MY ‘RAM’ FIXATION

I was born on a Friday .it was the 18th of April, at 10.30 PM. According to the Hindu calendar, it was Ram Navami.

I don’t know if it’s a planetary link, but I’ve always had a Ram fixation.

Ram was the first superhero in my life. All of my childhood was spent in listening to stories from my father and grandmother about Ram’s heroics. There was also Ramanand Sagar. Nobody could have explained the story better.

Watching Arun Govil portray Ram as he conquered evil and protected the good, I was mighty impressed. I’d wait for Ramayan to show on television every Sunday. I wanted to be Ram.

At school, while other kids were playing their abysmal versions of cricket and football, I’d run around the ground playing Ramayan with a few other friends. We were so bad at games that they didn’t let us play with them, I think. I nursed a secret wish to be Ram at least in those games but the casting director for our game never considered me good enough to play Ram. I was always made one of those loyal monkeys that fought for him.

There was an old man who worked at the school my mother worked in. he was considered wise by one and all. When he first saw me, he named me “Ram Babu”. Instead of feeling sad that there was an addition to my already sufficient list of ridiculous pet names, I was very happy.

There was another incident that took place when I was a kid. There was another such wise man who’d visit our home regularly. This man was a complete astrological package. He could read palms, advice on Vaastu, talk about Rahukalam and all the other things associated with astrology.

When he saw my palm, he told my parents,

“This boy is destined for great things. He may even go on to become a Minister.”

My dad remembers me leaving the place in a hurry, visible annoyed.

“But I don’t want to be a minister, Nana. I want to be the King” was my logic.

It took me sometime to understand that kings dint exist anymore because they had been replaced by this all-powerful person called “The Government”. Whenever I asked him to whom a particular building or a park belonged, he’d say “It belongs to the Government”. I always thought that the Government was a person.

My dad had a simple way of explaining things to me. But I always had a complicated way of understanding them. I remember him explaining that it’s important to plant trees because they take in Carbon Dioxide and give out Oxygen and so it’d mean more Oxygen for us to breathe. I was around 4 years old, so the process of Photosynthesis would be too difficult to understand.

Of course, I was interested in trees for a different reason altogether. I’d been pestering my sister to make me a bow and arrow forever.

My sister was good at all that. Since I later went to study in a boarding school, I was always given preferential treatment. At least during the 2 months that I came home for holidays, I just had to pull a face and she’d agree to anything I said.

She finally agreed to make me a bow and arrow. It took her around 2 days, because she had to hide it from everyone else at home. But when she finally showed it to me, I caught my breath. It was beautiful!!! The edges were polished and the bow formed a perfect arch. It was the correct size for my hands. The bowstring was perfectly strung. She had also made 3 equal-sized arrows from the stems of the same tree. There was a slight incision at the bottom end of the arrows so they could be fit on to the bowstring. The upper ends were sharpened with a blade.

Holding it made me feel powerful, like my hero Ram!!

We went to the balcony. I was ready to release my first arrow. I fit the arrow, and pulled the string. Then, I raised the bow with the arrow fitted in it. I brought it upto my forehead and closed my eyes and muttered some imaginary mantra. I took aim at a tree in front of me and released the arrow.

The feeling was exhilarating.

The arrow, however, went zooming downwards and hit the person who lived downstairs on the foot. It must have hurt, because I remember him shouting as we ran to hide inside the house.

The 2nd arrow was sent unceremoniously into nothingness.

The 3rd one was bang on target. It hit the TV and the glass came crashing to the ground. I knew I was screwed. My sister knew better.

That evening when Nana came home from the office, I ran to greet him wearing a beautiful smile.

“Nana, you won’t believe what happened ….a HUGE frog jumped out of the TV today.

He inspected the damage done. And to my relief, laughed.

My sister was whacked when she returned from school, of course. I never understood why she always spoke the truth. When it came to lying, I was a natural. But she was the truthful one who got whacked for her honesty.

On expected lines, she never made me a bow and arrow again. But I was still fascinated by Ram.

Till a few years later. At school, when teachers told us the story of Ramayan many times. Ram is considered “Purushottam” – meaning the “the Ideal Man”. However, I think the major blemish on his character was that he doubted Sita’s loyalty. None of the teachers’ explanations seemed satisfactory. That was a dumb thing to do.

