The Attache Case

As told by- the school bag



One school bag, an attaché case and mind you not of a briefcase variety, out of a motley group of about six, spoke boldly defying its rather feeble condition. Showing mental and vocal strength of educationists whose proximity had rubbed on to it, it told its tale in a rather elite language.

“I have seen better times. Oh! Those were the days, my friends, of fun and romance. I was toast of the town, meaning the shop. Purja and his mom picked me out of so many others due to my color, capacity and sturdiness. I was rather striking looking, even if I say so myself. Purja showed me off rather proudly on the first day of school after the summer break. My biceps and triceps were not to be trifled with. I could easily support him when he sat on me waiting for his bus after school. As you all know, most of us attaché cases also doubled as temporary sitting or resting units providing waiting children some respite. Within a month though, Purja-effect began to show as his filling capacity began mocking my actual capacity. I started bulging.”

“Once an educationist always an educationist. You are confusing me with the technical terms like filling versus actual capacity. Please try to be less mathematical.” Pleaded an old notebook of dubious intelligence.

“Don’t be so daft. I am merely stating that he filled me up faster than a miser does his safe without ever airing its contents. Needed or not needed books, notebooks, pencils in various stages of evolutions, ditto erasers, the pencil shavings plus various collections e.g. shiny wrappers, pebbles, marbles, chalk pieces, springs and nails, leftover food, fruit pips, so on and so forth filled my insides to a bursting capacity. My vital levels came under pressure and a definite skill was required to close the top. Due to the over crowding, the pencil, eraser& co. had ample scope of hiding when needed most. A lazier lot than them I have never met till date. Soon Purja had no room for the actual schoolbooks and most of his notebooks reflected the side effects of cramped living conditions. The covers were ripped and a stale unpleasant smell uncoiled like a powerful genie whenever they were opened. Purja remained unaffected though. His nose had long developed immunity to such nonsense hence remained unaware of the illegal resident smell.”

“What do you mean by calling us lazy. We lived a hard life trying to survive under such hostile conditions. We were sharpened without needing sharpening, chewed, used for various purposes we were most unsuitable for. One could not blame us for being lost in those over crowded conditions. Even his pencil box couldn’t contain us due to all the marbles inside” Spoke a rather offended representative of eraser& pencil group.

“Please accept my apology. It was tough to be organized under such circumstances. But I do feel that you all did take advantage a bit. He could never find an eraser or a pencil when he wanted it the most. I do know that most of the times you all were quite nauseated with all that churning going on inside me, but still you held a position of responsibility. Anyway, the bulging state of existence came to a screeching halt the day his teacher found a tiny cockroach in his notebook. The poor insect quickly found refuge in her open briefcase sending her in hysterics. Purja found this funny and chortled to his hearts content along with rest of the class. The teacher did not take too kindly to this laughter and positively glowered. He was sent to fetch Sesa from her class. Poor Sesa was lectured for fifteen minutes on Purja’s status in most disagreeable language. An urgent note was sent to the parents resulting in some serious checking and cleaning. And hence I was wiped and aired after being emptied of all my contents. I appeared a shadow of my previous bulging self after the whole operation. Even the resident smell abandoned me finding the interiors, too anaesthetized. To Purja’s annoyance, only school- books, notebooks and the necessary writing and geometry implements were allowed entry with an understanding of all rights of entry reserved to parental discretion as of for immediate future.”

A Runaway Horn

As told by- the steering wheel

A broken steering wheel that was yet to recover from a perpetual nausea due to extreme rotation in the line of duty, suddenly found itself rolling forward inspite of vowing never to do so ever in its life again. After all it was retired and unattached now, having lost its axis long back. It rolled out an interesting story.

“Purja’s father baby sat his two children while his wife took a much needed breather at her mother’s, in a city few hours from her home. Believe me, she wouldn’t have survived with her sanity intact otherwise. Well, since the children were off from school for some reason for a couple of days, the baby sitter dad had no option but to take them along wherever he went. Sometimes the children waited in the car parked outside an office or a government building. Purja found the arrangement to be perfect since he could spend time in the car simulating actual driving. So while Sesa finished her homework, Purja did some power-packed make believe driving, involving hands, legs, torso and the vocal cords. The purring, screeching or the multiple other combinations of sounds that emanated from Purja’s throat could make the sound technician of the famous Hollywood wild western movies pull out his hair in desperation for not having thought of the above mentioned sound track, first. Our little driver was kind of passionate about his driving and left nothing to chance. Sesa tolerated her brother for she had no choice, or else he bombard her with thousands of weird questions encompassing all his acquired or yet to be acquired knowledge. She preferred doing her homework quietly, hollering at him from time to time to keep his legs to himself. Hence the days passed.

