Him?

They say life doesn’t come with instructions.  The ones who say this to your face usually follow it up with a smug smile.  That”s your cue to kick their teeth in. In an ideal world, that is. But in real life, you just mutter ‘so true, uncle. so very true‘ and nod approvingly. That is just what I did as Uncle Poorna (he’s not my uncle. Infact he isn’t anyone’s uncle, people just call him that. Never knew why) bored me half to death with his ‘how-we-raised-kids-in-those-days’ lecture.  Earlier that day (or was it the day before? Not sure), Junior, for reasons that are yet foggy, went bananas and thumped a few of his school-mates, proper. You know how these things are. Young boys get a little physical and everyone kick a huge fuss up.

That last line didn’t come out proper but you get the gist. Anyways, the upshot of the incident was that it led to a “P-T meeting-finger-pointing-fist-waving-duster-throwing-lineage-smearing-police-calling” imbroglio. To avoid further embarrassment the school management hastily called in Uncle Poorna (who also happens to be the Councillor of our ward) as intervening authority.

Everybody listens to Uncle Poorna.

“I was quite a “convincer” during my Army accountant days” he laughs. As far as I know all he did the past 25 years (before taking a radical plunge into local politics and settling disputes) was to take a daily commute from Mandaveli to Haddows Road and rub his posterior in some private accountants’ office or something. I know this because my father knew this. But what I (or anyone else for that matter) couldn’t figure out was how this all tied up with him being an “Army Accountant”.

“You must be a tougher father. Like your father was” he tells me.

“You are very wise, uncle” I hear myself say, not wanting this torturous lecture to prolong. Balls! If I was anything like my father, Junior would’ve fled home the day he learnt to walk (Father’s army background had a profound impact on his parenting and on my posterior, whichever came first).

That evening:

After much pacifying and promises, I returned home only to find the missus going about household duties like it was any other Tuesday, which was good. Except for the fact that my spider-senses were going all Zeenat-Aman-in-Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram on me.

“Where is he?” Tact is the key else this can all go south very quickly.

“Where else? In his room.“

“I’ll talk to him.“

“You better!“

“Yeah yeah I will. After din…“

“Now.“

“Ok ok. Let me freshen..“

“Now.“

I made a mental note to investigate which side of the bed I got up on.  As I reached his room, I do the polite thing and knock.

No answer. I knock again. Still no answer.

Hmmm. I clear my throat and go:  “It’s me, Junior. Open up. We need to talk.“

“It’s not my fault, pa.“

“I know. Just open the door. We can talk this through. I have nothing on me, I promise.“  (what was I even saying?) After a few seconds he opens the door. I make myself comfortable in his bed. I never had a room when I was 13.  Or a bed. Father reasoned that sleeping on the floor helped blood circulation which in turn increased mental concentration. In other words his message was: “balls to cushion bed, park your just-passed ass on that hard floor”

“So…. eventful day, eh Junior?” As expected, no reaction from the boy. He just stood there in the corner of the room, probably expecting the worst.

“Come here. Sit down.” I make room for him. “Let me tell you a similar story about Pa.  I once had this classmate who was filthy rich. Every day he’d get dropped and picked up by this posh car. Neat-clean uniforms, brand new stationery, shoes…you know that revoltingly little-smartass-on-the-block types.“

“We should be rich, Pa. You know… I’ve always wondered why…“

I clear my throat loudly “Where was I, ah…yeah…the boy was such a smartass. For some reason we got into a fight one day and...”

“Why?” he interrupts again.

“Why what?“

“Why were you guys fighting?“

“Donno..Can’t remember…Maybe for no reason…but the point is..“

“That’s kinda stupid, isn’t it?“

“Look…that’s not relevant.“

“If that is not relevant how is this story similar to my situation?“

I had half a mind to whoop him then and there.

“Ok…forget my story…you tell me yours.“

“It’s all Inji’s fault“

“Inzy?“

“Inji. He was being kinda stupid on the stage and …“

“Woah…Slow down there son. Tell me everything from the beginning.“

“Ok. The other day I was telling you about my school day function, no?“

Vague thoughts of being hounded for some fancy bell-pants and cowboy hat cross my mind. But that’s an everyday occurrence in the household; me getting hounded for some new purchase or the other. Couldn’t connect an event to this particular one.

