Life at the banks...I

Growing up in a developing country has it's own set of pros and cons that the kids of under developed and over developed nations can just not fathom.I was the kid of the nation that was (and is) growing as fast as me. It was the age of fascination when I was growing up. Though I agree that everyone who does not know about something looks at it as if the aliens left it in the balcony while he was busy tying up his pajamas, but in those days people had a knack of ogling at anything new, but then in those days everything was new. Every item, commodity, necessity, vice was new for the poor people belonging to the country of snake charmers ( some, rather many light skinned, smug men still carry the same picture, though the one word they add with certain wrinkeles on their forehead is outsourcing).
However let's not get into such complicated racistic debates so early. I am just a tiny toon born in the year 83, oh yes the 80s when the mighty west had already run away with several technological and inhuman achievements and we the people were still learning to pronounce words from the Englisss language, angrejji for the hopelessly bewildered countrymen. I however was born in the capital of the country which many of my classmates did not believe. I fail to understand what is so strange, somebody from my little town had to be born in the big city sooner or later; apart from this unbelievable fact my birth was almost human; more on the birth of Julius Caesar and his misadventures will follow later but I want to start with my home town as I ended up spending 17 precious years and then few months of my life on and off in this industrial village, vainly referred to as town from now on. Nagda Junction. is a small town in the central western region of Madhya Pradesh ( it was the biggest state of the country, atleast something that made the state worth mentioning in some general knowledge shows). It was an oxymoronic town. An significant junction on the western railway's map with a very insignificant station. A significant rayon manufacturing industry ( biggest in Asia) located in a very insignificant town with individually significant but globally insignificant people.Despite the lack of outstanding schools, absence of colleges, malls or anything big, I can not imagine being brought up at a better place than this. G.D. Birla the founder of the industry set up the unit here because of various reasons, tax saving, plenty of unambitious underpaid labor, but the fact that was primarily kept into consideration was that the town is located on the banks of the river Chambal. A long river with plenty of water, which was later trapped by as many as three dams set up at different locations. However all this can wait. Mickey had been picked up from Delhi and brought here as his dad worked in the good old industry like everyone else around did. I had a very safe childhood, barring the incidents that involved me doing certain fear factor adventures while not in a position to realize that I needed a nappy change (we didn't have huggies or any such sissily named diapers in those days). However that's OK, as all this was intentional. I was just checking if my parents could actually handle a child prodigy like me.Being the only kid (by chance), I actually never had to fight for my rights with any other obnoxious kid sharing the same second name as I did and I never had to fight with the kids of the neighborhood, they had found out somehow that you generally never get on the wrong side of people who can yell at high pitches covering all the octaves, scratch like a rabid dog and at times plot character assassinations while their moms are busy boiling the milk bottles, apart from that, I believe my bowling ball sized head carrying the same weight and appearing like a canon ball while I walked on my fore legs too was a written indication for them to be at their best behavior.
I and my friends, I just remember their runny nosed faces now, but if I think hard it's probably the face of the same kid who used to wear frocks sometimes in place of a male dress. Mothers making little boys wear frocks and making pony tails if the hair permitted was nothing new in those days. Somehow they thought that they can feel happy about a non existent future by having a coy, homely girl rather than a loud gobbed, irritating son. Yeah coming back to friends, I shared some best entertaining and learning times with the lot. Some very educational games were learnt as a kid and some very practical tricks too. "Langdi", named hopscotch by the firangz, the usual game of drawing a rough board on the road, irrespective of the laying down material, with chalks, slate chalks (pames in hindi, pronounced as short fro Pamela anderson lee/rock/silicone/hepatitis but with a bad villager's accent), you learn that no matter how confident you are a. always jump on your strong foot, b. don't overestimate or underestimate your power and accuracy in throwing a stone of miscellanious shapes because you are just not as good as you think you are and most importantly be ready to consider yourself a loser when playing with girls else they will surely take away the joy of your victory, ha lesson time, it's always nice to lose to people you care about. 'Sitoliya' was another game in which we spent a century to collect seven flat faced stones so that they can be placed over each other, only to be later broken down by a guy with a ball varying in material depending on how sadistic you can be. AS was the case, with touchy, fragile people around use a cloth ball made of black school socks (worn out or not) and if you think you are the strongest one in the neighborhood use various varieties of rubber balls, but in no case could you dream of using a leather ball in case you don't have any other option, well because you just strike out the option of playing this game, remembering the last time your head had an apple on it while playing john woo styled slo-mo cricket.Lessons learnt a. everything does not need exhibition of raw strength, harder you hit, more stones fall off, more time you take arranging the thing again while dodging hostile hits with the ball, the time when you wish it should have been a ping pong ball instead.So use the head, be gentle. b. It hurts real bad if you get hit in the area below the groin and perhaps you realize how closely misery and elation are related pre pissing and post pissing.Of the many more home made games played, I'd just like to mention the last one, 'King', well well a game that required a bigger lawn, a football and lots of people ready to scuttle around ready to make fists and make weird gestures avoiding the ball touiching their body while one particularly vicious guy is trying to hit all the van dam boxers on the body and who like people in horror movies turn to zombies, opening their fists, holding and passing balls and hitting the survivors, some mean ones targetting the face intentionally.There was nothing funnier then a kid collapsing on the ground with a runny nose and watery eyes finally revealing a bozo nose but ready to at brave stifling the wish to choke the hitter to death. Lesson learnt, it is very easy to hit and defeat weaklings, slow runners and naive kids but if oyu target to beat the best you need to be far better and more patient, depends on how conscientious are you. I never used to hit girls and little kids probably that's why used to tire myself and the rest of the players silly making them surrender on their own accord.
Little did I know the implicatoins of these learnings, trivial or not, then. More lessons, rejections, acceptances and undescribable feelings were in the offing. Gosh, what more do you want a 5 years old kid to know?