I mean, if I listened to everything the Dhobi said, I’d have set up 3 paan shops next to his.

Since then, I somehow lost interest in Ram. But I still think the bow and arrow is the sexiest weapon ever made.

MY FIRST BEER….

Santu came to my home at around 7 PM.

“Mandir chalega?”

That’s the thing about him. He may be an asshole, but he goes to the temple every Tuesday. I don’t know why he chooses that day, but I always accompany his if he asks me to.

I am not a theist. I couldn’t care less about God or the damn rituals. But going to the temple has its benefits. Chicks. And since nobody expects you to stare at them in a temple, you can ogle as much as you want. It’s better on the big festivals. T hey are all in their best clothes and for some fabulous reason, they leave their hair open on those days.

But anyway, we go to the temple. He prays, I stare. We leave the temple.

All of a sudden, he turns to me and says, “Wanna booze?”

“What??” I ask

“Wanna have beer? There’s a shop just there.” He says, pointing to a liquor shop right in front of the temple. Nice place to set up shop. If you believe in God, go right. If you wanna have a blast, take left.

“You wanna go or not?”

Of course I did. Who wouldn’t want to? The only problem was that I had never had a beer in all my life.

“Hmm… I don’t know, man. I’m not in the mood.” I said, trying to sound like a guy who’d otherwise guzzle down 6 beers (if he was in the mood, that is)

“Come on, man. Its just beer. Won’t harm you. It’s good for hair, too. I read that somewhere.”

It’s evident he isn’t very experienced either. But how did he know I was obsessed about my hair? Anyway, I agree.

“But I’ll have only one, yaar. It’s evening time, na?”

I am not sure he bought that, but we went to the shop and bought the beers.

“Foster’s ok with you, na?” he asked.

“Oh… I love Foster. Australian for beer.” I said, immediately feeling foolish.

I looked at the dark green bottle, raised it and gulped it down. I could feel the beer flowing down my throat and into my stomach.

It was bitter. And confusing. It was chilled beer. Then why did it feel hot inside me? Was I drunk already?

I looked at Santu. As he gulped down his bottle and made a face as he swallowed it.

“How’s it?”

“Awesome, man. I love it.”

I hated it.

‘MOHANTY’…

When someone mentions the word “genius”, what’s the image that comes to your mind?

A man, who seems a little crazy, with a shabby workplace, shabby clothes, and difficult to understand??

Satyajeet Mohanty was exactly that. A fifteen year version of the weird, wacko scientist.

As a kid, he was always falling sick. He had to take painful injections every 21 days for his joint pains. He kept on finding innovative ways to get injured. Even early this January when we went on a 3 day trip to our old school and were playing a crazy game called “King Kong”, he twisted his ankle and sprained it!!!

As he grew up, his triangular head seemed to confine in it a very able brain. He was one of those cool guys who somehow scored the top marks in every test.

Both of us were from Orissa. We know each other from the age of 5. He was inquisitive as a kid. To the point of getting on your nerves, sometimes!

As he grew older, his talents and intelligence seemed to grow even more. Sadly, so did his weird, wacko side. It was like a Dr. Jekyll – Mr. Hyde symptom that the teachers failed to comprehend. How could a guy who was so vastly talented be such a complete weirdo?

He gained the reputation of the guy who knew a lot. I knew stuff. But my knowledge was basically GK stuff. ‘Mohanty’ was the Maths and Science guy.

So, people generally listened to him. And guess how he used to take advantage of our credulity?

In class 3, he said that eating the seeds of drumstick would make you better at Maths. Since he was the best in Maths, nobody questioned the logic. I would have eaten probably a thousand drumstick seeds, but my Maths still sucks like a vacuum cleaner.

All these theories seemed true only because he said them. Half of them believed him. The other half probably agreed so that he’d stop his damn ‘explanation’ sessions!

The theories always went above our heads. Geometrically speaking (Now, I am trying to sound like him when he’d explain his theories…here’s a taste of your own, bitter
Medicine!) If our heads were like circles, his logic was like a tangent that went right over our heads!!

