Wonder Years

Awesome Little Devils

These were the days when, ceaseless dreams could manifest every cloudy moment of our lives. Perhaps it’s a kind of reminiscence which we can so ill afford these days. These scenes started invariably in the classroom after usual morning prayer sessions and dissolved with the eventual bong of the school bell, a familiar feeling which still carries on itself, with after-marks of the rush and rumpus, and ever sizzling in our minds. Audio cassettes (both pirated and genuine ones) used to rule our musical temptations in a way maggi had reigned our appetites or rather non-appetite for the usual cuisines. Days were kind of marked with conceited collection of trump-cards, magnetic-stickers of cricket players and comic-book heroes, which came wrapped with bubble-gums. Sometimes, we were able to find the card only after chewing the gum and it was eventually wrapped in gum spittle to our utter joy of discovery. He-Man and Complan pumped us with powers both figmental and futile. We used to kind of discuss the travails of superheroes at great lengths and contest on the most powerful ones (which would usually be each of our favourite one namely, Styro-Dhruv and himself, Shirin-Superman, Gamma-Nagraj, Shelly-Powerpuff Girls and Sigma- Doga). Selection and decision making systems for these contests were basically electoral and the majority usually won easily, discounting any sort of logical reasoning. 

                To make a drift towards our superheroes who made the morning sun dazzle bright although sans any discernable super-powers, these were Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro. Usually Shelly, Shirin, Gamma and Styro used to finish well within the top ranks while Sigma took care of the bottom five. Shelly and Styro aspired to be doctors while the rest were clueless about their ambitions with the except the likes of Sigma who wanted to replace Sachin in the Indian eleven. Sadly, he ended up replacing some unfortunate female of the States and works in a call-center these days. Gamma topped in either academics or in body fat content. He never could quite achieve both the things at the same time. Though he was a bit of animal lover, he habitually doted on chicken and mutton. Styro was armed with a much young looking birth certificate and he occasionally ended up messing with his own year of birth. Shilin kind of hated everything equally but his love for the language never died. Though he could never replace Gamma in either academics or corpulence, both of them enjoyed beating the hell out of Styro every moment. Shelly was one focused female who was genuinely worried about the explosions preceding sun’s white dwarf formation which was perhaps some billion years away, given it could easily gulp away our planet.What will we do then!!

