I was pretty stupid as a child. Some will say I have retained that
quality. They might be correct but that topic is out of scope for this
blog. This blog is about my stupidities as a child.
When I was about 8 or 9, there was a large Gulmohar tree infront of my
classroom. The tree had low hanging branches, perfect for kids to
pretend they were Spiderman. Without the outer-under-wear, ofcourse.
No funny masks either.
In a bout of such super-heroedness, during lunch, I was swinging away
on the branches, locked in a fierce battle for world domination, with
my friends. All super heroes, real or otherwise, outer-under-wear or
not, have their arch nemesis. The main villain of this story was the
school office clerk. He some how got wind of our super hero activites
and we were summoned to the office, post lunch.
The school office was a large room in the main building, attached to a
small storage room. The storage room was used to store school
stationary and other equipment used in the school. It was a small and
stuffy room. It was in this room where the group of, now slightly
scared, super heroes found themselves locked.
We were locked for the remainder of the day. The thing I remember most
about the locked up period is that we had a lot of fun. We had lots of
props around us and the comedy acts never stopped. We hoped that the
sounds did not carry outside and so our captors remain unaware of the
merriment going on inside the tiny, semi-dark and stuffy room. You can
lock up heroes but you can not lock up their spirits or something like
that.
An hour after the school time was over, the door opened. We had heard
the footsteps approaching and assumed a sufficiently stressed out and
scared look. It was friday. We were allowed to leave with only one
statement. “Please collect your TCs on Monday”. TCs (Transfer
Certificates), for the uninitiated, is what you get when you either
leave the school or are thrown out of it. In my mind, I went from
being the prodigal son to the black sheep in 3.6 seconds. Beat that
Ferrari.
I thought there was no way I could face my parents with this news (due
to the aforementioned stupidity). So, I did what any normal 9 year old
would do. I decided to run away from home.
A plan was hatched, I told my mother that there was a comedy
competition in the Town hall and I was participating. I told her that
the competition is on Sunday and rehersals on Saturday. I packed a few
cloths for the “dress rehersals”. I had participated in contests in
the Town Hall so the story did not make my mother suspicious. Off I
went.
The plan included one other kid. Both of us met at the Town Hall. We
picked up a road and decided to go till the next town. According to
the milestone, it was 18 km away. The Jeep fare for going there was
Rs. 2/- per head. We decided to save money and walk all the way. It
started getting dark after about a couple of hours of walking and as
Mr. Murphy had predicted, with darkness came a slight drizzle.
Now my partner in crime, who shall forever remain nameless *cough*
Abhishek *cough*, was not fully sold on the idea of running away in
the first place. I would like to believe it was my
how_can_you_show_your_face_to_your_parents speech that pushed him off
the proverbial edge. Soon after the drizzle, he started getting
restless. He mumbled something about wanting to go back to mummy but
continued the march forward. Soon enough the sounds of sobbing from
left overtook the sounds of thunder from above. This was when I
decided to head back.
It was pretty dark and raining. I am from that part of India where
street lights mean fireflies. We started the long trek back. A few
minutes later a Jeep heading back to town appeared on the road. This
time we decided to not worry about the money.
The passengers of the Jeep looked pretty concerned on finding two kids
in the middle of nowhere on a dark and rainy night. I gave them a
story of trying to go to Aunt’s house, not being able to make it
because of the rain and hence returning. Who cares if they were
convinced or not. I was going home.
It was pretty late and I was sure my parents would be pretty worried
by now. They were. I remember getting one tight slap and that was
pretty much it. The topic never came up again. Until now, that is,
when I was looking for a story for my funny blog
