A long ass time since I’ve plotted the ink stand and benched my chair. Actually, it’s been long mules since I’ve done a mighty deal of other stuff too. Most notably of those involved …
- Throwing balloons on hapless bystanders in a shopping mall and when really bored bench not just water in a plastic bucket, but the bucket itself. (Note: name of the shopping mall has been hidden for security reasons – if anybody asks, “I didn’t do it, no one saw me do it”)
- Throwing a cat off the building terrace – 8 floors (again Bakshi was the primary protagonist and not me and pals, we’re innocent, trust us)
- Throwing a brick near a 4 year old kid playing on her tricycle (Bakshi again, but to our defense we were kids ourselves and gravity and its effects were being experimented)
- Torturing ants (big black ants) by picking them up and putting them inside an ant eater farm made out of a shoe box filled with sand. To top it, we then went on torturing our own bacha party kids by making them try the same with big red ants and giving them bull that this will one day make them famous (Bakshi again).
- Breaking all the ground floor window panes and shattering glasses playing Gully Cricket, Frisbee (sometimes with stumps) and sometimes (Bakshi once again) throwing water balloons, and then running off with all our inventory before the owner could set eyes on us.
- Doing #5 above only to have Apoo come down at exactly the same time and get a beating (verbal) from the respective uncle. Note: Apoo used to study a lot then and not play as much for some reason or maybe he knew we were gonna break glasses or maybe he just likes arguing – we’ll never know. Of course Apoo wouldn’t go down without a fight when the uncles caught him. He was our man for the occasion (which he seldom involved in) and would argue to the fullest that kids needed to play and breaking of glasses shouldn’t stop them from doing it again (or playing actually). At no point would he say that he was not even there when it happened (which in Apoo’s case is true, unlike my above claims).
- Filling buckets of water (no, not to throw at the above-signed shopping mall, but) to carry the same to Late Mrs. Estranged’s house as an errand. Oh wait, now this I really didn’t do. Apoo has had the knack of falling in trouble with all the weirdoes of the world and Late Mrs. Estranged was one of his earliest hookups. One fine day, whilst Apoo was happily playing, this lady comes up to him and asks him to fill buckets, which Apoo (good boy that he was and is) complied with. He lifted them and took them all the way to the 6th floor and when the lady told him he had to do two more; Apoo fled home, never to set eyes on the lady again. Story has it that Apoo fled home for reasons other than that mentioned (strange voodoo perhaps). Alas! We will never be able to verify this.
- Breaking water leveler pipes on the terrace tank in an attempt to win a bet on a box of smokes (Bird was the culprit of course, apparently though he didn’t do it either – his brother was named prime culprit).
- Breaking into the terrace without keys but using innovative methods to fool the elevator and our watchman. You see the elevator had the terrace button blocked from inside. The catch which we picked on was that the elevator would come up to the terrace if someone hit the button on the terrace. So all we needed was an eight foot long bamboo, three people to hold it and push it into the wing and right on the terrace button from the grill gate in front when two of our clan stood inside the lift. We hit the button, the lift comes up, the bamboo gang hides the bamboo, calls the lift back to the 7th floor, get on it, the two people who’re already up on the terrace call the bamboo gang up. And tadaaa, we’re all up there. Of course it didn’t stop there. We threw water on the watchman just to irritate him from the terrace and he would freak out on the fact that we got up there minus keys.
- Getting oneself handcuffed by Nitish (my elder bro’s best bud) for sabotaging, mutilating and completely drenching Sr. Anna on a Holi week with balloons and gooey water. Yes I admit being a part of the sabotage activity on Sr. Anna, which led to the revenge plight by our seniors (my bro included) who were far more advanced and used handcuffs (real ones) to catch, drag and drench me and Sthalu with shampoo and muddy water in front of the building. Our Holi celebrations were truly wild.
Coming back to the present, our current bacha party in Nandanvan have found a new way to broaden their views & knowledge about air-pressure, sound and basic gravity principles. Unfortunately for me, they found my car to conduct these tests. I head down to the garage on my way to office on a Tuesday morning to find that three of my wheels were completely flattened out with incense sticks dispersed around. Not a very bright way to start office especially so if you are reduced to taking a cycle pump to pump air into those wheels. It continued into Wednesday when they successfully managed to damage the tube of my rear wheel. I welcomed my stepney to the streets of Mumbai, although I’m not too sure if it was too keen on hitting the roads with the onset of monsoons (really guys, my wheel speaks with me).
I deduce that the current world bacha-party have taken strides to try and avenge all the kidaas we did when we matched their age (actually a lot less, but good attempt). I intend to let them have their fun of course. I miss my old days big time, I’ll let them make good use of theirs.
PS: to avoid damages, I’ll probably team up with them and do someone else’s wheel this weekend, and if and when asked …
“I didn’t do it, no one saw me do it!”