Another theory of this child prodigy. We were in a boarding school, and the proper functioning of our bowel movements depended on the teacher. If the teacher didn’t let us go to the bathroom when we asked her, we were doomed.

But we had the wise Mohanty to go to for advice:
“If you want to feel better, keep 2 big stones in your pant pockets. It’ll reduce the pressure”.

We guys must have been really dumb if he could have got away with this stuff.

As he grew older, it was clear we hadn’t seen the last of his talents yet. His health improved and he started showing an avid interest in games. He could play cricket, football, basketball, table-tennis, badminton, chess and any other game that we had a chance to play. In one of the most memorable matches in my life, the two of us had an 8th wicket partnership that saved the match for our class.

Though he had no inclination towards music back then, in 4 years, he plays the guitar for his college band and now is also learning to play drums and the saxophone too. He’s like an irritating version of Forrest Gump!!!

The two of us got along fabulously because of our common interests. We were interested in films and books. We used to read Harry Potter, Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer on the sly. We’d also stared attempting to solve the Hindu crossword from Class 9.

You must be thinking he’s this fabulous, talented person, right? Good. That means I can now get to my favourite part.

This guy is too weird to be true. The reason he’s a teetotaler is simple. You cannot act drunk than he does when he’s normal.

In our younger days, he was a pain in the ass. If the entire class was the UPA, he was the CPM. I remember, when we guys wanted to play carom, he’d come and sit right in the middle so that nobody got to play.

And when a teacher asked us in class, “Should I teach some more or should we continue in the next class?”

Mohanty would be the only guy to say, “Yes, sir. Please teach, sir.” And then turn and smile at us.

We were roommates in 9th standard. He was my room leader. And not an ideal one at that, because all our night study hours would be spent in devising ways to pour water on the guys in VRR’s room, opposite to ours.

When we would read the newspaper, what’d you expect a guy to notice everyday? This guy used to count the number of people reported dead everyday!!

And he used to say at the end of it, “Aah…today, our population went down by 57!!!!”

Didn’t I say geniuses were weird?

MY FIRST…

I have always hated growing up. I think life is always in phases. First, you are an infant; you grow up, see new things, meet new people. It’s pretty awesome.

Then you grow even more and out of your teens. That’s it. By then you know your stuff. You know who’s good and who’s bad. You know what to do with your life, and where to get the cheapest Paav Bhaaji. Life becomes stagnant.

The only new thing left to experience is getting married and having kids.

This thought made me ponder. When was the last time something happened to me that made me go, “Hey, that has never happened to me before”? So, this month I am going to dedicate to “My first…”. It’s going to be an account of all the things that happened to me for the first time and how they happened. My first crush, my first book, my first embarrassing moment, my first kiss, my first movie, my first peg of alcohol, my first pizza, my first pair of jeans, my first cricket bat, my first speech, my first guilt…

MY FIRST EMBARRASSING MOMENT:

Let me start with my forte, embarrassing situations. Having embarrassing situations is a knack. It’s like Lycra – you either have it or you don’t. And Yours Truly? HAS IT!!

I have had countless embarrassing situations. Like accepting a prize from the Principal and my tongue cleaner falling from my trouser pocket with a loud clang. Or meeting a guy with a new crew cut and telling him, “Hey dude, nice hairstyle”, only to realise his dad had passed away a few weeks earlier. Right through my childhood, I can recall countless experiences when I have made a fool of myself in public.

But this one is my earliest memory and I thought I should share it with you….

 

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I never went to school as a kid. My dad taught me all the basics at home. It was fun. He was a very cool dad. But then I was to join a school from Class 1 and they needed that I have gotten enrolled in some school earlier. So I was admitted in a school here for 6 months, for a course called “Prep”. I still don’t know what that means.

Now that I think of it, I shouldn’t have gone to the school even for the 6 months. The incidents there scarred me forever. The school was pretty decent. Classes till 11 ‘o’ clock, then they let you play what you wanted and then I could go home standing in the front of my dad’s scooter. I always heard his voice telling me from the back of my head, “Puppu, don’t fall asleep, keep your eyes open.” But there was something about a hot afternoon, the wind blowing my hair back, and the continuous drone of the Bajaj scooter. It put me to sleep in minutes. To add to the fun, my dad always rode the scooter very slowly. I am sure even bicycles overtook us on the way, but I was never awake to find out.

