When you have dinner with your parents, you are most likely to face all your embarrassing moments periodically. See, parents mostly talk about a few topics which are the same for almost every household: their time vs our time, the height of inflation, our childhood stories, their childhood stories, what next? (This encompasses all the serious ones) and a handful more. These topics are discussed randomly over dinner or post dinner when J.L.Baird’s invention fails to entertain us.

One fine evening, we all were having dinner and somehow the topic changes from how my nephew does cute funny things to what all hilarious deeds I did. This time, my parents were on a roll. They cracked jokes more than their normal quota. I got a bit sentimental and claimed that their stories are made up. I did not do any of those. I was a very sane child. As usual, this had no effect on them and they continued laughing.

When I went to sleep, I was very eager to cross-question my claim of being a serious kid. So I started my trip down the memory lane. On a serious note, initially, I did not want to write about this. But then I thought who cares, everyone has their share of stories on which everyone except the protagonist laughs. So here I go.

Books have always fascinated me. The way people churned their brains to produce words that made beautiful stories is amazing. I used to read almost everything I could lay my hands on. When I was in class 4, in my school I read somewhere that humans can talk to plants and the great Indian scientist Sir J.C. Bose has even done research work on this. The idea struck me. The moment I read that I started to think what should I talk about and more importantly whom should I talk to? On my way back to home I was silently gauging the plants and trees. I remembered every instance where I had plucked the leaves. I was scared that if I go near the trees to talk, they’ll cut off my fingers as revenge and that all the trees knew about this. Due to this reason, I could not find the courage to talk to a single tree. Later that night, we had a power cut and that sultry May evening was unbearable. So we went to the terrace to catch some fresh air. I was standing by the railing enjoying the cool breeze when all of a sudden it stopped. The surrounding became torturous once again. We have a Neem tree just outside our house. So I decided to talk to that tree so that he can start waving its branches and I can sleep peacefully. I looked around to confirm that no one was looking at me. Once I was assured that the time was right I started conversing with the Neem tree.

This is what the Neem tree felt that night!

It wasn’t always that I did things that stoners do. Sometimes my elder brother made fun of me in the most casual way possible. I still remember the cricket match wherein my brother was representing the Australian team and I was representing my colony’s team. My brother went on to score 1104 runs in 30 overs. Whenever I cribbed about the fact that he was torturing his younger brother, he very calmly said it was Ricky Pointing or Matthew Hayden who was bashing my local players, he is not the one. And I somehow accepted the fact and bowled those 30 overs. Well, my team lost by more than a thousand runs. My brother gave the exact same reason when I asked him why he is bowling so fast to me. Too much for innocence!

This sums it up pretty accurately!

My brother is a special person in my life. He’s made me realize that real life is cruel and one should be prepared for it. He’s the one who drags me down when I wander in my daydreams. In my colony, we used to play cricket and football alternately. When you’re among the younger players, getting into the squad is like getting promoted in a corporate ladder. You join as a trainee, then you gain the confidence of the seniors and get permanent, then you get promoted and so on. So for cricket, it works this way. You join as a fielder. If you field well, you might end up getting a baby-over*. If you do well, you get to play in the middle order and soon you can choose the spot you want to bat in. In football, you join as a goalkeeper and slowly rise towards becoming an attacker.

I was a goalkeeper when the following incident happened, so you know how naïve and young I was. I was in my brother’s team and he was the captain back then. That day made me realize how much pressure these captains have to bear. Normally the goalkeeper is the one who gets the ball for the least amount of time, that day was no different either. I was getting bored alone. In local football matches, initially everyone has a definite position, but as the game progresses all the players except the goalkeepers buzz around the ball. I was alone in the far end of the park and was finding it hard to kill time when out of the blue a scourge of mosquitoes caught my attention. Trust me when you’re bored anything can appear interesting to you. I was so amazed on seeing those mosquitoes that I immediately cooked up a story in my head in which I was some superhero whose sole aim was wiping off mosquitoes from the face of the Earth. I designed a mosquito repellant coated black suit for me, equipped myself with mosquito spray and other deadly insecticides. I thought I was doing pretty well in that since I managed to kill around 10 mosquitoes. While I was busy saving the Earth, the attacker of the opposite team hurled the ball in the goal post. Now imagine this, a fierce football match is going on, the players are high on adrenaline and when a goal is scored the goalkeeper is nowhere near the goalpost. He’s to be seen jumping furiously and he claps his hands in the air after every jump. If you’re the captain of this not so lucky team what do you do? You beat the crap out of the goalkeeper. Right? Well, when I realized the gravity of the situation, I ran for my life. If you want to picture this, imagine a lion chasing a deer. Thank you Animal Planet for making this easy for everyone.

This is what I felt when my elder brother was the captain and I, the ‘famous’ goalkeeper

By the time I remembered this, I realized why my parents always bring up my childhood stories during post-dinner conversations. I don’t like kids much and I’ve professed this in my earlier blog, however, these incidents make kids bearable. You can laugh your wits out at them and most of the time they don’t even realize why they are being laughed at. My mother rightly says, “If you have a kid at home, you don’t need any other toy.” I agree!

I feel good about one thing, though. My parents couldn’t capture these moments since the technology wasn’t advanced at that time. This won’t happen with my kids though. *Evil Laugh*

P.S. Baby-over is the name given to the 3-ball over which a rookie player gets. He has to prove his mettle in those 3 balls in order to gain his captain’s respect.

P.P.S. If you want to share your embarrassing childhood stories with me, please feel free to do so. Trust me you’re not alone!