Monday, September 27, 2010

Sarkanda

After finishing his tenure in Jabalpur dad got posted to Jalandhar (Suranasi). So as usual we had to pack all our stuff, dump it in a truck and move to Punjab. I can’t remember the number of times we have shifted from one house to another. But that’s a different story altogether. I took admission in K.V Suranasi into my first standard. I hated attending classes right from the time I was a kid. So one day I got up in the morning and told ma I have a stomach pain. Ma was, and still is, so gullible that she would say “take rest don’t go for classes today”, and it was followed by more pampering during the day. 
So after spending the morning watching cartoons and playing with my G.I Joe I was out of ideas to pass my time and was feeling a little bored. Ma had just finished puja and after lighting the agarbattis she kept the match box on the dining table. Now, just a day back, while waiting for the bus after school, I saw this uncle on the road do an awesome trick with the matches. I really wanted to try it. I took the matches and went out. I tried the trick a couple of times but it just wasn’t working, I had to flick the matchstick placed in between my index finger and the match box, but with my little fingers I just couldn’t keep a good grip on the matchbox for long. So I was moving around trying the trick when finally it worked. 
By that time I had strayed away from my house and gone near my neighbours. My neighbour had this fence made of thin bamboo sticks called ‘sarkanda’ (tall dry grass growing wildly in Punjab which looks like thin bamboo sticks). So as soon as the matchstick flicked out of my hand it flew and landed on one of the bamboo sticks. It quickly caught fire and started spreading. My instinct was to blow it away but that only helped it to spread more rapidly. And then the unthinkable happened. A whole section of the fence caught fire. I didn’t know what to do so I went back my house straight to the bathroom and filled a mug of water. I came out and splashed it on the fence. Then I thought the mug is too small, so I went to the kitchen and filled a patila instead. My sister was watching TV in the drawing room when she saw her little brother going out with a patila filled with water and coming back in to repeat the same process. She asked me what I was upto and I said “didi jaldi aa Raina aunty ki fence mein aag lag gayi hai!”. Di couldn’t believe what I had just told her but the sweetheart that she was she helped me splash water on the burning fence but that hardly made any difference. She was such a sweetheart that she happily went and complained to ma. Ma found out and took a back flip when she saw the whole fence burnt to ashes.
Fortunately Major Raina and family had gone out of station for vacations. When they returned they were shocked to see that they didn’t have a fence anymore. Mrs Raina came over and told ma “hai Mrs Deb, is bar toh itni garmi padi humari puri fence jal ke rakh ho gayi”, ma was quick to respond “haan Mrs Raina aap bachcho ko dhoop mein ghoomne mat dena loo lag sakti hai”. Kudos ma, what rocking improvisation.. :) 

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