I used to go to a Christian woman for tuitions. She was the one who taught me how to speak in English. The woman was very kind. I remember her urging me to read Tinkle at her home. She always fed me sweets, biscuits, and pastries when I went to her house for tuitions. Either she loved kids, or she charged an exorbitant rate for the tuitions that included the snacks.

Anyway, turns out I had joined the school during the most exciting time of the year. There were a lot of games and competitions going on. One of them was the Fancy Dress competition.

Now, if you were a family, and you had a kid, and the kid had a fancy dress competition to go to, what would you make your kid go dressed as?

There were a lot of things I’d have loved to be. Police officer, train engine driver, cricketer, or Mithun Chakroborty. My cousins tell me that as a kid, I always wanted to be Mithun Chakroborty. He was my idol. I mean, for someone as bad looking as he was, he danced with pretty girls, bashed up the baddies, and sang songs. I would have loved to dress up as Mithun and go and shout out in front of everyone, “Ayee…Maa Kasam…”

All my suggestions were turned down. And my great parents, what did they finally decide that I should be dressed as? Believe it or not – a crow!! Yes, a crow!!

I agreed, because Dad always knew what he was doing. They convinced me that I was going to be the show-stealer, so I was pretty kicked about it. Preparations began 3 days before the actual event. I was taken to the tuition ma’am. As if one wasn’t enough, I was now the subject of 3 persons’ creatitivity. Mom, Dad, and the teacher.

The day arrived. I was first made to wear the basics. A black shirt and a black pant. (If they left it at that, I could probably go as ‘The Undertaker’). Then, they attached a very suspicious thing to my arm. It was black, thick and nothing like what I’d seen all my life. It was made of cardboard and paper. Another congruent piece was attached to my left arm too. Then, I got it. My lovely parents…They gave me wings!!!

As if that wasn’t enough, next came the feather in the cap, the jewel of the crown. The beak of the crow!! Made of cardboard, it was about half a foot long and had an elastic band at the back so it could be strapped on to my face. Once she was done, my teacher moved a few paces back, inspected me and said, “Hmmm…beautiful. (I was elated. Nobody had called me that before) You are going to win”. I was over the moon. I had never won anything. Quite simply because I had never participated in anything earlier.

“Flap your wings, go on”, she urged me. I did that.

“Okay, now for your dialogue. Repeat after me,” she said. “Kkraaa, kkraaa. I am the thirsty crow.”

“Kkraaa, kkraaa. I am the thirsty crow.” I repeated after her, with earnest. Oh! You should’ve seen me! I was like Shaimak Davar. Flapping my wings, cawing like a crow, mouthing my dialogues and frantically looking for the pot of water I would throw stones into. I was a man-made wonder.

Ready to kick everyone’s ass, I was rearing to go. The teacher stuffed a last sweet into my mouth and kissed me goodbye. I was already late for the show.

Now that I think of it, my dad hadn’t lost it completely. He had the sense not to take me on his scooter that day. Imagine what a sight it would have been. Man, Woman, and Crow -the other extreme of Family Planning! I was taken to school in a rickshaw that day.

I was excited and my heart was beating as fast as a crow’s. (Getting into character, see?) We finally reached the school compound. We were late. I rushed into the building. The competition had nearly begun.

Everybody had to go on to the stage in a few minutes. I looked at everybody else around me. One guy was a policeman, another a hero with a guitar, yet another was an army officer, another, a cricketer. The girls were all either princesses or fairies. They all looked smart and suave. Compared to them, I looked like a prop of a low budget play. I still remember thick, hot tears welling up in my eyes. As a child, you are more honest about your feelings. I cried because I was ashamed of my entire costume.

But Nana had accompanied me for the show. He was in the audience. He was the producer, creative supervisor, the make up artist, and the script and dialogue writer. More importantly, he was my father. I just didn’t know what to do if I backed out. So, when my turn came, I remember walking on to the stage. I don’t remember if the crowd cheered, booed, or were just plain dumbstruck by the absurdity of it all. My eyes were too filled with tears to notice anything. I looked at him, mouthed my dialogues, and left the stage in a hurry.

