1 Grandma and the Rat

I must have been four or five when my grandmother hit me for the first time. Whether I deserved it or not I cannot say, but I remember taking the assault with much pride.

My cousins were the only playmates I was allowed to have but I never felt the need for more friends apart from them for they were so many! Gaurav, Vishal, Gagan, Sagar, Satya, Samrat and the only girl my age, Neha. With so many of us in the neighbourhood , evenings were never a quiet time. And it often took something as small as spotting a rat for us to turn into hooligans.

On one such evening, when the sun had almost set and the sky was a beautiful mix of all the colours my fickle mind could fathom, a poor rat showed itself to my grandma.

''CHOOHA CHOOHA'' she shouted in her manly voice as everyone sitting, standing or playing in the street ran towards her room to wittness the innocent creature. Since her room was on the ground floor and with a direct opening to the street, she pretty much had everyone at her disposal.

So there we were, the little wild animals, with our brooms and sticks ready to slaughter whatever came our way. Sagar was the braudy one, fat and dumb. He went straight for an iron stand holding grandma's only earthen pot where the rat was last spotted. Unfortunately the only thing he hit was the pot and it came crumbling down. The small room was flodded before the search even began and the rat was forgotten for a moment.

''Oh dear god! Are you blind?'' grandma charged towards sagar just when Gaurav spotted the rat going under the bed and made a run for it. Now Gaurav was born in Nepal, when his Dad was posted there for some official assignment and had therefore earned the nick name 'nepali'. He was quite an interesting person who was always pulling off naughty tactics and getting beaten by everyone. This time too he was out of luck for as he made a leap towards the rat who was running for its life under the safety of hard wood, he slipped on the floor and banged his head straight into the bed.

''Get out all of you!!'' grandma ordered in full rage and as if the rat had sensed it too, it quickly crawled out of the bed, jumped off the front porch and disappeared in the street. Our band of hooligans went right after it. Shouting, pushing and falling we somehow managed to corner it down and all the boys finnaly beat it to a cruel death. I, being the youngest, was left out of the horrid act owing to my small size compared to their large frames.

But not all hope was lost and I could still showoff my skills to the rest of them. I picked up the dead specimen with its tail and ran straight to my grandma's room.

''Dadi look! Look! I caught it for you!..'' I was so excited at the prospect of her praising me that I'd almost forgotten her wrath.

And BANG! Came that horridd slap landing on my left cheek.

''Go and throw it outside! And wash your hands!!'' was all she coud say before I stormed out of the room, threw the rat in the street and went and sat on my father's scooter. I still remember it took me all the strength in the world to hold back my tears. My cousins gathered around, one of them had gotten an air of what had happened and naturally leaked it out to the rest. They stood in a circle around me, laughing and impatiently waiting for the first trickle of tears to flow down my cheeks. But I held my fort and sat there with my arms folded around my chest and my hands cluched into tight fits till my father finally came and took me home.

That was the last time grandma slapped me for I made a note never to show her my wild and adventurous spirit ever again.

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