Today is your birthday. Happy birthday.
I have no gift for you. Even if I had I am not in a position to be able to give it to you. But I send out a word of thanks.
Thank you for spending your childhood with me . Thanking for spending all the summer days with me and the rest of our friends. As soon as my mother left for office, I locked the house and ran down the lane where you were ready with the chakka bat(on which Reebok was written with sketch-pen) and plastic ball. I learnt more cricket from you than from Vijay Paul's coaching academy.You introduced me to T.V video games. When it was hot outside we went in and played Mario. Here again you were top class and I had to wait a long time for my turn to come since I used to be Luigi. But this was very rare because no matter how hot it was outside it was always cool under the portico of your house. Moreover you always had fridge water when we needed a break. Then we played on, match after match;individuals, one-tip-one-hand, outside out, wall four, no full covering, fast appeal allowed,connections those were our "rules". Every time you were bowled out by a fast bowl, you came up to ball with vengeance and let loose all the fury on the guy who bowled you out, which was invariably me. No problem, I enjoyed it, I liked bowling more anyway. I have never seen another individual who has played or followed sports with as much dedication as you have. Even when you were unwell in the hospital you asked frustBoy how Wimbledon was going on and if there was any thing worth mentioning. May be we should have come to see you more often. Chod, I don't want to talk about such sad things on your birthday.
You introduced me to cartoons, with all the hype about Johnny Quest and its title music, though it was quite irritating when you sang it aloud all the way back home. Added to this you rammed my bicycle into every lamp post and boulder and yelled "Mountain Baike" (because "Atlas Mountain Bike" was written on the frame of my cycle).
I want to thank you most for giving me my sense of humor. I consider you the founder of my kind of humor and for this I am deeply in debt to you. As I understand, your life was not eventful enough to satisfy your appetite for laughter. So you came up with your own reasons to laugh no matter how insane or idiotic they felt to the rest of us.
Like when Bhakti Agarwal brought rice for her lunch or when Nitin brought sweet bonda or salt-less pulihora or when Aravid brought bread (bread...hahahhaha), when Super tiffin's super tiffin rolled non-stop down two floors and rested where ever it rested, when donkey face went past you, when frustBoy slipped and feel down from his "auto". I could go on writing, and as I recollect the instances which showcase your unique sense of humor I am laughing out loud and heartily. What a life!!!
This is how one should live, so that when people think about them, they laugh and smile rather than feel pitiful or angry or disappointed.
You along with Aravid invented the word "flop" and it was quite amazing to think now how you maintained to stay your course even when you were getting extremely unpopular for criticizing every joke( then every fact, then every statement). Anyway, I have only to thank you for this since my point system is based on this.
Among your other skills which provided no practical value was taking good aim at street dogs. Once I got a dog for myself, I opposed this act but it didn't matter to you.Eating Maggi and licking the plate clean as if no one had eaten in that plate, another habit which I adopted from you. Waiting all day long for frustBoy to turn around so that familyGuy and you could show him the finger; throwing the ball out as soon as it was passed to you while playing basketball (this is courtesy frustBoy); throwing spit-bombs at class-mates - I have never seen a live demonstration but I am told it was very feared by all in your class; making up stories about the girl who lived opposite to your house; running away at the first sign of trouble - standard example for this would be the incident when you called a little boy riding on our pitch a "gandu" and he went and called his mother. You ran away and hid two lanes away along with familyGuy and frustBoy. Gandu saale. When there was dog shit or cow dung on the road you carefully guided us towards it and waiting silently for us to step into it and had a heartily laugh over that for the next week. Sadist gandu.
One incident I will never forget was when you failed in Mathematics and got 85 in English in one of the pre-finals. Everyone in your house was upset that you failed in Mathematics and you tried to console them by showing your marks in English to which your father said "Id enduku, sanka nakadaniki?". Hahahaha. Mori-covering pe khadke mast hassa main.
On the other hand you never gave us many reasons to tease you. You ate your tiffin before anyone could see what you brought and come up with a taunt (though I am told that it was almost always dosa). You never had any bike like “the auto” nor did you slip over anything nor stumble on any edge while in our company. When you joined Intensive Academy we could link you to some Army girl who came on Scooty and get some fun out of it but that didn't last long. Sorry about that. She was very desirable, like all Army girls, I suppose.
Today, I remember all these incidents,you muffled sinister motor laugh, the walk back to home from school, all the afternoon cricket during school days and all the evenings on my terrace where frustBoy and familyGuy joined. I remember how you fell sick and never recovered from the illness. I remember your face as you lay in your hall, happy as ever leaving us all crying and stunned. I have lost many people (and an animal) close to me but the loss of your company is what I miss most. The only consolation is that you are present in all of our jokes since, as I said already, you were the founder of our kind of humor.
I am sure I speak for familyGuy and frustBoy when I say that our lives would have been much more interesting if you were still around. You might also be stuck up in some cubicle like the rest of us and that would have sucked out all the life force that made you what you were. I am glad that didn't happen because souls like yours' are not meant to be bound.
I hope you are flying high above the clouds but stooping down just in time to watch one of us stumble over an edge or slip over some sand or vegetable peel.
Once again happy birthday Anivash. Sonu (hahaha).
Kaisa tha vo.
2 comments:
I'm afraid to add any of my wise ass remarks to this piece. Very well done. 10 points to you mama.
Saaley, us din mein tereko message kiya tha. tho thu merekoyeh padhney ko bola....pehli baar aise hua ki mein hass bhi raha tha aur ro bhi raha tha simultaneously... woh bhi office mein.. bahut log dekhey...
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