Tuesday 18 March 2008

Hey Ram!


It was Sunday and I was reading a book, suddenly there was a jarring noise of a truck under our building. When I went to my balcony I saw that it indeed was a truck. It was full of furniture and few men were lifting and placing them down on the ground.

Mom came to the balcony and said “I guess the furniture is of our new neighbours who were to come today!”

They were quite a young couple, as if they were just married. They came to our house to ask some water and my mother, who eagerly waits to receive guests, had her wish fulfilled. She gave them water, made and packed food for them so that they wouldn’t have to prepare it after all the hard work of shifting their house.

After completing her hospitality she came back and told me “They are Mr and Mrs. Menon and they have a son named Ram who is just five years old!”

I asked her where their son was and she replied that he was at his grandfather’s place and they’ll bring him here once they have settled with all the furniture.”


My mother is more talkative than what I am. She was eagerly waiting for the new neighbours and now that she has got them, she doesn’t leave them alone. I wondered how the little boy Ram would be like. I imagined his character a couple of times and created him as an obedient and a cute little kid and garnished him with the usual mischief that children do. But never ever had I thought that he would be a devil, until he came to stay with his parents after a few days. A kid whose name was Ram with a character which did not suit his name at all.

Initially he did not speak to anyone and would just run away to his mother when someone called him to them. He became so familiar with my mother that it looked as if they knew each other since long time. She pampered him a lot by giving him lots of chocolates and this guy used to take advantage of her pampering.

Once my mother went to the terrace, I was in my room and I had closed the door but did not bolt it. While I was busy reading, I saw a little shadow come into the room and thought it must be mother who came back from terrace, but when I peeped through the door, it was Ram! He was walking around the kitchen slowly and went to the place where the chocolates are kept. He looked here and there, seeing no one around took a handful of them, put them in his pocket and ran away. I was shocked with what I saw at that moment.

Few minutes later, I saw my mother and him coming back together. Ram innocently asked my mother pointing towards the chocolate box “Aunty… chocaate!” and my mother readily opened the box just to see that there were hardly a few of them left in it. At that very moment she looked at me and said “You are eating a lot of chocolates these days. Are you a kid to eat chocolates?” I was surprised again and when I looked at the thief, he gave me a devil’s smile!

Once when I returned from college, Ram was playing with a little girl under the building. As I was climbing the stairs, I saw him kissing the girl on her cheek!


When I met him, I asked him “Dude! What on earth were you doing to the girl?”
And he replied “I saw Papa doing that to mamma yesterday before going to office and I was playing ‘House and Office’ with the girl and we had to behave in the same way our mamma and papa behave!” I was flabbergasted with that reply.

He used to run around the building, knock on people’s doors, ring their bells in the afternoon when everyone was taking rest. Once he hit a boy with a cricket bat while playing. People used to advise him, scold him and try everything to lessen his mischief, but he used to show his tongue and run away!

Once when old Thomas uncle who stayed on the first floor was sleeping, Ram was playing on the same floor and was shouting at the top of his voice. Thomas uncle got disturbed and came out and scolded Ram. When he went back to sleep, he forgot to bolt his door from inside. Getting the opportunity, Ram crept into his house, took his spectacles which were kept on the table and ran away. He went on the building terrace and threw them down. Next I know is the scene where Ram’s father giving brand new spectacles to Thomas uncle.


One evening when I came back from a friend’s place and parked my vehicle, I saw Mr. Sharma sitting on his scooter looking really depressed. I asked him what the problem was. He told me someone pulled out the air from the tyres and he urgently wanted to go somewhere. He told me that not only his, but each and every vehicle in the building was without air in their tyres! I asked him if he suspected anyone and he back answered me back instantly “Who else could it be other than that little brat!”

Again, the next scene that I saw was Ram’s mother going to each and every house in the building and personally apologizing for her son’s mischief. Ram was a good boy for a whole one week, but after that one more incident took place. Mrs. Mehta had kept a bhajan at her place and had invited everyone in the building to attend it. Though I was not interested, I had to go as Mrs. Mehta had a beautiful daughter!


When I entered the house and looked for her daughter, I couldn’t find her anywhere but I saw the little devil standing near the statue of God. I called him near me as I did not want him to touch the sweets that were kept near the statue. He refused to come to me and ran away elsewhere. When the bhajan was over and everyone turned to go back, they saw that the door was locked… from outside! I immediately smelt something fishy and looked for Ram and found him not to be anywhere in the house. Ram’s mother was very embarrassed at this mischief. We were locked inside the house till evening, as each and every member of the building was at Mrs. Mehta’s place other than my father who had to go to the station to pick my aunt. He came back and opened the door which was bolted.
We were locked in the house for almost three hours. I was feeling really awkward with so many aunties around me and cursed that little brat for doing this.

Thomas uncle used to go for a stroll on the terrace every evening. He did the same that day too and sat on the bench after his walk. He did not know that Ram was hiding under the bench and waiting to experiment his next prank on him. Thomas uncle closed his eyes and dozed off and at the same time, Ram tied the laces of his shoes to each other from under the bench. When Ram got up to run away, Thomas uncle opened his eyes; he felt a strong pain in his chest and struggled with himself on the bench itself. Ram turned around and saw that he felt unconscious on the ground. He immediately ran towards Thomas uncle and tried to wake him up, then
he ran down to some people who were chatting outside their house and said “Thomas uncle unconscious on terrace! Please come, please come fast!” but no one listened and just ignored him thinking that he was upto some new prank.

He came to my place and pulled me from my chair and told me come to the terrace. I pushed him and asked him to get lost as I was busy with something and did not have time for any of his tricks on me, but then he started crying! Then I thought there is something really serious or else he would not cry, in fact none of the people in the building has seen him crying ever. I went with him and when I reached the terrace, I was Thomas uncle lying on the ground as if he was dead. I rushed down and called other people who came up and took Thomas uncle to the hospital. After a few hours, the news came that Thomas uncle was alright and could come back home.


We all had a sigh of relief and on that day the little devil had become the hero for everyone. The ones, who did not listen to him when he called them, came up to him and apologized. He raised his collar and with an attitude, told them “Never mind guys, mistake forgiven!” ;-)


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

mujhe comment box nazar nahi aaya :P

Sukalyan said...

Dude, kiss the guy on behalf of me for doing all that stuffs!

Or you can ask the beautiful girl of that bhajan family to do the honours!

Unknown said...

looks like he had more fun in his five years than most ppl do in their entire lives!

Nice blog!

Unknown said...

Cute kid and his pranks were worth reading
Moreover he is smart enough to know when and where to draw the line

:) said...

Definitely entertaining :)

Ritesh said...

ha ha ha good one [:)]

Vindictive said...

awww..that kid is adorable.Reminds me of my elder brother.He used to be a pain in the arse to for the neighbors!

And his tactics are brilliant lol! creative he is at menaces.The paraphrasing is commendable.:)