Now that I think of it, none of the other guys were innovative. I mean, what’s different about a policeman, or a cricketer? And I could bet my fake beak on the fact that none of the other guys’ dads had stayed up all night preparing their costume with their own hands. Maybe if I had performed properly, I would have even won the competition. But I will never know.

It was probably the first lesson that our parents know much more than we do, at any point of our life.

But on that day, I was glad the damn thing was finally over!!

MY FIRST INJECTION

My life has always been hospital-free. I haven’t had a single sprain, fracture, tear, muscle strain, or a stitch in all my life. I took my first capsule when I was in 5th standard. And even that was a dumb ‘Memory Plus’ tablet that Vishwanath Anand endorsed.

I am dead scared of injections. And all the stitching and dressing and all that. The very sight of scissors, syringes, and scalpels freaks me out. I had my first injection (that I can remember) in Class 3. It was during the holidays.

During my childhood, there was a brand of bubblegum called “Big Babool”. The packaging was colourful. They came in various flavours like cream, vanilla, mixed fruit, and they gave off a lot of free goodies. Every pack cost 1 re. There was also the ‘Multipack’. It consisted of 6 bubble gums for 5 Rs.

They also gave off small comic books free with every Multipack. These comics contained adventures of a group of kids who were clearly a rip-off from Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five”. They even had a dog that formed part of their gang. The stories were predictable. The kind of stuff you’d expect in comics that you’d find if you were going through your childhood stuff. Using some scientific technique unknown to mankind, the kids got away from the thugs by blowing bubbles. I mean, even Chacha Chaudhry seemed believable compared to these guys. I wouldn’t prescribe it to a kid with learning disabilities.

Of course, I didn’t know all this back then,

I was out with Akka. And I remembered that I had forgotten to collect the free comic book with my ‘Multipack’. So I insisted that we go back and collect it.

She didn’t want to, but I can be a stubborn oaf even if I don’t want to, and so we went back to the store.

The shop stands where it was even today. “Subudhi General Store.” The owner was a bald man with a crooked nose. His teeth were brown because of all the ‘paan’s
he chewed. He always smiled, desperately trying to look kind and friendly. But there’s something suspicious about people who smile all the time. Like Shakuni from Mahabharat.

He had a dog. A white, Pomeranian one. It was a regular, normal dog. You wouldn’t even look at it twice. But not for my sister. She thought the dog was adorable. Whenever she went to the shop, she’d pet the dog and talk to it in that coochie-coo baby language. You know, the “Ulllluuulluuu Chunnu Munnu” gibberish?

“Does it bite?” I asked. “No, he doesn’t. Look at me. Go on, pet him. He likes it.” she urged me.

My sister lived here all her life and met him everyday. I had come here for holidays and had never seen the dog earlier. No one bothered to remind either me or the dog about that. If the dog could speak, he would probably ask me to buzz off.

I stretch my hand to pet it. Unknown to me, the dog, just then, notices a few dogs out on the streets.

Now, a barking dog seldom bites. But a growing dog always does. Another thing I ahould have known.

Before I could pull out my hand, he bit me. I pulled my hand out of his mouth, but not before he had taken off a bit of my skin. I looked at my hand, it was bleeding.

I don’t cry much. That’s not my style. People think those who cry are weak and those who don’t are brave. Well, they don’t know shit. I was scared stiff.

All the stories that I had heard about dog bites came back to me. That if you don’t take an injection, you start behaving like a dog. Or that you had to take 21 injections, and for some reason (probably an aesthetic design), they would be given around your navel. Another one was that you’d make to lie down on your back on the table, and the syringes would be dropped one by one around your navel. That one freaked me out. It seemed like someone’s cruel, perverted idea of a game of darts.

The shopkeeper confirmed by suspicion about his character.

“Don’t worry. We have given the dog all the necessary vaccinations already. Nothing will happen.”

He took out a Band-aid and plastered the wound and sent me home. “Don’t tell anyone. It will heal itself.” The Good Samaritan didn’t even charge for the Band-aid.

