Toy joy

I keep revisiting my childhood every now and then. My classmates tell me I should’ve been in the kindergarten. Not that they think I am that dumb, I hope. Frankly, I myself would prefer a kindergarten class. But my school won’t take me back. The principal thinks I am too pervert and could elope with the class teacher who was apparently my junior in school!

I had toys of many kinds. No no, not those white candle-like things lined up on the stalls at Flora Fountain market! I speak of real toys as in the khilauna from the film khilauna. Real toys that people play with…when they are kids of course! Ya so, I had these Lego blocks with which one can build all kinds of things and even the ‘bunglow’ that the cover talks about. It has a story behind it, connected to it. It seems I was down with measles and was coming back from a shot in my buttocks when I pointed at this thing in the glass case of a toyshop and my dad got it for me, not wanting to deny the wishes of his ill son probably because I got almost all of the stuff I played with when I fell ill!

Many of those tiny building bricks, I chewed away into oblivion. The remnant, debris I would like to call it, were given away to a charity cum nursery school in the neighbourhood. But as luck would have it, we feel in the sudden need for the blocks again and the school having grown rich with donation funds and other moneys, I was left nowhere, marooned alone in a heartless land where no one could lend me their building blocks even for a day! Boo hoo!

So there I was, looking up the shelves of toyshops and asking them if they have that kind of games in stock anymore. May be advanced versions, costlier of course, but the same kind. I had this mental picture of them thanks to my taste buds.

Two shops were utter disappointments. I asked to see an apple, they got me a watermelon! Bah! But I wouldn’t let go of it that easily. I just had to have it. My building blocks.

The third shop. I tell them what I want. They go inside, turn shelves like those goons do in Don, the older one and get an armful of game sets coated with a thin cake of dusty. As he reaches me, the guy plunks a heavy duster onto the topmost set sending me rubbing my eyes and sneezing like I had just sniffed some snuff.

When my head was back onto my shoulders, I looked through the pile. No, this one I saw there. Damn. Ok, not this. Oh…naah, too much for this little. And then…there it was!

My building blocks! The cove said, Baby Play Town- For creative and imaginative building play. Thinking of ginger, I reached out to touch it. It wasn’t born out of wishful thinking. It really was there!

I lifted the lid. There they were. Chintu. All small. All coloured, multi-coloured. Three set of wheel, a few doors and windows. I called out to mom to come and see my blocks. Amma…I said. Ew, would I cry? Did I cry? I don’t know. But I paid, got out and walked back home happier, much happier than I had left home for it. I got my building blocks. I was happy. Perhaps happier than a kid would be to have those tiny little building blocks.

A sopping ishtory

Girlie took me shopping today. I thought I would look up stuff for myself while she was getting quality threads for herself, but as it turned out…Bandra’s Link Road only had bales and spools for the fairer sex. Hence, here I was in a shop that deals exclusively in women’s fancy western wear like many other shops in our island city.

Over-powered by the urge to sit, I posted myself on a chair, which actually turned out to be a vantage point from where I could just see things, as they were heppening oh, happening.

A huge punjabun rolled in with her two daughters – both past marriageable age, but still in dainty frills. They seemed to be looking for something, their eyes flying all over the shop like flying saucers in the Praire skies. The elder daughter was saying that she had liked something that she had seen here earlier and couldn’t remember what it was and couldn’t sight it now. They buzzed behind the stool I was perched on, even as I saw the shopkeeper look mouth wide upon as big as a yawning hippopotamus’ look at the India SA match. The younger one was prying into a pile of clothes a little away but soon cam prancing by holding something smaller than the half of a normal-sized dupatta and almost as sheer. “Mumma…mummy.” Probably taking her selection to the Home Fashion Inspector and moral conduct supervisor for approval. The elder one was still looking for that something. The mother, now concerned that her daughter had fallen victim to some obsessive compulsive shopping disorder tried to help by saying, “You saw here?” (Kindly note that ‘here’ sounded more like ‘hey-err’ the Punjabi way of saying ‘here’. I would love to attend a fun fay-err in Punjab!)

Other wannabe participants from ghoulish beauty pageants sashayed in and out all the time that I was seated on that stool. They wanted this and that and the salesmen were patiently tugging at the products from the shelves behind them and spreading them onto the table in front of the customers who looked and pointed more at the shelf rather than checking out what the salesman had laid out for them! “Woh dikhaana, woh…nahi nahi…uske upar waala, haan wahi.” Lips pouted, eyes prowling, some ruminating chewing gum.

Enthusiastic shopping partners had their arms akimbo with an eyebrow stuck up at the North Pole…”Ya, this one’s better (giggle) that one made you look a little fat.”

Suddenly another sound invaded the air. “Mera black sweater uske paas kaise aaya?” Madam, who identical piece hai.

A team of huge ladies was on their way out. They thought it was funny to mutter allowed that the cricket-loving shopkeeper was growing kanjoos because he wouldn’t give them a discount. One of them was floating a desire to gain tips to hide fat, when another one said, “Jo chhupaane ki koshish karte ho, who hamesha dikh jaata hai. Well, that’s one wise quip that even applies to real life and not just to extra tyres around the tummy.

And then there was this forty-something aunty who was trying a noodle-strap top over her spotless white shirt. She poked both her arms throw the gaping holes for the arms, drew the material over her head, thrust her breasts in front, almost poking the mirror. (Shit, why can’t she use the trial-room?) Finally when the top was in place, she started checking herself out in the mirror as if posing for retro-style photographs the first one with her chin up, then chin down, then to the left and then to the right. All of them straight out of a primary school PT exercise drill.

Bird watching is otherwise such a pleasurable activity. But this was different. It felt like being stranded in a I^st class ladies compartment! It’s like being inside a library of bestsellers. There’s so much of it together, in one place that you don’t know which one to read first. Saturation point?

Girlie, who initially thought it very uncouth of me not to help her make her decisions about the jeans, has decided that she would take me shopping again apparently because I patiently waited through the entire selection and trial process without major fuss.

In all, it was a great experience (THE right way to end essays according to English subject teachers in school).