Chutney Case

chutney 

n.

           a pickle of Indian origin, made from fruit, vinegar, spices, sugar, etc. mango chutney.

Chutney Case, that’s what I called her. The girl who ruined my primary school experience (especially my 2^nd standard). I still remember it was an English class. Nirmala Miss was teaching ‘Kutchu forgot his Glasses’ and suddenly the peon (Kasturi) comes and calls Nirmala Miss outside. So before going she called Pooja and asks her to ‘mind’ the class.

Pooja walks up to the teachers table where a wooden box neatly decorated with a blue color paper having pictures of flowers on it and named ‘CHAAK BOX’ (Chalk Box) was kept. She picks up a yellow chalk and writes in block letters on the board, ‘NAMES’ and underlines it with a curvy line.

The whole class went quite as soon as she wrote it because everyone knew that whosoever name would be on the board would have to taste ‘THREE HITS’ on the ‘KNUCKLES’ and had to ‘KNEEL DOWN, HANDS UP’ for the whole class. Nirmala Miss was another name for terror in the whole school.

I had already forgotten to do my last class’s homework and was trying hard to finish it now. In that rush I knocked my rubber which popped out my table and fell down behind my bench. So I turn back and pick it up. But what was terrifying was that my name was on the board.

I could see ’KIKO’ written in big jokerman handwriting below the heading ‘Names’. I got very angry because I was not talking so I call Pooja and say, ‘I wasn’t TALKING ya’.

‘Shut up man. I seeing you back turned’, she replied.

‘No ya, I not TALK at all. My RUBBER fall down ya, GOD PROMISE. Rub my NAME ya’, I said.

She was adamant. She started acting as though she was the  class leader. Technically I got pissed off and I scream, ’Oi STUPID, how many times I tell ya, I not talking. Rub my name or I tell everyone never ever, ever never talk to you. You MONKEY, DONKEY, IDI…’, before I could complete my sentence I could hear someone screaming out my name aloud.

By the voice, I could make out that it was pleasant. I look at the door and see a huge dark lady with black fat glasses. She had a waistline of 48’ and her teeth bunnied out with the front one half broken. She never looked pleased or happy. She was Nirmala Miss.

I knew she had heard the conversation and was not happy with it. She calls me to the teachers table. I could look at her grin and say that she was surely going to hurt me real bad. She takes out the iron scale from her attendance register and asks me to fist my hand. What succeeded were TEN HARD KNUCKLE SHOTS and a week full of KNEELING DOWN outside the class.

For one week everyone in the school saw a little kid kneeling down outside the class. I had become the topic of sympathy and that was like a candle of embarrassment for me. It burnt me from inside. I started hating POOJA. That was the last time I spoke to POOJA. I started calling her CHUTNEY CASE and spread the CHUTNEY CASE fever to the whole school. I started teasing her, gluing her books and every possible thing to make her cry. I made her life miserable in school. Three years later, her dad got transfer and she left the school. And in a due course of time CHUTNEY CASE was just a bitter memory. But I hated her to the core. I was her worst nightmare in the school. That was the story twelve years ago. A tale of HATRED and REVENGE.

Today morning I just signed into my Facebook account and found that I had a got a friend request from a girl named POOJA M. A click later I found out that it was CHUTNEY CASE.

What I’ve learnt: I just realized how dumb I had been. It was like the puzzle was complete. It was like a circle. Starting everything from the beginning. This world was so small for a heavy word like HATRED. And it is not peace that we should spread but love. Because today PEACE just means that you have a BIGGER STICK than the OTHERS. Spread LOVE and PEACE PREVAILS.


P. S. http://www.chutneycase.com/search?updated-max=2010-01-10T23%3A39%3A00%2B05%3A30&max-results=4


The REAL INSPIRATION...

Eat well sleep safe.. Take care.. Have a Nice Day.. Sayonara.. =)