Teeny life :)

This is a story of myself – a 10 years old boy.

I live with my parents, my 12 years old sister and a 5 years old brother.

I am told that I was born in Kuwait and hence my looks are different. I am fair and handsome. Lately I have become a bit bulky – my father says. Others at home also tease me saying I am fat. But I don’t think so. However, I follow my father’s advice of doing pushups and other exercise daily – I remember only when he asks ;) !!!

I am fond of tasty food. Fast food, mughlai, snacks, you name it and I like it. Of course, fruits and vegetables are not my favourite.

I have a hectic life – school, tuitions, religious studies, and more. But whenever possible, I like to lie on the bed with the television remote in my hands. Mummy doesn’t like this habit of mine and starts shouting. But I have to switch off the television as soon as my father returns from office. He is a strict man. I have seen him punish my sister quite often, although I have never had a beating from him as yet. Perhaps he loves me more. There may be a reason for that too. My mother tells me that when I was hardly a few days, I had a tooth already – which had to be removed when I was all of 21 days old. My mother kept crying and my father had me in his lap, while the astonished dentist carried out his ordeal. A couple of months and I began showing symptoms of asthma. This is when my parents were very stressed. Thrice a day I used to be taken to the hospital for nebulizer. I used to cry a lot there – more because of fear than of pain. The asthmatic attacks continued for quite a few years. During such attacks I wanted to be carried with my head on the shoulder of my mother and then when my father, when he returned from office. During these times I developed a kind of bond with my parents which my sister couldn’t develop. My father used to be very disturbed whenever I used to have a cold because the cold itself led me to asthmatic attacks.

Gradually, to avoid the attacks, I was put on inhaler. I didn’t like the after-taste in the mouth, but it did give me the much needed relief from the breathlessness. My father used to tell about a time when during my first of such attacks, he had almost lost hope while taking me to the hospital and getting stuck in the traffic.

Ok, now something nice - when I was about a year old, we came for a vacation to india. I became a cynosure of everyone’s eyes – my eyes were grey, different from everyone in the extended family. My mother fondly narrates that when we went to the zoo during the vacation, everyone from the passengers in the passing vehicles to the visitors in the zoo, stopped in their way to have a second look at me – though I never enjoyed the attention – I was much too small.

Now to the present. I like digital games, new watches, and good dress. These days I have my own hair-style. But long hairs are not approved of at school. So every few days I have to get them cut. This academic session I have started coming home alone. I have tried to get a bicycle to go to school, but father has linked it to my results in school. Actually my results have not been very good till now. But to get a bigger cycle, I plan to work harder. My sister and myself already have a bicycle for the past few years, but we have outgrown it and don’t like to ride it any more. My younger brother will be happy when he is bit taller – a bicycle waiting for him already!

Talking of my younger brother, he is very naughty. Always picking up fights with me. I ignore him for sometime, but after that I give him back. Then follows crying, complaining to mummy and a scolding for me. I hate it. But otherwise he is good and I love him too. He is always like, bhai this, bhai that…

Now my sister. She is only two years elder to me but looks more than that. I have to keep away from her during fights. She is very strong and a punch from her brings unbearable pain. But we stick together while planning for outings, buying toys or games or when we get scolded together for various reasons.

I wish a lot of things. Like a room of my own with an air conditioner, my own bed, study table, cupboard, etc. If anyone wants to enter into my room, he or she should knock and take my permission first. I would like to have a mobile which I would flash around and sometimes call my friends, and carry it outside.

Although my parents bring all the necessary things that I need, and occasionally games and toys and good clothes and eat-outs, I still don’t get other things like video games, remote-controlled cars, and the like. But I have my uncles and a chachu to whom I send sms for my wishes. And mind you, these wishes come true quite often – but at a price. They impose all sorts of dos and donts.

My best time-pass is the TV although i sometime read books too.

I don’t know why but my mother gets angry every morning when after getting up from bed I make a round of the kitchen to ask what I am going to get for breakfast. She doesn’t understand that I just enquire to know if I am getting something nice. Of course, if she is making something else, then I go into mourning and even skip meals, which rarely happens, thanks to her. She always has some alternate dish so that I don’t have to go hungry.

Talking of meals, it is dinner time! More later! Bye for now!

Kiddy-life

I am four and a half years old.

I live with my parents and siblings. My sister is 11 years old and brother 9 years.

I love my father very much. Then my mother. I can’t get along with my siblings as we always end up fighting. My brother has a soft corner for me, perhaps because I am his only brother. But my sister doesn’t, because perhaps she has two brothers. Besides, I always do something which annoys her. I want all those things, toys or gadgets that my siblings have, although I can’t run those gadgets without their help.

