The pickle revenge

Something happened that took me back to the glorious era between 1981 and 1990... The story today starts with an 'adult' neighbor moving into our building. The lady in question was a mother of a six year old, like most other mothers and had decided to call her son 'Mausam' (The 'weather' in english). What we did to him for that name is a study in sadism of epic proportions.

So, a good mother that she was she decided to take revenge. She threatened us into giving him our toys, goodies, barbies.. hit us if we resisted... every time her whiny son would lust for anything not essentially his own, which was very often by the way. She then went on to make small talk with our mothers and let them know how bratty we were to Mausam AND her. So well... what do you expect any self respecting mother in a cloistered 4 building I-know-everything-you've-ever-done society to do? We got thrashed.

And as the theory goes, it takes crisis of some sort to throw up a leader. Destiny chose me and well!... that Wednesday afternoon all 9 of us sat down on the staircase of flat no. 608, the officer's colony. The plan was hatched... dates, time, players decided, roles delegated and put into action. The very next day!

Thursday afternoon
3:00 PM: 9 kids from 3 - 9 years, schooled, fed and eager for revenge

The pit: the roof top area above her flat. The roof tops happened to be a continuous space, as there were no walls separating this space between flats... our second play ground after the road between the buildings.

Target: 4 large pickle bottles, 2 single bedsheets full of rice and dal papads... laid out for drying.

Ammunition: 1. 8 pairs of adult size rubber slippers.
2. the guys with their peepee lazer guns

Course of events:
3:10: Mohalla women deep in the embrace of siesta, the bitch included.
3:15: Player 1 takes position. She happened to be a 4 year old, who could run really fast. Job was to guard the post that overlooked the enemy's den and let us know the moment the bitch steps out.
3:15.5: Player 2... oh sham!! everyone else just got on to the bedsheets full of papads and did a fine job of annihilating the crunchy to dust... aware all the time that the 'patt-patt' of the rubber against cement floor will wake her up any moment... my heart was beating in my mouth, as we tried to cover maximum ground over the papads... the patt-patt...crunch crunch working us into a mad frenzy.
3:15.5: Simultaneously 4 boys of the gang take out their peepee lazer guns and emptied their bladders into the large pickle bottles.
3:18: Player 1 runs back screaming
"Dideeeeee.....Dideeeeeeee.... thull gaya dalwajaaaa (Eng translation: The bitchy cunt's coming, run for life!)
3:18 onwards: mad run, scramble, scatter, scamper, scraped skins, run over each other, fall, laughing mad all the time... just somehow get down 2 floors from the other 2 stairs, on the roads and back home. You see moms generally slept so deep we were counting on them thinking we never left home.

And over and above all this... the shrill scream of ... "are ******, Haraam ke jano...******"

As expected, she did complain. And all of us said we had never gone out that day. Some still got thrashed, but then that was more like routine you-need-to-get-thrashed-once-a-week stuff. We had finally and truly emerged victorious.

That day on she never bothered us. She never complained to our parents or try to snatch our toys. Her son lived like an outcast. We never stopped making him miserable.

But you know what's the best part! The Mishras never threw the pickles away. All the salt and preservative must have rendered our endeavour ineffective... and so thank God for it. The bottles were still out and drying 1 day later, and one of the gang positively spotted them above the Mishra hearth a couple of months hence, during a Diwali sweet distribution errand.

Its been almost 20 years and I am still laughing. This event was actually a trigger for a series of planned mutinies we executed over the next 2-3 years. Needless to say I wish I could go back sometimes... just to feel the sun the way it did during the long afternoons we spent on the building roof. Very warm and so much home somehow.