1

Bharath was 11, and a jolly kid. His friends were more logical to their age.

Wearing a very short blue nylon trousers (the elastic was easier to pull down to pee, than the tight jeans knicker outfit) and a black ‘Happy’ tee-shirt, the boy looked younger. He was short and that was a drawback. He never got a chance to play cricket with his much taller friends.

The only chance he got to play cricket was in a school competition. He was facing a dreaded bowler, someone by name, Parikshit Pawar, whose first ball – a sharp bouncer knocked his spectacles and broke its glasses of 4.5 power (another 1.5 extra would put him in the national blind men’s team) to smithereens. Bharath thought he saw paradise that day and was a picture of absolute pity. He was never selected to play thereafter.

But that didn’t change Bharath. He was happy to play hide and seek. His best compatriot at that time was Potti. Potti was actually Surendra or Suri by birth. For a young boy, Potti had a clean face (an attraction for Pedophiles) with no hair tufts that people mistook him for a girl (Potti was a Telugu slang referring a girl). Bharath stayed in Hyderabad. His dad worked there.

2

On a Sankranthi, when the neighborhood kids would run behind kites that were cut, Bharath was playing hide and seek with Potti. Potti’s younger brother, a rat-faced kid called Pradeep was supposed to be the seeker. He was honest and didn’t know where the other two boys had run to hide. They were on the terrace of their two-storied building looking for a space to hide, invariably arguing that they had chosen the wrong place instead, and that Pradeep had counted past 50 and would catch them both, if they countered him running to the ground floor.

There was a large wooden box that once housed Bharath’s old black and white TV, which now is thrown in the attic (they have a color tv now). Potti felt the box was a gold mine, and asked if they could hide inside that. Both smiled and hid inside the rotten varnished smelt box.

After 5 minutes they could see Pradeep climbing the stairs and searching for the two boys on the terrace. For once, he came near the box and even sat on it. Potti would giggle, but, Pradeep did not notice anything. After a long wait Pradeep became bored. He picked a pebble, and threw it inside Bharath’s neighbor’s latrine exhaust pipe and went away (Bharath wouldn’t mind this, as his crush was the neighbor’s daughter, and she would just walk past him and without caring him, leaving Bharath high and dry).

But that was when they realized what went wrong. As they hid inside the box, the hinge fell on the holder and the box was locked. They were trapped with the hot sun burning on their head. Potti started yelling and pushing. But there was nobody who could hear the two howling boys who were alive inside the probably temporary coffin. Potti had a brilliant idea. He thought perhaps they could roll over and the hinges would unlock itself, but, Bharath reminded that they might suffer fractures. Potti began to cry loudly and for the first time, Bharath felt Potti had lived up to his reputation as being called a girl.

Both were sweating profusely, and breathing was increasingly difficult. Whatever air came (from the gaps of the box) was scarce, and the last thing that the boys expected was a fart.

Just then, when all hopes seemed to have been lost, Bharath’s mother came to the terrace to dry the clothes. Both started calling her – Amma called Bharath, Aunty yelled Potti. But neither the amma nor the aunty was listening. Then they started banging on the box. Amma heard this time and was surprised for a moment. It was then, when she heard familiar voices. She opened the box and had the chance to see two thin embarrassed and guilty feeling boys, who were lucky to have lived another day.

3

But the incident was soon forgotten. As the annual exams reached, Bharath was nervous. He did write the exams well and was also the topper of his class (He got first rank as the grading system was still unknown in the early 1990s).

Dad was happy, and as a surprise, planned an early trip to Bangalore on vacation. Bharath started counting days (he would mark the number of days of his desk calendar with glasses of water he had drunk on a particular day, because his dad had suggested him to drink at least eight glasses of water per day).

As the days progressed, the trip was no longer in sight. Dad had to delay the trip by two and half weeks due to an unavoidable situation. That resulted in the sudden stoppage of his new routine (the drinking of the eight glasses of water stopped, partially because he felt bored and was not willing to continue. More importantly, he did not dare to ask his dad about this unwanted delay in the trip).

But they went (since it was a delay in plan, the train tickets for the trip was routed via Madras).

4

There is an old saying – Home is where the heart is.

They were living their heart’s fill in Bangalore. It was a combined family. Dad, grandmother, his younger brother (and his family), and the youngest brother with growth problems. Bharath thought his youngest uncle was a retard and many times his dad reminded him that it was not polite to even consider thinking like that. Bharath had a reason. His youngest uncle (by name Praful) had a certain liking to Bharath. He would suddenly run like a mad thing (like how the wrestler Edge of the WWE fame would run and spear his opponent) and push him from behind without warning. This, Praful would enjoy by clapping his hands. Bharath knew he couldn’t beat his uncle. So, revenge was out of question.

Bharath had made friends with a tiny, stout boy named Tilak, who lived next door. Both used to play cricket in the evening. For a change Bharath was bigger than Tilak and Tilak considered him as a hero. Bharath seemed to enjoy this position.

On a Sunday afternoon, Bharath and Tilak were discussing something about their future studies. They were seated on a six-foot tall temporary water tank, which was used to water the nearby construction house.

Bharath saw Praful coming towards them. In the moment of excitement and to play a prank, Bharath called Vipul. The idea was to trip Vipul and make him fall flat on the ground. Tit for tat. But Vipul was a gifted tripper. He ran and pushed Bharath with such a force that Bharath nearly somersaulted and fell into the water tank. Tilak ran for his life.

Bharath did not know how to swim, and he started gasping for breath. He lifted his hands and started yelling. He could see only Praful clapping his hands.

A passer-by saw a helpless Bharath and lifted him from the tank.

As he walked back, a wet Bharath was confronted by his grandmother, who asked him why he was wet. Bharath lied that he was bathing underneath the tap (at midday, it seemed to be a bad joke). Tilak sprang from behind beaming a smile and handing a stick to granny.

Bharath remembered this day and his holiday. However, he had yet again lived another day.