I went home. My grandmother was home. Though my sister was making weird expressions and asking me to keep my mouth shut, I told my granny about our adventure.

“Ayyo…Rama…” she said, holding her hand to her wide open mouth. She told my mom, who thrashed me, as if it was my fault that the dog bit me.

I was taken to the doctor. Dr. Jagannath Mahapatra is a very reputed doctor and was also the Mayor of Bhubaneswar for a few years. But he scared children into listening to him. When I was a kid, he used to reprimand me for eating too many chocolates. I hated him.

He was inspecting my wound and making that face again. For some strange reason, the shop-keeper’s words stuck with me. “It was a domestic dog. They had given him all the necessary vaccinations.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you show him your pinky then? He could have bitten that instead.”

“What’s a pinky?”

But he was busy laughing at his own joke.
He prescribed anti- rabid and anti-tetanus injections. Just 5 of them.

When I returned to school and the teacher was asking all of us if anything exciting
happened during the holidays. It was Shivani mam, she always acted smart.

I narrated the entire incident with some minor changes. The dog was a huge Alsatian and had chased me before biting me.

“Is everything alright now?”

“Yes, mam. Nothing to worry about. The dog was given all the necessary vaccinations.”

“What?” she said. “Who bit whom?”

DINESH

As a kid, Dinesh was tall and thin. Though he remained silent, he was punished by the teachers a lot. He was in ‘B’ (for boring) section and I barely spoke to him. He had a best friend called GPN and the two of them were inseparable. If one of them cried,the other cried too. (It was such melodrama !!! ) They always hung out together and said that they were favourite God was Hanuman. I had never heard of a ‘favourite’ God earlier.

In 3rd standard, the sections were shuffled. He came to our section. We struck an instant friendship due to our common interest in WWF, Cricket and teachers with big boobs !!

You know, at every point of time, there is this one guy who’s the funniest guy, making people laugh all the time ? Dinesh was that guy for nearly 3 years. Then, in 4th standard, he made ‘the’ statement. It turned out to be the most scandalous statement by a guy from our class. It so happened that there was this teacher called Shruti mam. She was good looking, and very fair. So, when we were talking about her, he said ,

“You know, Shruti mam is so fair, her ass is like a radium, man. If you touch it, you will get a shock”.

The statement catapulted him to instant notoriety. The poor guy was blackmailed for months at end for that one line.

Now, the thing about Dinesh was that he was one amongst us. He was an asshole, alright. But he was too soft-hearted to be one. He was very sensitive. And he was petrified of losing his friends. All you had to do was tell him “I am not gonna talk to you”. And wherever he was, he would sit down and start sobbing (KSS can vouch for this). He wore half pants till 4th standard and proudly called them his “half-knickers”.

In 5th standard, we got even closer. We were the two worst behaved guys of the class (Enrico was only making guest appearances in class by then ). So we were boycotted and relegated to the last bench permanently. I took it quite well. But Dinesh ? You had to see him to believe it. He was like a bahu from one of the soap operas. He would wail and cry out to God to give him a deadly disease ( he wouldn;t mind that, apparently !! ) but let people talk to him…..

And how did we take revenge on the class guys ? Whenever there was a blackout, we would call out to each other and bash everybody up in the dark !!

Another thing about this guy is his storytelling.Everytime he went home for the holidays, he came back with an amazing number of stories to tell us. And he had us hooked when he narrated them to us. And for someone who never studied, he always scored good marks.

In 6th standard, a senior enlightened us about the birds and the bees. We didn’t believe it at first. It seemed too gross an idea. Dinesh was vehemently against the idea.

“All gas,man.Nothing like that happens.A woman gets a baby when the Mangal-sutra is tied.My aunty told me that…”

“Oh yeah ? And what about Muslims and Christians ?” I asked

“They have their own ‘Tabeez’ and all, na ? “

And we were in Class 6 !!!!

As we grew up,Dinesh remained the friendliest of guys. I noticed Dinesh rarely got angry. I have never seen him lose his cool (which I think, is because, you can’t cry and be angry at the same time !!! ). Whenever we meet during our annual get-togethers, we go on chatting for hours together.

