Peek-a-boo!

I'm back just to peek. For all of you who left all those nice comments asking me to come back :P thank you. The break has survived its purpose. I'm no longer as mad, and as confused. I know what I'm going to study, how I'm going to study and all those useless things have been decided. I've also rescheduled my GRE for all my well-wishers. So, to celebrate, I'm blogging and doing some other stuff that you guys may or may not be informed about soon. Yay! Ok, so I actually read someone's 25 random things on FB, and remembered something similar I'd done.

So, I was all of 4 or 5 years old and we lived in our old house. I hardly had any playmates, so to speak unless you want to talk of my Dad's unemployed friends who kept me company much to my mom's angst. I did have a younger sister by then, but we did not get along too well. We fought. Always. And hey, she was young and irritating while I was a mature 4 year old! So, there were these two girls S and R who I played with. R was my age, more or less and she was from this small town called Arsikere in Karnataka - those days my dream destination for a holiday that we never went on. I made friends with R after this incident happened between S and me. Anyway, S was the daughter of a tenant who stayed upstairs. She was much older than the both of us. She was over 11 or 12 years old. We went to the same school and she'd walk back from school everyday with me.

My granny like all grannies had grudges with all her tenants irrespective of how nice they were and all people who she didn't know. I dunno her opinion about R, but then she was sceptical about S and her family. My mom was only too glad to let me play with S who I played house-house for a long time. I had this mini cooking set with some utensils and all that jazz. My mom tried her best to domesticate me from a young age. So, S and I were playing one day and it was mid afternoon - 3-4 ish. We were cooking rice for the both of us and we were talking like 2 older women - something we always wanted be then (Then is the keyword here) We'd poured water into the utensil which could hold about 3 tbsp of rice and let it alone for sometime - cooking or rather, resting on the mini gas we had. After about 2 hours of playing, I told her we should sit and eat rice. Now, obviously the rice was uncooked, but had grown soft. I got extremely excited that we cooked food which even my mom couldn't! (My mom never cooked thanks to my granny's restrictions, and I thought she couldn't cook then) I wanted to eat the rice that we cooked really badly. She refused. She said no. Could you believe that? A 11 year old girl cooks her own rice along with a more talented 4 year old and she doesn't want to eat it!

I couldn't believe my ears. I said to her again: S, we should eat it. Get the plates. She refused. I got into a rage. I wasn't used to being refused. No, I wasn't spoilt. But eating rice was normal and I'm sure my excited parents would've lapped up the rice if I cook for them. So, I pleaded with her this time. I said: "S, please, can we eat the rice together? I'd hate to eat it all alone. I hate doing that."

She said no again. I got mad. I screamed at her. I said: " We have to eat it. I cannot waste this. If you don't eat it, I will beat you up." (Beating up is a threat I have followed on with several people!)

She refused calmly wondering how much could a 4 year old do, anyway? She was much taller than me and I came up to her waist only then. She could easily flip me! I got so mad that....

...I bit her. I lifted her skirt and bit her stomach. So hard that she bled in front of me. She screamed in agony while I stared at her in triumph like a wronged heroine or something. Everyone came running and of course, my mom was shocked at her daughter's violent tendencies. She realized later that it was to be the norm. Her parents couldn't believe it. They were mad at me and prohibited me from playing with S after this. I was only too happy and egoistic to oblige. My mom said sorry a 100 times and took her to the doctor and what not. After that, I did not play with her, and she refused to walk me back from school. My dad decided that I will walk back alone, much to my granny's fears that someone would kidnap her pretty, innocent, light-brown eyed baby. Sigh, such love, I've not known again.

But then I had to find another playmate now that S wouldn't even look at me. I used to love to swing on the huge gate we had. One such swinging, I saw this girl skip on the road. Yes, she skipped. Using a skipping rope. She had short curly hair and was tiny. I just stared at her skip in the middle of the road and could see no one else or nothing else. I was amazed that someone could skip so well. I'd just started to learn to do that. And she wasn't even doing the jumping kind of skipping. I was enamored and totally stared at her as she passed by. After that, for quite sometime, I'd see her skip from one end of the road to another. Until one day, my mom saw her and pushed me to go talk to her and call her home. I stopped her midway and she seemed scared until my mom asked her, her name and other things and called her home. Soon, my mom and her mom spoke and we were a pair :) She spoke of the rice fields in Arsikere and I created stories about Kansbahal, the place I was born and hardly remember! She taught me how to skip and spent hours cooking and playing house-house with me. I cried everytime she went to Arsikere on a holiday. I stood at the gate and bade good-bye everytime she and her parents got onto the auto to go to the station. We made grand plans for our lives which mainly included skipping, playing the doctor game and the house-house game. She was my first best friend. I no longer know where she is or how she is. But, sometimes, I miss her :)