Childhood memory

Most of our childhood memories fade away with time, as we grow up. But some stay with us till the end of our lives. Most of us would agree that we did a lot of embarrassing things as kids, things that we find embarrassing now, but were confident about it then. I have some memories from my childhood that clearly show how eccentric I was as a child. Once I was found running in middle the of a road in Mumbai, with a bus not far behind me, and people running after me to stop me. The other time, I got lost in a crowded carnival in Nepal. When spotted and picked up by our driver there, I tried to beat him up with my little hands, thinking he was abducting me for money. Another incident from my Nepal trip, that I remember distinctly, is that I roamed around a market place in Kathmandu, holding hand of a random lady, thinking I am holding my Mom.

How I wish I could voluntarily erase some of the memories of my outlandish activities.

We used to have fancy-dress competitions in our school, in which kids dressed up, or rather attempted to dress up, as famous personalities or known figures (though they ended up looking like weird objects most of the time) and displayed themselves on the stage, spoke a few lines about what they were. Needless to say, I participated actively in those competitions. My mom once dressed me up as Goddess Durga. My puny body was draped in 5 foot long bright red saree, and accessorized with jewellery cut out of paper, and an eye was drawn vertically on my forehead, known as the third eye of Durga. When I reached school, looking as weird as that, and saw many parents looking at me, I felt an air of envy. My mother taught me a few lines about the Goddess, that I must speak on stage, with a serious tone. Everything was good and almost normal, until it was my turn to go to the stage. I pompously walked over, displayed myself. And then, out of exhilaration, instead of speaking about Durga, I sang “twinkle twinkle little star”. Yes, I did that. And I had not realized that I had done that till I got out of the stage. I will not write anything about what happened after that. But did I continue to participate enthusiastically in competitions after that day ? You bet!

Figure it out by yourself

I returned home in the evening to find my brother watching TV, perched not more than a metre away from it. He seemed really worried. I could sense pure tension in the way he was hanging on the edge of his seat and chewing, rather trying to chew, the wee bits of nail-like growth left on his little finger.

I did not care to check out what was on TV. Just casually asked ‘what happened, re?’. ‘There’s gonna be a disaster in next 45 minutes!’ he replied. A nameless but intense fear haunted me for the next split second… ‘Italy’s gonna get thrown out of this World Cup! ‘he continued, without taking his eyes off the flat screen! And my reaction was ‘what the ....!’ Is this enough reason to get him tensed?! I mean, seriously, when will guys GROW UP?...May be they don’t ever…they just moult like cockroaches from big-sized kids to older-looking wrinkly kids!!

Mom and dad had left for Kolkata that evening. Now it was just me, my elder brother, and my grandparents at home. Which in short means ‘we were all by ourselves’. I knew that I had to serve food for myself since mom wasn’t there. Spent my time in front of the TV while having dinner, watching the usual stuff on HBO. Time went by, lazing around, when nearly at 10pm I realised that my grandparents hadn’t had their dinner!!
I felt kind of ashamed about the situation, about my lack of concern and casual attitude. My sport-whacko bro too was lost in his own world. This was the beginning.
Though it was during my vacations, things had to be different from then on.
And my journey thereafter, has been positively hilarious, I must admit!

The next morning I woke up to hear the ‘exciting news’ from our cook that the maid servant (“bai” generally) wasn’t going to show her divine figure for the next 2 days.. Again, my reaction was ‘what the.....!’ What happened for next to days isn’t very significant. Poorest management of everything imaginable.Period.

What you need to know about is, the situation that we arrived at, as those 2 days were passing by- lots of stale food in the fridge, a thickening crust of dust on almost all horizontal surfaces, piles of unwashed clothes in undesirable places…never seen my home so messed-up, and grandparents blaming each other for this mess as a cherry on the cake. Watching the two gladiators in there near physical duel served good entertainment for our cook (there’s a positive in every situation you see!).

Then, at some point, not being able to bear the condition of my home, I said to myself, ‘bassss.. ab bahut hua!’ We couldn’t have carried on in this fashion, something had to be done about the situation, we had to change, we needed coordination, we needed a coordinator, the way of handling things had to change. And then, with no options left, I took up the responsibility of handling it, I decided to lead my family.

It had to be challenging. We stay in Chennai, as my dad being posted here. And being Bengalis, ourTamil is not exactly something you would be envious of.
But my mom talks with the cook and bai in some sort of “extra-terrestrial” language…a highly animated version of noisy mime, and obviously I didn’t have a clue about it

It took me more than half a day to fix my home. Cleaning up all the rooms, putting things back to their respective places. Dadu had to take up the responsibility of attending all the calls and preparing the morning tea, bro and grandma were to take the responsibility of “food and fridge management”(a job my bro more than enjoyed), while I took charge of shopping (girls don’t get excited! I mean buying vegetables and meds), and yes, creating a some kind of coordination between the bai and cook.

Can’t believe my mom does much more than this everyday!
I must say, mom is multi-talented, and a professional multi-tasker(the term doesn’t even start describing the level of proficiency with which she does it!).. In fact, all mothers are natural multi-taskers, I think ! Feminist or chauvinist, you need to agree to the fact that, women are born managers.

I could’ve chosen to crib or complain about our condition to mom and her friends, but the four of us chose to deal with the situation by ourselves.
This was a small experience of my life… We all face much tougher situations in our day-to-day lives, but what filters from them is the fact that you can either complain about a thing.. Or find a solution. If a tree gives you sour LEMONs, you can either complain about it, or make lemonade!!