This guy is honest, frank and friendly. But the best part is that he is just fabulous company !

But don’t think he’s all that sweet. If you are a pretty girl, he won’t take a minute before he starts hitting on you !!!

A competitor to Enrico ????

Not many people would know them,but there were 2 guys in our class who could give Enrico a run for his lire.Their names were Prabhupada Mishra and Mrutyunjay Praharaj.They were the original “rowdies”.Called PPM and MP respectively,they tormented the teachers with amazing easiness.And these two heroes were from ? You guessed it,Orissa.They carried on the legacy that Oriya guys were either extremely talented or chronic pains in the ass.Or both.On the first day of school,PPM was feeling homesick,so where does he choose to cry his heart out ? He climbed on top of the shelves,on top of the suitcases,sat there and started crying.The class teacher’s heart nearly skipped a beat when she saw him there.The entire class was still adjusting to the new school and this guy was already scaling new heights.Quite literally.PPM was also a natural leader.Maybe it was because while we were always lost,he was always sure about what he did (Though it mostly ended with him getting his butt spanked).MP followed what PPM did and the two were inseparable.Except when they were punished.,The teachers always ensured that they were kept apart.Otherwise they would start playing some game or the other !!PPM organised a lot of games. I was quite a loser then.Since,I was scared to get on to the elephant slide or the giant wheel ,I joined PPM and MP to play more gentle,and “culture-centric” games that he organised,like Ramayan,and Mahabharat.And the beautiful part was that PPM never stole the limelight.While allotting roles,he made us either Hanuman,or Ram,Lakshman ( depending on our looks,may be,cos I dont remember being Ram,ever !!).He on the other hand,was quite happy being a humble monkey in the army and orchestrating the show.

So Ravan would be waiting with his sidekick (he dint have the resources for an entire army )behind the elephant slide and our group of monkeys would charge at them ,holding sticks and shouting “Jai Sri Ram”.And when Ravan would be lying on the ground dead (the poor guy always got thrashed for dirtying his shirt later !) ,we guys danced in joy.Beautiful days !The strong,macho guys would laugh at us while sliding down the slide but we we had the last laugh,vanquishing an evil emperor and ridding the world o evil.Unlike Enrico,PPM wasn’t a loner.He got along fabulously with everyone.Even the ‘good’ guy could not help laughing at his jokes.This made him very popular.

MP on the other hand was a pocket sized powerhouse.Sadly,all his power was channelised towards some destruction or the other.He was always fidgety and couldn’t sit still for 2 minutes at a stretch.Anatalakshmi mam used to say that he was like a cockroach out in a bowl of hot water !!When we were in class 1,Bhavani mam was our class teacher (A sec)the both of us were troubling aruna mam a lot in the class.she told Bhavani mam.so Bhavani mam took the two of us and locked us in the cupboard.not locked exactly,she made us stand in it and tied it all up.all the other guys had gone for bhajans and only the two of us wer there.Were we scared?huh.we had a ball !! We took scissors from the cupboard,cut off the ropes.ate all the Chyavanprash(mohanty used to bring that)and calcium tablets(vinodini,shweta).We played with crazy balls.Finally,when bhajans were over,bhavani mam asked us how we came out.i kept shut.my smart alec friend said,”mam,there was a huge rat that came and cut all the ropes!!! It was going to bite us.we said,”don’t bite us,take all the chyavanprash u want”.i thought this guy’s screwed,man.but bhavani mam was rollin with laughter!!! It helped that Bhavani mam knew Oriya because that guy’s English was Subhaan Allah !!

We used to travel together to home during holidays in “orissa group” ,that comprised of students from class 1 to PG.we occupied nearly 2 entire bogies.So,after returning from the holidays of class 3,while our luggages were being checked,these 2 guys were called aside.When we later came for lunch,they were still standing there.When we asked them what was wrong,PPM smiled and said “Nothing,you ba.Aunty wants to talk to us”That was the last time i saw them.They were given the dreaded “TC”.I have never heard from them since but the mention of the word “ramayan’ brings back memories of me running under the scorching sun,carrying a stick in my hand and shouting,”JAI SRI RAM !!!!”