“I don’t remember it all that well.“

“Of course you don’t, you didn’t even attend.“

“Why don’t you tell me about it then?“

“It’s like this…last month, when they announced the school day function date, we decided to do a dance number.“

“Wow. You can dance? You never said…“

“Listen no!”

“Ok”

“So Kalsmuls informs the gang that we can do a dance number. You know…Western dance. But Magudi  wasn’t very comfortable with the… no wait, Magudi was ok with Western but NaathaKosale dropped out and that’s when we pulled in Buddi and Jakkamma. Then there was that whole Tommy and Kani situation which we had no option but to solve. But  it only got worse…”

“Are these your friends or are you simply making stuff along as you go?“

“Huh…Of course they are my friends” Another thing I love about my kid: Says the first thing that crosses his mind and sincerely expect the world to believe every word of it.

“So finally we decide to have Maria as our dance item”   Aha! Introduction of a female character. No wonder this ended in blows.  Boy is growing up a bit too quickly, I say! 

So I put it as delicately as I could “How is this Maria? Class figure aa?”

“Nooooo its not a girl!! Maria is the latest song by Ricky Martin… They play it daily on MTv Select. You didn’t hear or what?”

Evidently I haven’t.

“Anyway, we inform princi about the song. He was suspicious that it may have bad words. We told him that its a Spanish song so no will understand only.  But he still wanted to hear it. After hearing like 2 lines he told us to stop and asked us to explain what LUPACHI LUPALACHEK MARIA is”

“Huh… What?”

“Who knows!  As we told him, its a Spanish song. Nobody understands anything in it except MARIA!”

“Oho“

“Yeah.  So he rejected it and we decided to dance for Yeshwaraa.  Wait…you don’t know Yeshwaraa also no?“

Mental note 2: Must catchup on all Spanish songs on MTv.

“I’m afraid I’ve not heard that Ricky Martin song as well.“

“Ayyo Pa!  Yeshwaraa is that tamil song from the new Prashanth movie“

“Him?“

“Yeah. Very deep song about friendship and stuff“

“I’m sure it is“

“You see, actually I only joined this thing because it let me bunk classes. But Kalsmuls is a very good dancer and we can’t do what he does. “

 ”Never think that way, Junior. If you put your mind to it, you can do anything.”

“Mad or what! Who wants to put mind in dancing?” Sigh! Thats one thing off the “Beta hamaara bada naam karega” list.

“So the idea was to do let Kalsmuls in the front and do what he does.  It worked well during practice but we were nervous; we surely knew something would go wrong”  he continues “So nervous that on the day of the function we panicked and gave entry half-way during the Good Samaritan play“

“Oh dear!“

“Yeah… the Samaritan guy ran offstage shouting ROBBERS CAME BACK! ROBBERS CAME BACK! We were standing there, full costume on like idiots with the traveler guy lying down still pretending that he’s dead.“

“Then what?“

“Then they played our song to cover up what happened and we started dancing around the traveler guy’s body and that was when I mistakenly poked Kalsmuls in the eye. He started bleeding and was walked out of stage. Two of the dancers followed him thinking this was some new step. The rest didn’t know what happened and each started doing whatever they remember“

“What a mess!  Nobody intervened?“

“What do you mean?“

“What were the organizers doing all this time?“

“It happened so very quick. Also most of the audience were thinking this was some new kind of show. Thats when it went very bad.  Inji, in his excitement, stomped on the traveler guy’s stomach. That guy finally had had enough, got up yelling and punched Inji’s nose. The Samaritan guy must have seen this and thought that he was supposed to attack the robbers. He came back running from nowhere with a wild scream and pushed me to the ground….” he pauses to catch his breath.

“I think you know the rest, Pa“

Later that night:

“So did you talk to him?”

“Yeah”

“What did he say?”

“Apparently its all Inji’s fault”

“What?”

“Long story”

“What did you do?”

“Eh? What was I supposed to do? I just heard him out and told him to keep out of such trouble.”

“Hope you didn’t tell him about that stupid childhood-fight story of yours.”

“Ofcourse I didn’t. Why would I..CMON! That is not a stupid story. It had a moral, an insight into childhood and a subtle yet beautiful realiz…“

The missus was blissfully asleep.