                              Shilin used to idolize Rahul Dravid while Gamma revered Shane Warne (both his bowling and scams), when neither of them knew anything about real cricket. Yet they could endlessly go on debating about proper seam positions and cover-drives just to sink Styro. Vanity seemed to have developed its inadvertent roots in consumable popularity. The only ones who really played cricket were Sigma and Styro. Styro and Gamma also used to worship Nagraj and Dhruv in their attics. With zillions of comic-books they were a kind of Sith-lords for comic-book lending. Shilin had a bunch of Asterix-Obelix comic-books which neither he nor anybody else wanted in exchange. Time went on till these kids could evolve into boys and girls and the gross sins of the universe could then start materializing. Gamma had a heavy incessant laughing sequence which usually landed up the whole neighbourhood in trouble. His boisterous laughs used to portend some unusual punishments by the teachers. Most of his preys were recently transferred fellow students and certain perennial Jackasses. Sigma gradually perfected the art of conditioning anonymous calls to neighborhood girls. He used to be called the Pana-phoner. Shilin and Gamma tried to learn the trade of lying while Styro could perfect the gospel of illusion in the meantime. Hailed as Faadu-Samrat, he once recalled an anecdote of a smallish purple dinosaur coming out of an lunchbox sized UFO, which had landed in a dirty puddle in his locality, post midnight. And then again on the following day, he saved a cute puppy from drowning in quicksand, inside the same holy puddle. There is also a self-proclaimed true account of Styro of how he had hooked a cricket ball to hit a flying airplane, in a place called Dolumundai, Cuttack. Perhaps, Shelly was the only one who could keep her grace, modesty and exuberance intact over the years. And the only one to notice it at that instant was Styro, thanks to his young birth certificate.  No doubt Styro was unusually versatile in painting, singing, academics, fabricating incredible anecdotes and cricket, but unidirectional laws of attraction seemed to tether his other flairs. Emotions seemed to drool over time while the others found it quite entertaining. Gamma and Shilin were kind of anxious, while Sigma was confused as ever. Confusion and frustration led to permanence of a perpendicular hair style of Sigma which later led to his comparison with another magnificent being better known by the name of porcupine.Then there was a certain Lambda who was equally gifted in both corpulence and mawkishness. Emotions were kind of utterly-butterly reserved for only the fairer ones and an inception of any kind of attachment took him only an exchange of a few words. The prettier ones were in their comfort zone till they had divulged their telephone numbers (fixed land lines in those days). Then the King-kong of torrential emotions would let himself loose. He gradually developed one odd habit of repeatedly getting himself bereft of mobile numbers of his dreamy muses, and getting them back from his connects. If you are one of the fairer ones and you happen to be reading this, may God save you from him! The anecdotes could go on and on, but its better to keep some things under wraps, at-least for a while.
                                                  Meanwhile Styro, Shilin and Gamma were able to make seminal discoveries in the cyber world, all as a part of growing up. They made significant inroads in to the world of curses and offbeat movies. Once upon a time, Sigma once got caught red-mouthed while trying to be an anonymous entertainer of a pretty girl over telephone and he was promptly nicknamed by her as CDA Jhinka- the local equivalent of a porcupine. It was later learnt that someone had purposefully leaked Sigma's identity to that very girl,earlier that day, as she was supposed to be one of his first true loves. Days were closing in till Styro could make his existence matter with Shelly. Perhaps there were feeble incipient signals from the other end too. He discussed this matter at great lengths with his prime advisers namely Shirin, Gamma and Sigma, who unanimously advised him to blindly forge ahead. Sigma also fancied his chances post-rejection. As, this was the concluding year at school and they really wanted to have some serious amusement. Styro had to face an instant rejection serving to the delight and expectations of his usual audience. Strangely enough someone had said that though we cannot change the cards we are dealt, but we can change just how we play the hand. And a few years later, he got back his lady luck. Styro at that time had also helped develop what is popularly known as Clove Theory, the story of lost keys after an immediate exposure to a scientific journal with seriously inappropriate content. One time, Gamma was caught abetting one felony which involved guarding a promising wanton love schedule of a person known by the holy name of Ved. Unfortunately, Ved's activities were at the other extreme and this was the not the first time he was caught red-handed publicly, thanks to his dear paramours. Ved had incidentally promised Gamma of some settlement to be done with that girl, asking him not to allow anyone else to enter the classroom. The settlement ended up in complete notoriety with the blissful ignorance of innocent Gamma.  After that Gamma got baptized as The Jaguali, the colloquial for a watchman. Sigma later had a perky disappointment with a Perk bar he had chosen to gift someone with the name of Seona. He painfully gnawed eight perks after that incident took place.  A few months later, Shirin tried a vain proposition with one Maroon and had to face a miserable rejection. He never could quite recover after that. Gamma and Shirin were content with their lives at that point of time, much to their agonies later.They later became needless replacements for American automation system and were rechristened as software consultants. Shelly completed her dream of serving the society as a doctor along with the Styro. Sigma incidentally made his mark in the world of anonymous call-reception, popularly known by the name of business process outsourcing. Living their lives after being separated by vast geographical distances, they still exist inside one another heart, as pieces of poetic nostalgia. Had mobile telephony not been invented, they would have found it a little difficult, living those mellifluous memories again and again. Perhaps there is a Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro living in each one of us who tries to connect to the other.

Momentary glimpses of the past still foreshadow what future holds for each one of these. Still these characters continue to live in the present, at least in the happy framework of mind and ever transient dreams. Cheers!!

Disclaimer

All characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.