Parked in a quite parking area outside an imposing government building where their father had some work for about half an hour, both the children were busy doing what they normally did. Purja was at the wheel, steering around imaginary mountainous winding roads with the passion of a rally driver, when in the heat of a moment he hit his hand hard on the horn. Now the horns of those days were a round disc attached in the middle of a steering wheel and made a no nonsense bellow of purely earthy variety in contrast to the sophisticated sound of present implements. Well, the said horn, probably took an offence at being manhandled and jammed. A quite lazy parking area of 1960’s reverberated with the sound of loud horn gone wild. Purja was taken a back and he tried dislodging the jammed disc but the sturdy disc did not budge and kept to steady high pitch. Sesa, embarrassed to core, instructed between painful repercussions to Purja’s ears, without any silent results. She wished to be somewhere else. The whole jamboree went on for about fifteen minutes. By now a crowd of sorts began to collect around their car. What with Sesa shouting at top of her voice, Purja thought it best to hide by curling between the seats. Being of small stature, he became invisible. Expert at finding instant solutions, he went off to sleep. Sesa, meanwhile faced what she perceived as a mocking crowd with some well wishers genuinely trying to help for the relief to collective ears. But the horn wasn’t listening as it released all the pent up emotions of previous Purja encounters. Sesa was in tears.

These were the days of free politicians without their security jails or the siren fitted vehicles and open noise free, tree lined uncluttered boulevards. So one can imagine the commotion a runaway horn caused. The noise attracted the attention of the occupants of the various offices in the building and they crowded the window to find the reason for this noisy intrusion into their silent privacy. The serious babu’s of the government fed on British sensibilities, lacked such unannounced excitement in their daily routine hence were quite skeptical of its source of eruption. Only sirens during the blackouts of Indo-pack wars were supposed to make this kind of noise. Someone called the police. Meanwhile Sesa had kicked Purja awake who was pleasantly surprised to see the audiences around their car. His ego was free of an emotion called embarrassment hence positively inclined towards any onlooker. Sesa rolled down the window on arrival of the police force, that she considered safe strangers. The bonnet was opened and the wires disconnected while Purja looked on, wide- eyed at these efficient men in uniform. He liked authoritative efficiency. Sesa was hyper anyway, for she made a fuss of the littlest thing, he felt.

“Unaware of the commotion his younger progeny had caused, their father was aghast to find police around his car. With both the children, the crowd and the policeman tripping over each other’s version, it took a while before he could piece the story together. Some smart talking and lot of embarrassed apologizing later, he drove straight to the mechanic. For Purja, this was cherry on top of a cake. He went wild, running and peering into the cars under repair. He wanted to become a mechanic in a police uniform when he grew up, an ideal combination to make his life perfect, he thought. Only Sesa wanted to wring his neck for putting her through an ordeal like this. And the poor father prayed for speedy return of his wife. And the horn, well, some emotions defy description. Enough to say, it went through rest of its life with head held high, in tribute to a courageous act of voicing its opinion.” The wheel’s story found approval of all age groups, bringing alive the bygone era.

The Window Seat

As told by - The notebook

Way back in the 1960’s, a little matter of the distance between the school and the residence of the student hadn’t arisen and every parent was free to choose a school according to their convenience or desire or whatever suited their whim and fancy. Purja’s school, about thirty kilometers from his home, was chosen due to lack of options in a small industrial town where he resided. It took him roughly one and a half hour of leisurely ride in a rickety old orange school bus to reach his alma mater every morning, a time normally well spent doing the homework, a task his packed busy schedule during evening hours at home doing thousands of other dubiously important things, kept him from accomplishing. This also saved him from embarrassing punishments, a habit his teacher was badly afflicted with. Outlandish handwriting, an irritating by product of the bus homework was the only sore point. There was a silver lining though. The ride back home was a pure pleasure.

