Mucchal Singh and other memories: a vignette

Sometimes the night arrives in all its majesty, riding on dreamy winds that can put anyone to sleep. All lights are out, ghosts are thinking of ditching the chores for once but I would lie eyes open, dreaming.

 On such nights I ask myself, “ What do I do, what do I do?”.

 “Write”, says a hopeful (thinks she’s all wise) voice inside.

 “Write what?” , I ask her.

Write what ….. umm..hmm….... 

*closing eyes with intentions of coming up with some idea*  

Mmmmmm… hm… ummm..........

*Shut Down*

And the next thing is maids running about, eyeing the lazy bastard of the house snoring in the face of the sun. But guess what, tonight, I know what I want to write about. * Let me dance first*

It’s about my childhood.

 No, I am not 80.

 Yes, I feel like I am.

 Unfortunately, I don’t have a chronological order of the events. And if any one claims to remember too much, that’s pure fiction. For me it’s more like scraps of a dream i don’t remember quite exactly. Anyhow, certain things have managed to be eccentric enough to stick around for this long.

Days spent in model-town ( a housing colony in my hometown where our old house stands beautiful) are the most magical ones of my life. While I was always impatiently waiting to grow up and rock the world, those were actually the days worth living. Just nostalgia, you might dismiss. But I don’t dismiss magic.

Maa, papa and I had our room on the first floor, below the terrace. Regular school mornings used to be ordeals, right from the getting up part to the final act of gulping down milk in pure horror of my life’s villain, Mucchal Singh. Tall and slender, young Muchhal had a wild, handsome handlebar moustache and a deep voice. He used to take me and seven other kids to school on his Rickshaw.

 From the few recollections I have of him, he usually wore vests and plain cotton pyajamas. I was late every morning and he had just as many insults for me ( read tiny and frail me). Maa would be running around,Tiffin in one hand and shoes in another. For all I knew, my Rickshawala was a beast and should not be angered and still I managed to make him wait every day. So much for just tiniest little sleep.

 Everyone used to go to school on rickshaws back then but I had to have the wild moustache-ed character to make my mornings and dreams hell. He used to cram us all on the vehicle and the two wooden boards attached to it, one on the back and other right behind his seat. Bottles and legs dangling in air, his was a tough job. Imagine our huge bags falling off and sometimes whole kids. I have no memories of making friends or having fun on that ride ever. But thank you Muchchal, I think you just made my childhood happening. Not every handsome man has pulled off the kind of horror you brought to my dreams (he used to drop me at a haweli cum school where ghosts’ children went and laughed in my face as he did that in the dreams).

Next to him, my most vivid memories are of the Gulmohar tree and the terrace. All  the summer breaks revolved around or on or under them. It was a quiet, sleepy place in the afternoons when everyone religiously took their naps; when lemons and roses were stolen. I remember eating mangoes sitting on papa’s tummy as he took his nap under the cooler, after lunch. I spent those afternoons sketching, feeding the occasional cat or on the terrace, but never snoring. I would run to the terrace to have face to face talks with the gulmohar tree by the boundary wall of the little park in front of the house, that my grandfather had planted in his youth. That tree bears the most beautiful cap of red flowers in summers, which I envied because the flowers were not reachable and I couldn't feel them. So I used to wait for the misfortunes to fall upon him and the flowers to drop, entirely oblivious of anything called autumn. I probably thought it kept the beauties on the top on purpose. 

The few kites that I have flown in my life have all taken off from that very terrace; where I buried all my priceless milk teeth for the tooth fairy to replace them with babies; where I learnt to make green chutney out of tree leaves from my cousins; where I made up future plans I never used. Yes same place.

Such little pieces are all I remember of a free life, the kind only a child has. I soon grew up and didn’t find many things to like, except sketching. But before that there is the most vivid memory of a pleasant october night where I like to close the chapter of my childhood.

So this night, Maa and papa were out and the entire family was excitedly bustling around in the house. In one room, all the girls had gathered to decide on a girl’s name that would be given to my sister. Yes, maa and papa were in the hospital and no, I had no say in choosing the name. The news was- it’s a girl, it’s a girl. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I could not decide what a newborn should be like. Not long after, the show stopper came, everyone got a glimpse and went home. But tiny me was yet to meet her. Finally alone in the room upstairs, just below the terrace, in a dim orange-yellow light I saw a pink bundle that did the ugliest poop that night. No longer was I the baby. I was soon singing her to sleep and taking the charge of her whenever maa was not around. Strangely, I have no memories of my own life after that, as a child of free spirit.

My sister is now 17 And taller than I am. The gulmohar tree is soon going to go red now and I just saw Muchchal in the market place, pulling the old thing, for the first time after I had seen him last. He still has the same frame and ofcourse the moustache. I am so not 80!!