Bees saal baad @ home - scaring the hell out of my brother…

My brother now works in a reputed major bank as a Chief Manager. He has his own sweet family. But still, if ever we get time alone, and I ask him to venture in the dark with me (even if it is the next bed room or living), he immediately warns me, “Is it ok if I hit you at this age?” I know why he asks me that question. He is yet to come out of all the ‘shocks’ that I have given him all through our childhood.

He is just about 2 years younger than me. Ever since my memory can trace back, there have been umpteen episodes where I have given him a chill down his spine. So much so that, many times he has gone to the floor unconscious. Some episodes I laughed hysterically looking at his bleached expressions and some other, I was very scared that I would be in jail the next day for homicide L

Did that make me drop the habit of scaring him? No! Never!! I am not the one to give up!!! :-D

A couple of episodes that I recall…one funny and the other naively-committed crime…

I think I was in class VIII and he in class VI. By then he had had his “sacred thread” across his chest. And he being an ardent believer of the concept that the sacred thread would ward-off any evil, daringly set out to go with me to buy some tidbits from the nearby shop at 8:30 in the evening. 20 years back, 8:30 was pretty ‘late’ in the night for Chennai standards. We merrily hopped to the shop, bought the goodies and were tracing back home.

There is this particular spot on the way which has this electricity box installed. There was a tree opposite this box on the other side of the road. The lighting in that area was such that the shadow of this tree falls exactly on this box and makes only the skull (the danger sign) visible to us. The rest of the box is shadowed by the tree.

It was exactly in this spot, that I stopped and started walking very slowly. This little brother of mine innocently thought that something was wrong with me and he stopped too. He turned to see what had happened to me. I kind of gave a frozen look. He came near. He asked me what happened. I stared deeply at him and started grinning showing all my teeth. I tilted my head to my left and turned it to the right facing the skull on the electricity box. He was almost frozen to death! He looked at the box only then and immediately clung on to his “brahma mudichu” in the “sacred thread”. He started chanting the “Gayathri Manthra” and ran towards home. My laugh was so hysterical and loud and that made him tremble much more. He would have beaten all records in running that evening. I could actually see his heels hit his thigh! J From then on, until we started working, the boy never ventured out with me late in the evenings!

There are a couple of other episodes that rush my mind as I write this. I will share one more here. Just around the same age, my parents had left us home and were off to attend a wedding reception. My granny, elder sister, my brother and I were watching some Tamil crime thriller. I was getting restless with the movie and hence decided to do something else, worth-while(?). I had long, thick, black, shining hair which I had washed that day and hence had left it open. I tried chewing paan and that had left my mouth red. I was admiring myself in the mirror.

The movie was reaching its climax and I hated the fact that my brother was so glued to it without playing with me. I thought to myself, “So what? I will play with him even when he is watching the movie”. I should say that was an innocent thought. I kept dancing in front of the mirror with my tongue stuck out and hair open. As the movie’s climax was getting my brother to the edge of his seat, I stood by his side and just put my head in front of his face. My red tongue sticking out, my hair giving my face a black perfect background and blinding my brother from anything else in front of him! It was just a perfect scene!!

To my horror, my brother just stopped breathing and stretched his legs out. He lay there like a stick motionless. Before I realized what I had done, my sister struck me like thunder from behind. She quickly sprinkled water on his face, chanted some manthras and put some holy ashes on his forehead. She gave him some water to drink. Slowly he regained consciousness. I was and still am happy to see him alive!!

Not once or twice but at least a hundred odd times, before I finished class XII, I would have done this act of scaring him. In fact I had stopped in between when I heard that some kid down-south died of an attack because of such pranks. But life was no fun without these episodes! So I was kind of milder with him making sure he does not have any attacks, really! One ‘baah’ and another ‘booh’ at unexpected corners/circumstances gave me enough thrills to keep me going. I am sure he would have been the first at home to get relieved of me, when I joined a residential college post XII! And, I still yearn for those days with my brother…