“Let me paint a visual picture for you. The orange bus was unique as it was a cross between a bus and a truck and had a bad case of identity crises along with the riders who were too embarrassed to be seen in it. Though having a physique of a truck, it was made to look like a bus with four wooden planks, two on either side with two in the middle, running lengthwise, for seating who ever was gullible enough or the students who had no choice. The windows had iron bars like a prison van and served the purpose of stopping students from bailing out of a crawling bus. These permanently air conditioned windows had roll down plastic blinds as an inadequate protection if it rained but sadly blocked the light and air totally. Mostly students chose getting wet than be suffocated. The lulling pace of the bus, especially on hot summer afternoons along with a tiring day at school would invariably result in an immediate infectious sleep syndrome in most of the young occupants of the planks. We saw a sea of nodding sleepy heads moving randomly from side to side with few falling off the seat along with the attached body. But our Purja stayed alert for a long time.

“How come? He was young and over active, as we all know. It would have been difficult to stay awake under such circumstances.” The cup never could tolerate discrepancies in the narratives.

“Purja had a mission. He would run ahead of his bus mates at the end of the school so that he could acquire the window seat exactly behind the driver. This was a well thought of move. By doing so, he had more leg space and also could learn driving for free by just watching the driver drive the bus. He watched him change gears, maneuver, the steering wheel, use the clutch etc. thereby imbibed the theoretical driving knowledge almost on the driver’s seat. Well almost, since he practically spilled over the driver’s back, asking thousands of questions, memorizing the trees, buildings and thousand other details of the route for any emergencies. One never knew when the driver might have a heart attack or something like that, he thought. He would be prepared then. He knew the road signs, the turnings and the cars parked in the drive- way of all the houses, on his daily route. But, by and by the sleep infection, the stealthy invader, would spread to him, rendering him incapable of wakefulness, to the great relief of, by now ‘Pakka Hua’ driver. The fallout of the situation, hence- he knew how to start the bus, also how to turn it left or right but for a very long time had no clue about how to stop it. Every afternoon, the watchman carried sleeping Purja from the bus to his room from his favorite window seat.”

The Bubble Bath

As told by - The bathtub

The bubble baths made so famous by the early Hollywood heroines have withstood the test of time and remains all time favorites till date. Seeing a well coiffured blond languishing in the tub full of bubbles in one of the movies his parents took him to, Purja couldn’t help but wonder at the dumbness of the woman. Singing song while rubbing ones arm with an insipid sponge was not his idea of fun. He felt cheated. What a waste of all those wonderful bubbles. He had a better idea.

Most of the Indian homes of the early nineteenth century had functional no nonsense simple baths of tap and bucket variety with some soap and mustard oil thrown in. The children would sit in the water filled buckets, splashing water on each other, eating mangoes or blowing soap bubbles thereby beating summer heat. But our Purja was uncommonly lucky. There was a big black marble bathtub in his parent’s bathroom that he was allowed to use once in a while. This tub was central to the above- mentioned idea.

“Finding the household free of motherly presence due to some function at a neighbor’s home, Purja decided to test his idea. As his mother hurried out of the house, he asked for the permission to use her bathtub. This was a strategic move –what with her mind occupied and no time to spare, she was more likely to say yes to somewhat legitimate though potentially volatile demands. Purja knew the buttered side well hence timed such controversial pleas at a precise moment of parental hurried departure. His mother, under normal circumstances would never have given the permission especially after flooding of her room the last time Purja had used the tub. She was in for a surprise again.”

“Why? Did he flood it again?” Camcorder couldn’t reconcile to the fact that all this never got recorded.

“Patience my friend. You won’t be disappointed. Well, not wanting to waste even a second of his bathing freedom, our little friend stripped to his underpants immediately and ran to his mom’s bathroom. He turned on the tap to fill the tub adding a generous dose of fragrant bath salts. Now all he needed were bubbles of Hollywood variety. He let a new bar of soap almost melt in the water without satisfactory results. Letting his brain sieve through the various options, he put in some solid thought and came up with a winner. Why not use a shampoo? He reached up to the bathroom cabinet and found a new bottle of Gleem shampoo, a special favorite of his mother. Unscrewing the top, he poured some under the running tap in the tub. Hollywoodian bubbles appeared almost immediately in front of his widened eyes. Purja was pleased beyond words and thought a little more shampoo would make his bubble bath spectacular. But the bottle had other plans. It slipped through his soapy hands into the water, gargling all its contents in the tub before Purja could retrieve it. Bubbles invaded the bathroom then as Purja tried to turn off the tap, unsuccessfully, with soapy and slippery hands. The bubbles rose unimpeded, overtaking the surrounding areas before slathering onto the floor and out into the bedroom. Purja slipped out in panic, literally, calling for help. Sesa stood horrified enable to blink her eyes or close her mouth. She wanted to speak but all she could manage was a cross between a sigh and a shriek. The Hollywood story had gone astray. It took hours of much mumbled- about how fashionable mothers leave their innocent boys to be looked after by gullible others - cleaning by his nanny before the bathtub stopped spewing more bubbles. Of course, the toilet, the bedroom and every thing in the bubbly vicinity retained a strong shampooish fragrance along with squeaky- clean surface so vocally advertised by the shampoo manufacturers. Luckily for Purja, his mom was in good mood when she came home having received many compliments on her new sari and her looks that she did not explode the way she normally did. And of course it was just as well, that over powering wall of bubbles was cleaned by a nanny rather partial to our friend. She always minimized the actual magnitude of the calamity.”

