Let’s Talk
“Hi, my name is JASON”. That’s what I used to say when I was in 2nd Grade in the school – And that’s what I say today when I’m in 2nd stage of my life. Yes, 2nd stage – working to earn, being married and having a kid. A wonderful thing about having a kid is that you get to catch an approximate action replay of your childhood. In the times when digital cameras didn’t exist, it must have been impossible for my parents to click pictures like that of my first day in this world and capturing videos like that of my first step I took without holding my mom’s finger. But along with the sweet memories, there are bitter memories as well. I remembered a bitter one while taking a walk one evening.
It was winter, so it was dark even at about 6.30 in the evening. While walking slowly in my own thoughts, I heard a familiar voice from behind a tree. It was my son’s. He must be sitting with his friends chatting so I decided to just walk off. But, fathers are always curious to know what their kids are doing, isn’t it? We, Indian fathers, don’t have to worry about privacy of our kids. So I went behind the tree just to find my son and two of his friends holding between their fingers, white and brown sticks burning at one end – yes, they were smoking. I was shocked to see my kid smoking and wanted to give him a slap, and I was just about to do that but didn’t want to create a scene in public. So I just walked off from there. On the way back home, my mind went into a flashback.
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I was kind of naughty during my school days. I remember when I was in 8th standard, during my first few days of the new class. We all were feeling ‘MAN’ as we’ve passed out our primary school and were in our secondary school. That attitude was clear in our behaviour – that looks towards small kids; calling them ‘Chhotu’; those whistles when we saw some pretty girl; the list is endless – some of them not even appropriate to talk about. I remember an incident, I’d tell you about it. We must all have seen people smoking – our father, some of our uncles and most of us our neighbours. I don’t know about you guys but I used to pretend as my pen was a giant cigar. For the boys who had some extra pocket money, a good option was there – sweets used to come in the shape of cigarettes in a box which had a picture of some American superhero – even parents didn’t mind it. I used to keep the pen in between my lips and teeth, and used to give the honour of becoming a cigarette lighter to my eraser – and then starts the throw of imaginary smoke from mouth, up above in the air. I had seen my neighbour doing it almost every time. He was a chain smoker (the term I came to know about later). I remember his sentence which he often used to repeat, “First fifteen days after the salary, its cigarettes; the later days of the month, bidis are always there. I don’t know how the word ‘Bidi’ evolved but it’s quite cheaper as compared to cigarette. For the price of one cigarette, you can get a whole bunch of Bidis. As I didn’t have any salary coming on any day of the month, the ecstasy of Cigarette was above imagination. So I chose Bidi – and that also the left over by my neighbour. I looked around a little to confirm that nobody was watching and mercilessly let my water bottle drop near the burning Bidi. I bent down to pick my water bottle, scrubbed the burning end of the Bidi on the floor just enough to blow out the burning part. Then I quickly put it in the pocket of my pants and started walking towards the school with a smile of achievement on my face. My friends could make out the sense of pride on my face and started asking about it. I told about it to a couple of them who were not kind of ‘Mama’s boys’ like the most of them. I had bought a match box from a grocery store on the way to school. It was for 25 paise – now that was like a plate full of my favourite junk food ‘Pani-Puri’. So we waited for the school to get over and then went to a far corner of the school play ground behind the trees. We were three of us. I took out the Bidi from my pocket and showed it to my friends with the pride as if I had won a gold medal in a quiz competition. I put it in between my lips. I lighted a match stick and covered the flame with my other hand as I had seen my neighbour doing it. Then I drew my face with Bidi between my lips towards the flame and lit the Bidi and sucked it harder and then threw out the smoke in the air. I had heard senior boys talking that when you smoke for the first few times, you cough. That didn’t happen to me. I must have mastered the trick practicing with my pen. One of the other guys did cough and didn’t dare to try a second puff. He was just worried about what if somebody told their parents and what if some teacher came down. And as soon as these ill words came out of his mouth, there was our sports teacher standing right above our heads. He pulled out the Bidi from my mouth and threw it away and slapped me with hundreds of words coming out of his mouth like – manners and parents and school and punishment and all sorts of things. I was so embarrassed or afraid or angry – it was difficult to make out the feeling at that time but the only thought came to my mind was how can he hit me? I’m now in secondary section and I’m not a half-pant wearing kid now. And in all those confused emotions the ‘F’ word came out of my mouth and I could only see another slap coming on my face. The rest is history. I don’t want to mention the punishment in the school; calling my parents to the school for my behaviour and the beating I got from my parents. I had read in some book about ‘Beginner’s luck’. I still don’t know why that luck didn’t favour me.
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When I reached home, my son was already waiting for me, expecting a shower of slaps coming on his face. So, I did my part. I walked straight up to him, put my hand around his shoulder and said, “Let’s talk.”
I’ve never heard of him smoking thereafter.
