Always listen to Chiju

"Polaam da (Lets leave man)", Arvind said. "Its getting late. We'll play tomorrow."

"Only one game", I insisted. "We were not able to play this evening and we'd not be able to play till monday."

"Its already dark. We won't be able to spot the ball", he argued.

"That's ok. Only one game na?", I wouldn't let go.

We were at Rajeesh's place, stopped by to drink water, on the way back from tuition. We did not have Hindi tuition on weekends. It was just another tuition my mom tried out with no other rationale other than getting me to like the subject a little. I was in fourth standard and Hindi, especially grammar was a pain in all the wrong places.

My idea of Hindi tuition meant fun with Rajeesh, Nithin and Arvind (he got 95% the last exam and suggested the idea, little did he know that the problem was me and not any teacher). Every evening Arvind used to walk to my place, I joined him there and the next stop was Rajeesh's house. I made sure that we reached his house at least half an hour early to celebrate Cricket Time! I never knew that they were actually going to learn Hindi.

After a long and unsuccessful attempt of convincing, I gave up. We came out of the house, and as we started to walk, I said, "Let's take the forest route da,".

"Are you mad? Its too dark", he was stern.

Yet another round of argument and finally I said, "Ok. You go this way. I'll come through the forest. We'll meet in the next lane", and started walking towards the other direction. He called behind me and warned me, but why would I listen?

By forest, I am talking about a big deserted piece of land connecting two lanes. It was left unattended, so was covered with big, dense bushes with only a narrow pathway through which we used to walk. At that age, doing such a thing meant heroism to me. I'd go home and say, "I walked via the forest today! How brave am I!"

I know what all of you are thinking (at least people who know about my one actual fear). But, nothing happened in the forest that day. I walked through it as usual and reached the next lane. I was sure Arvind was walking in the perpendicular lane and would reach the meeting point in no time for mine was the longer route.

My aim was to reach there sooner. The reasons being, one, I wanted to reach before him and two, the street lamps were all out in that lane. It was pitch dark. Now, I was a hero, but can't take on darkness because I'm tired from the forest adventure. I wanted to run, but wasn't sure. I was bad at running too (I was not fat back then; just a bad runner).

I started to panic and decided to run. Immediately I thought I saw a couple of small, glowing balls in the air, but I did not want to stop or check, I kept running. Suddenly, I heard a breathing noise (hmph hmph hmph.. in CAPITALS) behind me. As I was running, I turned to see a fully grown Doberman chasing me. Its wrath gave me the assurance that its going to taste my leg that evening. I would definitely say that of all the running in my life, that day was my personal best.

I did meet Arvind, but the scene was a little different. He was running behind me yelling, "Chiju Chiju Chiju. Don't run", and me running even harder as if he was the dog. I did not stop until I reached my house. I was panting so badly that it took more than an hour for me to explain it to my sister and mom. Arvind had to stay there until I completed it, just to check if I was bit by the dog or not.

That idiot went home late anyway that day; he might as well played a game of cricket. I'd have not thought about walking through the forest. Of course, I never stepped in there from then. Hence the proof.

PS: Its Arvind's birthday today (06/08) and I wrote him a testi in orkut, before which I read the one he had written about me, for my last birthday. He has mentioned it there and this funny scene came to my mind.
Happy Birthday again da!