It was a pleasant morning. Karthik was riding his brand new BSA bicycle through the woods, singing merrily all the way. There were trees with barks of chocolates, with rasagullas and game CDs hanging from the trees... Cool, fresh morning breeze whipped across his face, rejuvenating it, keeping the tiredness at bay." Enthralling", he thought, "when nature and men lived in harmony". Suddenly, he heard a voice of someone familiar. "Karthik... KAAARTHHHIK....".... He halted the cycle in style, and as he was alighting in Sivaji Rajini style, he fell... headfront into the pile of lush grass, too soft to get hurt.
The Pillow. The voice? His mother's. Screaming at the top of her voice from the kitchen. "ARE YOU GETTING UP OR SHALL I CALL MISS AND TELL HE IS ABSENT??" Karthik heard. He hated. After 2 months of blisfull solitude called summer, back was the blackmailing. He strongly felt that he must finish college soon, work and retire by another 2 years and then sleep without any botheration. This thought proved to be a tonic of inspiration to break his inertia as he groggily woke up and demanded the brush. " 9 years old and i have to put the paste on his brush", mumbled his mother. "Its all the result of your spoon-feeding", remarked his father, eyeing him casually over the newspaper. This unwarranted remark enraged him. He stuff the brush into his mouth. You just needed to stand there for 3 minutes and come out and declare the teeth were brushed.
As he stood, he remembered the newspaper. He had often wondered what it contained to hold the attention of his father for two hours. He even tried sneaking into it, when he was seen by his father and surprisingly got a pat on his back. His father urged him to continue reading. Inspired, he started sifting through the pages. There was nothing. Not even pictures of animals. At most, there were pictures of "conferences" being held and men in suits. He liked wearing the suits. He had asked his mother what "conference" meant. She had replied that it was a meeting where a group of people attended, somebody talked and the others responded to that. This revelation angered him. The thing conference sounded exactly like a classroom, and still the newspaper maker had never bothered to interview him. This thought turned him against the newspaper-maker . Holding it was itself so painful to him. He spread it out on the floor and sat on one of its edges.Still, it invariably flew everywhere in the room, inviting mother's scoldings. All this convinced him not to touch the paper again.
Three minutes up. He went to the kitchen and wanted to demand coffee. But he was careful. Mornings 5:45 to 7:15 was the tension-time for mother, and you tended to get castigated for the smallest of errors.
He was cautious and slipped with his coffee into the Hall. As he sipped it, making sure that father wasn't looking that way ( sipping was told to be wrong ) , he wondered how soon his holidays had ended. What had he done during the holidays? Nothing worthwhile he recalled. His English miss had asked them to read newspapers. Well, he had at least attempted. Still he was restless. He mentally ticked a check-list of the To-Dos. He was facing a problem though. He did not remember the list. He gave up, thinking it was the 5th standard that made him feel that way.
He had attended the marriage of his cousin sister. He had very good opinion about marriages. They usually meant nice food, and protection from direct scoldings from your parents. You could always depend upon relatives to shield you. Moreover, there were too many distractions for mother to keep a close eye on his mischiefs. And then there was this presumption by the adults that they were smarter, which he encouraged , since it gave him license to mischief. But there was one irritating thing about marriages he hated. Whosoever you see, tended to ask," Do you remember me?". He often wondered how they could expect a 9-year old to remember so many names and where he had last met them. The most frustrating thing was they never seemed to remember him at all. Each person would come, tap his cheek and ask his name, school and class. And he distinctly remembered telling his aunt last year his class with section number and there she had asked again.
His reverie was interrupted by his mother, who ordered him not to play with the sugar in the coffee tumbler and go to bath. Bath! Another thing he had never understood. They said it would clean the body. He wondered how come the sand was still there even after it rained. He came out and reluctantly put on his uniform. He searched for his socks. He had always had a doubt as to which one of the pair was for which foot. He assured himself that since no-one could see, it wouldn't matter. He made out for the door, wished his mother good-bye. The feel of shoes after 2 months made him feel tall. He stood at the stop waiting for his bus to arrive.
Standing there, he couldnt help blaming himself for not having enjoyed his rare holidays ( after all they came just 70 times in a whole year) completely. Especially on Sundays, when his father spent all his time watching news, swapping news channels. For one thing, he couldn't watch Shaktiman and Captain Vyom.
The sight of the school-bus depressed him. He had prayed sincerely for rain that day. This was just the second time he had made such a sincere request to God.( the first was when he got his new raincoat !) . No answer. God must be busy or the water cycle would have been "punctured", he justified to himself.
Suddenly, he felt as if he missed his homework. Since 2 years, he had been doing his own homework. This was no great moral decision. In his second standard, he had raised a havoc and forced his father to do his homework. The next day, the maths miss immediately detected it. He later found out that there had been a question "What is the answer when 35 is divided by 3?" His father, doing the work, in the breaks between the news, had answered 11.666667. It was perfect, the only catch was that they were not taught decimals till Std 4. The answer was supposed to be Q = 11 , R = 2 . Thinking about that gave him shudders till this day.
