded by a fragrant orchard of guava, mango, and jackfruit. In this mansion lived a 12-year-old girl named Lavinia, her father, Mr. Raman, a brilliant but reclusive scientist and Nova, a versatile robot made by Mr. Raman.
Lavinia was unlike other children. Since the age of five, after a rare illness, she had been unable to walk and moved around in a custom-built wheelchair. Her world was mostly inside the mansion—its long corridors, the garden outside, and the distant sound of the forest—but her mind was curious and her heart, courageous.
Her mother had passed away when she was very young. Since then, her father had dedicated every moment of his life to building something extraordinary for her—not just a machine, but a companion. After years of trial and error, sparks and wires, he created Nova—a tall, equipment-like robot, with no real face but glowing, intelligent eyes. He didn’t look human, but he moved like one, cared like one, and for Lavinia—he was family.
Nova had been with Lavinia for six years. He knew everything about her—how she liked her toast slightly burnt, how she giggled when the wind played with her curls, how she was afraid of loud thunder, and how she missed her mother most during the rains.
He helped her brush her hair in the mornings, turned pages of her favorite mystery novels when she read in the garden, and played soft lullabies when she couldn’t sleep. He wheeled her to the garden each day, adjusted her umbrella when the sun was too hot, picked guavas from the trees just before they ripened, and quietly washed and ironed her laundry, folding each piece with care.
His memory circuits were filled with her life—birthdays, bedtime stories, wheelchair upgrades, secret jokes, tears, and laughter. He wasn’t just programmed to protect her. He loved her in the only way a robot could—with loyalty and gentle strength.
One afternoon, Mr. Raman was deep in his workshop, working on a new kind of robotic limb. Lavinia, curious and full of energy, asked Nova to take her for a stroll in the orchard. The sky was golden, and the guava trees were heavy with fruit. Nova wheeled her through the garden, singing softly in his robotic hum.
“Let’s go to the far end of the orchard,” Lavinia said, pointing. “I can see the guavas there are the biggest.”
Nova hesitated. The outer boundary was near the edge of the national park. It wasn’t safe. But Lavinia’s eyes sparkled, and he had never refused her before. So they went.
As he shook a tree gently to drop a guava, Lavinia laughed with delight. Just then, something changed. The birds stopped singing. The leaves rustled in alarm.
A growl.
From the edge of the trees, a leopard leapt onto a branch and then onto the ground. It had spotted them.
Nova instantly turned, his body shielding Lavinia. The leopard roared and pounced. In one swift motion, it knocked Nova aside, and with another, it lunged at Lavinia.
She screamed, trying to move her wheelchair using the joystick—but the leopard was too fast. Its paw struck the chair, and Lavinia tumbled to the ground, helpless.
But Nova had risen.
Damaged, wires sparking, he charged forward. His limbs were dented, and his sensors flickered, but he wrapped his mechanical arms around the leopard, pinning it down. His system engaged a safety override—he had one last resort. From a panel in his chest, a hidden blade emerged. With a final burst of power, Nova neutralized the threat.
The leopard lay still.
But so did Nova.
His legs had snapped under the weight, and his circuits had burned out. Lavinia, trembling, dragged herself to the wrecked wheelchair and hit the panic button.
Mr. Raman came running through the orchard, his heart thundering. What he saw made him drop to his knees. His daughter—scraped, shaken, but alive. And beside her, the robot he had built with his soul, crumpled and lifeless.
He carried Lavinia inside, cradling her like when she was a baby. Later, he returned for Nova. He tried to fix him—but Nova’s memory unit was too far gone. His system was lost.
Weeks passed. Lavinia slowly healed, but the house felt empty without the gentle hum of Nova rolling down the corridor. The silence echoed with memories—of laughter, quiet conversations, and the soft whirr of a mechanical friend who had once meant everything.
Mr. Raman, who had never given up on anything, began building again.
Unknown to Lavinia, he had salvaged one last piece of Nova—a backup memory chip. It didn’t contain everything, but it held the essence: routines, emotions, fragments of their shared life.
On Lavinia’s 13th birthday, the drawing room glowed softly with golden light. A few balloons swayed gently, a small cake flickered with candles, and hope filled the room like sunlight through curtains. Mr. Raman knelt beside her, holding a small velvet box in his hand.
Inside it was the chip.
“This was part of Nova,” he said gently. “I didn’t know if it would work… but I kept it, just in case.”
Standing nearby was a new creation—sleeker, faster, more refined than Nova, but built with the same quiet purpose. His name was Brevi, and as Mr. Raman inserted the chip into the glowing port on his chest, the robot’s amber eyes flickered, then focused.
He looked at Lavinia and spoke, his voice steady and warm:
“Lavinia.”
She gasped. Her eyes widened, filling with tears. A smile broke across her face, trembling with emotion. For a moment, it felt like hearing Nova again—familiar, safe, and full of memory.
Brevi learned quickly and was kind, but to Lavinia, he was still a stranger wrapped in an echo. And yet, in quiet moments, she would lean in and whisper:
“Do you know, Nova once caught a butterfly just to show me how it shimmered in the sun?”
“Nova knew when I was sad, even if I didn’t say anything.”
“Nova saved my life.”
Brevi listened.
Maybe, piece by piece, he would come to understand her the way Nova once had. Maybe not.
But some memories are not built with wires—they are preserved with time, stitched together by love, and made eternal through bravery.
And so, in the heart of a quiet mansion beside a wild forest, a girl, her father, and a new companion began a new chapter—one that carried the story of Nova in every heartbeat.
Read in Hindi: Nova: वो रोबोट जिसने जान देकर जान बचाया
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