I like to watch cartoons and the TV remote always has to be in my hands. My father objects to some cartoons which don’t look like humans. But I like the weird looks of them. I don’t know what is there that my father hates in these cute figures.

My mother loves me very much, and so does my father. But my father gets angry very quickly. So I have to be careful with him. He makes me do so many things that I don’t like, e.g., going to school, getting a haircut, taking a bath, etc.

But I am growing up. Before I had to be taken to the toilet, used diapers, etc. Now I don’t use diapers and I go to the toilet myself. I even lock the toilet door from inside. J

Every day I ask my mother if tomorrow is holiday at school. Actually I don’t like to go to school. Every morning my father wakes me up and I dread the thought. But my father always manages to take me to school. He wakes me up without mentioning school, whispering nice things in my ear, like what I would like to have for breakfast, some story that he has made up just then, and so on. But when I think of getting a chance to ride the TARZAN, my father’s two-wheeler, I agree to his persuasion.

Till I get the keys to Tarzan, my mood is off quite often and I bid goodbye to my mom, grandpa and grandma with tears in my eyes. They console me and promise good things when I return from school.

On reaching school again I hate it and with great difficulty I leave my father’s hand. I walk forward but look back again and again at my father waving his hand at me. Till few months ago, my brother who is also in the same school would come to meet me during his tiffin time. But the Headmistress doesn’t like this and now I don’t see him as often.

At school I like it when the teachers give something to colour. I like colouring, you know. I also like to write alphabets and numbers. I am even writing small letters!

I am very shy and don’t talk to anyone in my class. My parents often tell me to talk to other kids, ask their names, play with them but I can’t, I don’t know why.

I like to play games on computers, on TV, on PSP and even on mobile phones. Whenever I can persuade grandpa to take me to the computer room, I play there. But when there is no one in the room, I feel scared. So I don’t let grandpa leave the room. Sometimes he falls asleep while reading newspaper there, perhaps he feels bored. When he cannot be there, I rush up to mom and ask her if I can play on the TV. If she agrees I promptly start playing. But when she doesn’t, I keep pestering her till she has no other way. It works. ;) However, when she has programs to watch, I start playing on the PSP. If I feel bored there too, then I take charge of my mom’s mobile. Ha-ha. I have so many things to do, see?

One Saturday I made my father agree to bicycle-shopping. Actually since morning I kept pestering him to buy me a bicycle. As expected, he replied that I already had a tricycle. But my answer for him was ready – I am big now and I should have a bicycle like my elder brother. Mom also played her part and in the evening the three of us were in the market. By the time the shops closed, I already had my own ‘two-wheeler’ – my own Tarzan!

I will tell you more as I grow up. Bye for now.

The three kids

The bell rang and my mother found three kids standing outside the door. “Our parents have left us. We have no one. Please help us.”

****

About twenty years ago, a lady used to visit us with her daughter. They were very poor and somehow made both ends meet. I don’t really remember as these cases were handled by my mother. She used to give them old clothes, some money, food, etc. Sometimes the lady did odd jobs for my mother in the house. As the years went by, her daughter became more and more beautiful although the dirt and poverty hid her face; perhaps nature’s way of protecting her.

After a few years my mother told me that the girl had got married. We almost forgot them as their visits had stopped.

One day when I returned home a familiar face stopped me on the door. It was the girl, her face still delicate but the beauty had disappeared in these few years. She had kids and a sad story with her. Poverty was again the reason of her returning to my mother. Her visits increased gradually.

One day a man came enquiring about her. He claimed that he was her husband. He informed that she had left him and their sons at home, and went away with their only daughter. We never heard about the girl or her husband anymore.

After almost a year it was yet another generation pleading with my mother. Three sons of the girl! It was a chilly winter morning when the bell rang and my mother found three kids standing outside the door. “Our parents have left us. We have no one. Please help us.” The look of the kids took me to them. In the harsh winter, they were without any woollens. The elder one was bare-feet.

I kept asking questions and the elder one, aged 10 years, answered. He said that after their mother left them, the landlord drove out their father saying he wouldn’t allow a family without a woman!

His father moved to the city with his sons and started working as a rickshaw-puller. They stayed on the footpath.

However, that was not the end. Another blow to the kids came was when one day their father left them. The kids continued to stay at the same footpath. They started begging for food. When someone gave them money, the elder one used it to buy food and save for some other needs – like a slipper for his youngest five year old brother, or getting a haircut for them. He showed me a black plastic bag which he said he used when someone gave them some food. Whatever food they got during the day, they had for lunch and saved some for dinner. My mother gave them some money and my wife gave them some woollen clothes of our children. They left with a smile.

That morning, after a long time, I cried. 

What will be the life of these children and perhaps hundreds of such in this world, I kept thinking the whole day.