Kids..... Ouchh..!!

I banged my foot on the ground thrice "bang .. bang … bang.." as I saw my neighbor, an old lady with her 8 year old grandson at the door. I pulled the latch in ‘action replay’ mode, more so like the way old bollywood couples ran in slow motion before they hugged each other. As I opened the door, a breeze hit me and ‘warning’ alarms went off inside my head. The granny adjusted her glasses and smiled. I observed that I could spot only one of her teeth and that resembled ‘The Leaning Tower of Pisa’. My eyes then shifted to her grandson, who wore blue colored shorts, the size of my hand kerchief. He too had just one tooth visible in the Gandhi class (I mean front row), as he squeezed through between my legs into the house.

“I’m going to the market now. Can I leave Pintu here for a while?” the granny enquired.

She looked like modern Mother Teresa, and that sent a liter of ‘good will’ into my heart, hence I replied- “Go ahead. I will look after Pintu.” After all, normal human beings can commit blunders.

I shut the door and initiated a ‘search operation’ for this boy Pintu. ‘The period of time that Pintu is out of sight’ is directly proportional to ‘Danger’. Could you guess that I love Physics? Good. Anyway, I continued with the ‘search operation’, like a hunter. I rubbed my eyes twice and discovered that Pintu was sitting on my bed, both legs and arms folded. I almost saw Swamy Vivekananda in him, when I discovered something below him. I approached him tardily as if I was there to catch a snake. I stared hard at that thing, and realized it was my laptop. I zoomed my eyes towards it and got further horrified when I noticed his blue colored shorts reflecting a darker shade now. “Oh Lord, this guy has no ‘nappy’ and he has pissed on my ‘lappy’,” I screamed inside my head, not in a mood to adore the poetic skills in me.

It took me an hour for the entire cleaning process to terminate as Pintu sat and watched ‘Cartoon Network’. God bless the founder of cartoons. “Children are like God” I reminded myself and tried to be Mr. Kind as I went into the kitchen to prepare some ‘corn-flakes’ for my dearest Pintu. I heated the milk, put some ‘Kelloggs corn-flakes’ into the bowl and glanced at Jnr. Danger. He was trying his vandalism skills with today’s newspaper, but that was nothing, so I counted 1 to 10 and stirred the mixture. As and when it was ready, I brought the bowl to the hall but couldn’t find my hero. The physics equation resounded with echoes somewhere inside me. I walked slowly into my room, but I was too unlucky, couldn’t find him. A few precious seconds wasted, I then walked slowly into the other room, stood at the entrance and scanned through the room but found no one. There was complete silence; life-threatening silence. Like a flash, as though like in the ghost movies, “bhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” he screamed and jumped from behind the door to the front of me leaving me terrified and cold. I almost had my foot in my mouth for a second. “hahaha… you got scared..” he vanished into the hall.

I prayed to god, recited a few ‘mantras’ and went to the hall and sat next to him. “Children are like God..” I controlled myself by repeating it again and again as though like a tape-recorder which was out-of-order. In the meanwhile, he came to me, stood over my lap and stared long and hard at my face like a scientist. I returned a few silly expressions. He then came close to me and asked- “Anna (brother), why do you have a moustache?” and tried to pluck it. “Aaaahhhhhh…” I howled, put him over the sofa, stood and shouted at him- “Shut up.” He looked with his eyes opened wide as I went on – “ Fold your hands………. Close your mouth…Don’t open that mouth and don’t move.. Just sit.” I slid next to him, grabbed at the corn-flakes bowl, scooped it with a spoon and held it in front of his mouth. My dearest of dearest Pintu wouldn’t open his mouth (as his master instructed) .. damn… “You can open your mouth to eat..” I said as he did and once I put the spoon in his mouth he wouldn’t close it. I didn’t cry, nor did I pluck the hair out off my head but just stared at the ceiling fan.



Just when I thought I needed a trip to the brain doctor, I saw a goddess glowing away through the window with flowers in her hands, ringing my door bell wanting to introduce me to the staff members up above. No, I just saw Granny. She came in and said with a tooth-exhibiting smile- “ Hope Pintu didn’t trouble you,” and I almost began to search the number to call the brain doctor. I just returned a simple smile. She lifted Pintu, who was now having his corn-flakes on his own. The feeling of subtracting a ton of weight from my heart began as she said to her Pintu- “Say bye to anna..” The intelligent boy dropped the bowl of corn-flakes (which landed and splashed straight on my lap) and waved good-bye to me. Granny apologized and left taking away her thunder-like grandson. I headed to the bathroom for part 2 of the cleaning work. My shorts this time.

Children are fun and lovely, but man- “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”