Happy Children's Day

When I was a child, I just couldn't wait to grow up.

Be an adult and be able to understand all the things adults told me I wouldn't understand.

My sister was my role model and I wanted to do everything she did.

And I wanted to be everything she wanted to be.

Not much has changed for me since then.

She is only 3 years older than I am but back then she was the cool adult in my life who taught me the meaning of gay as two men who love each other. It was a lot to digest at age 8 but she was the one I  never questioned and always took advice from. When she was a teenager I was a tenager (lame word coined by my sister). 

She would dream of one day going to the Himalayas to meet Shiva (the God).

And at the same time wanted to travel to America to meet Madonna and Tina Turner.

And also wanted to wear fingerless gloves and break dance like Michael Jackson.

I can say a lot has changed for her since then.

When I think back about what I was like as a child, there's just so much that comes to my mind.

It's all quite funny now and so I thought I'd share it today.

1. I watched He-Man on TV everyday and played with the Skeletor action figure for a chunk of my childhood. I'd like to say I was innocent and didn't judge a book by it's cover. But, who am I kidding? *I was sort of an idiot.

2. I divided my time between playing with toy guns (I don't know what my parents were thinking) and playing board games like Chess (I played it a little wrong). I thought every child played chess.

3. I collected coins in piggie banks that were stolen by my sister. Why? Refer to Point No.1*

4. The money collected in this piggie bank was later transferred to a velvet jewelry box with Neshaya's Bank written on it in green crayon. Neshaya was a cool combination of my sister's and my name. How clever right?

5. I bought gifts for my parents birthdays with money from this 'bank'. The gifts included a waterproof ashtray and a 60 rupee perfume that was slightly sticky called Magnet. The perfume clearly took it's name seriously and I wondered why my mother never used it.

6. I used bad words without knowing what they meant like f*** and b****** till I got yelled at by my father after which if me or my sister used them by accident, it was used to blackmail each other. What fun! And then we had safe words like basket. Which sounded close to the bad word but couldn't get us blackmailed.

7. I wrote words like Boobless on the calculator and thought it was hilarious. Clearly Leet could crack me up. Ah! The simple joys!

8. I never walked into my living room. I simply entered it with a cartwheel everytime.

9. I tried to throw my lunch out of the window because I hated eating vegetables and with my amazing luck it landed on a man's head.

10. I pinched a man's arse in the fish market after he pinched mine. A pinch for a pinch.

11. I thought dinosaurs never existed and were simply created by Steven Spielberg for the Jurassic Park movie. I also thought pirates were fictional characters.

12. I thought Baroda was abroad. Anagram confusion!

13. My worst nightmare was Paresh Rawal chasing me on a cycle around Shivaji Park.

14. I didn't find the photographer who took my first passport photo handsome enough to take my photo (at age 5) and so my first passport has the grumpiest face ever.

15. I loved watching Mahabharat but had no idea what was going on and just loved how they all had suns shining behind their headgear.

16. I thought that the people of Canada spoke Kannada. My sister corrected me and told me they spoke Canadian. Who was stupider? - that is something we will never know.

17. I had many friends who were much older than I was since my sister refused to play games with me. She would pretend to be very cool and adult like and write non-rhyming poetry.

18. I could tell time by hearing the Bhajans playing in the temple in my building on my way to school. So one bhajan didn't give me a good feeling because when I heard it, I knew I was late for school.

19. I learnt all the Hindi movie song tunes by listening to the band playing outside the Gurudwara down my road where there were weddings almost everyday.

20. I thought there were numbers only till 20.

21. I thought that if I spoke too much, the voice in my voicebox would get over. So I only spoke when it was necessary. Once I found out that that's not how it works, I tried to make up for all that quiet time. And I'm still not done as you can see.

22. If I would eat too much, my stomach would expand and look like a globe and I'd get worried that I was with child.

23. At the same time I was very confident that by the time I grew up and was about to have a child, 'the scientists' would find a new way to deliver babies. Because what else have they got to do anyway?

This is also why I loved the Japanese story of Momotaro - the Peach boy.

24. I pretend smoked/ ate Phantom ciggies which I bought from the corner Irani shop. It doubled up as lipstick when I wanted to sport a 'Paan eaten' look.

25. I loved dressing up and matched everything I was wearing in an almost OCD way.

26.  I told a doctor that the Mid-Day newspaper and strong perfumes made me sneeze and sometimes cough which in turn made my chin itch. Help!

27. I would enter every contest especially the drawing ones. I won Rs. 100 vouchers with which I bought an Asterix which I never read and a book on The Ox (that's what I am according to Chinese Astrology) also still not read by me.

28. I wished to one day run out of eye and nose fluids. It would also make sad moments a lot easier right?

29. I would cry for really silly things in movies like when a dog would learn to swim.

30. I was oddly positive. I was in the middle of the Sikkim landslides in the summer of '96 but thought there was no way I could die because my life line on my palm seemed really long and tackled a tough day with a smile.

31. I was never taught how to pray and never knew how to start so always started with 'Dear God I'm sorry I don't pray everyday but I'm sure you understand because you made me'.

32. I would watch the Bold and the Beautiful everyday and thought that only American's french kissed.

33. I thought that because was the longest word EVER even though at the same time I was probably singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And so I used because in every sentence because I thought using it made me sound like I was speaking Einstein.

34. I also used words like meaniac and cheapstake and thought that they actually existed in the English dictionary.

35. I had something against odd numbers. Don't ask. Actually I still do. Which is why I won't end this post now with 35 points (even though I sometimes don't mind multiples of 5).

36. I was worried about the world coming to an end in 2012. But then again I thought it was so far away and that when that day came I'd be 27 - an adult, probably married with children. I would either be mentally capable to handle such an event by this age or the scientists would have come up with a solution.

Well, none of that happened.

I suppose somewhere deep down I'm still a child.

Whatever has happened - weird and normal has made me who I am.

And I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

And going forward, all I can say is:

via

And there's so much more to say but let's just save that for next year.

Happy Children's Day!