But suddenly he stopped himself. Why should he think? "This was the first day. There would be no worries of homework or tests at least for a week to come.", he reassured himself, as he stepped into the bus - into a new year with new hopes. His friends welcomed him with a smile. As the engine of the bus roared to life, he swallowed the lump in his throat. The bus moved. Standard V beckoned him.
The Pillow. The voice? His mother's. Screaming at the top of her voice from the kitchen. "ARE YOU GETTING UP OR SHALL I CALL MISS AND TELL HE IS ABSENT??" Karthik heard. He hated. After 2 months of blisfull solitude called summer, back was the blackmailing. He strongly felt that he must finish college soon, work and retire by another 2 years and then sleep without any botheration. This thought proved to be a tonic of inspiration to break his inertia as he groggily woke up and demanded the brush. " 9 years old and i have to put the paste on his brush", mumbled his mother. "Its all the result of your spoon-feeding", remarked his father, eyeing him casually over the newspaper. This unwarranted remark enraged him. He stuff the brush into his mouth. You just needed to stand there for 3 minutes and come out and declare the teeth were brushed.
As he stood, he remembered the newspaper. He had often wondered what it contained to hold the attention of his father for two hours. He even tried sneaking into it, when he was seen by his father and surprisingly got a pat on his back. His father urged him to continue reading. Inspired, he started sifting through the pages. There was nothing. Not even pictures of animals. At most, there were pictures of "conferences" being held and men in suits. He liked wearing the suits. He had asked his mother what "conference" meant. She had replied that it was a meeting where a group of people attended, somebody talked and the others responded to that. This revelation angered him. The thing conference sounded exactly like a classroom, and still the newspaper maker had never bothered to interview him. This thought turned him against the newspaper-maker . Holding it was itself so painful to him. He spread it out on the floor and sat on one of its edges.Still, it invariably flew everywhere in the room, inviting mother's scoldings. All this convinced him not to touch the paper again.
Three minutes up. He went to the kitchen and wanted to demand coffee. But he was careful. Mornings 5:45 to 7:15 was the tension-time for mother, and you tended to get castigated for the smallest of errors.
He was cautious and slipped with his coffee into the Hall. As he sipped it, making sure that father wasn't looking that way ( sipping was told to be wrong ) , he wondered how soon his holidays had ended. What had he done during the holidays? Nothing worthwhile he recalled. His English miss had asked them to read newspapers. Well, he had at least attempted. Still he was restless. He mentally ticked a check-list of the To-Dos. He was facing a problem though. He did not remember the list. He gave up, thinking it was the 5th standard that made him feel that way.
He had attended the marriage of his cousin sister. He had very good opinion about marriages. They usually meant nice food, and protection from direct scoldings from your parents. You could always depend upon relatives to shield you. Moreover, there were too many distractions for mother to keep a close eye on his mischiefs. And then there was this presumption by the adults that they were smarter, which he encouraged , since it gave him license to mischief. But there was one irritating thing about marriages he hated. Whosoever you see, tended to ask," Do you remember me?". He often wondered how they could expect a 9-year old to remember so many names and where he had last met them. The most frustrating thing was they never seemed to remember him at all. Each person would come, tap his cheek and ask his name, school and class. And he distinctly remembered telling his aunt last year his class with section number and there she had asked again.
His reverie was interrupted by his mother, who ordered him not to play with the sugar in the coffee tumbler and go to bath. Bath! Another thing he had never understood. They said it would clean the body. He wondered how come the sand was still there even after it rained. He came out and reluctantly put on his uniform. He searched for his socks. He had always had a doubt as to which one of the pair was for which foot. He assured himself that since no-one could see, it wouldn't matter. He made out for the door, wished his mother good-bye. The feel of shoes after 2 months made him feel tall. He stood at the stop waiting for his bus to arrive.
Standing there, he couldnt help blaming himself for not having enjoyed his rare holidays ( after all they came just 70 times in a whole year) completely. Especially on Sundays, when his father spent all his time watching news, swapping news channels. For one thing, he couldn't watch Shaktiman and Captain Vyom.
The sight of the school-bus depressed him. He had prayed sincerely for rain that day. This was just the second time he had made such a sincere request to God.( the first was when he got his new raincoat !) . No answer. God must be busy or the water cycle would have been "punctured", he justified to himself.
Suddenly, he felt as if he missed his homework. Since 2 years, he had been doing his own homework. This was no great moral decision. In his second standard, he had raised a havoc and forced his father to do his homework. The next day, the maths miss immediately detected it. He later found out that there had been a question "What is the answer when 35 is divided by 3?" His father, doing the work, in the breaks between the news, had answered 11.666667. It was perfect, the only catch was that they were not taught decimals till Std 4. The answer was supposed to be Q = 11 , R = 2 . Thinking about that gave him shudders till this day.
But suddenly he stopped himself. Why should he think? "This was the first day. There would be no worries of homework or tests at least for a week to come.", he reassured himself, as he stepped into the bus - into a new year with new hopes. His friends welcomed him with a smile. As the engine of the bus roared to life, he swallowed the lump in his throat. The bus moved. Standard V beckoned him.
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3 comments:
relli kewwl!! reminds me of my own inquisitive thoughts wen i was karthik's age :D
kudos!
waiting for ur nxt installment! ;-)
reminiscence!
real and nice one...
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