“You mean his mom never found out?” Inquired the laptop. It had to get the details right.

“Yes she did, most decidedly about two days later. Having applied a generous dose of oil onto her scalp for that extra soft and wholesome effect to hair, she looked for her favorite bottle of shampoo to wash it for a formal party in the evening. She did find it in the cabinet though, bereft of its contents. Once again Purja sat in his corner. I am sure though, she never ever guessed or imagined the extent of bubbly calamity she was lucky enough to miss. For once he got off lightly. And from then on blew soap bubbles in the bucket only.” Concluded the bathtub.

The Knitting Season

As told by-a woolen ball

A typical post lunch winter afternoon of the mid 1900’s north Indian extended family consisting elderly, stay at home moms and the children, was spent outdoors, leisurely soaking up the winter sun. This time was, perhaps, the best distressing and unwinding period for the whole household. Amidst shared jokes, gossip, recipes, family tales and traditions and the knitting patterns, the onerous chores like shelling peas or the green chickpea and cleaning the mustard greens, were accomplished. While elderly dozed on the chairs cuddled in their shawls, the children played around or did their homework encircled in the warmth of family togetherness. Thus, the afternoon passed lazily recharging the members for the flurry of evening activity.

Purja along with rest of his gang, loved this time the best what with stolen peas, long tales of the family escapades and the like, singing folk songs while being measured for a sleeve or the neck of the sweater being knitted for the school dress and all other so called mundane activities. These were the years before the ready to wear garments invaded the markets polluting the minds of hard working homemakers, robbing them of the skills they had acquired from generations before them. He knew the basics of sewing, knitting, cooking, gardening and thousands of such activities without having learnt them formally. It is another matter that the sewing machine was used for making holes in the paper and the cooking range for testing chemicals. But there was one activity he did whole heartedly- knotting pieces of woolen stings to make a ball for his sister’s knitting. He prided in being the best wool ball maker despite all the ungainly knots, winding thread after thread to achieve a wooly perfection. He begged, pleaded or simply bullied his aunts or cousins for a piece of string to add to his ball. Sometimes he scavenged around the chairs in the garden for a discarded or a forgotten length to add to his multicolored tightly wound collection. And as we all know- he was a pro as far as collecting anything was concerned.

“Having rolled a record breaking wool ball of sorts, Purja proudly sold the same to Sesa for a princely sum of one scented eraser. But there was a small catch- the ball was so tightly wound that she could not pierce her knitting needles through to secure them after knitting. She asked Purja for help. Enterprising chap that he was, he tried piercing the needle through the ball without much success. Sucker for weird challenges, he pushed the needles harder with all his might. Finally, he did pierce the ball but along with his hand that held it. Sesa was the first to realize what had happened as she saw the outer skin of his hand rise at a sharp angle. With horrified round eyes and failed vocal cords she tried warning Purja of the needle jutting into his hand but couldn’t squeak much sense. Meanwhile Purja’s brain cells so far solely occupied with piercing action registered a pierced status and sent pain signals. By now Sesa had found her voice and had started sending SOS signals at the highest decibel. The vacuum sucking action occurred once again as the household materialized around the victim at a magical speed. The needle was pulled out of the palm, the spurting blood flow plugged with cotton and the doctor sent for.”

“Brave boy! Did not cry at all?” Inquired the Mobile phone. Being gossipy in nature, it was rather finicky about the details.

“Cry? For a while, his attention was diverted by the activity around him till he saw the blood and then he fainted, so where was the time to feel scared or cry? For a week after that his hand was in bandage that he took full advantage by avoiding bath and making his sister and cousins do chores for him. Proudly flaunting his bandaged hand around, he felt a hero. But there was a small matter of discontent though. He would have much preferred it to be his right hand.”