Mere dost ke Bachpan ki yaadein

'Bachpan' - Most of us have very fond memories of this stage of our life. Even I have some fond memories of my 'bachpan'. But this post is not focussed on my childhood. Instead it is about one of the incidents in the life of my friend - PC. please don't mistake PC to be a Personal Computer. He is very much a mere mortal like you and me.

The other day, while returning from office, PC and me were waiting at the bus stop for the AC bus. And we started talking about our childhood. PC said that his parents have been liberal in using any and every means to hit him whenever he did anything wrong. (Kitni similarity hai usme aur mujhme... Are all parents alike? But we are not complaining.) One day, while in school, there was a class test of 10 marks, with minimum passing score as 5. Anybody who scored less than 5 was supposed to get their papers signed by their parents. Now PC hadn't studied anything and was all at sea. He decided to copy from his friend sitting next to him. When the scores were announced, PC's friend had scored 3 out of 10 and PC had scored 3.5 out of 10. Now PC was troubled... No, not because he had to get the paper signed from his parents. That was to come later. He was troubled and was trying to figure out how he managed to score more than his friend from whom he copied the answers. Failing to comprehend the reason, he decided to worry about the next problem at hand. And the next task was to get his parents signature on the paper. As usual, he got bashed for such a low score. The same was the case with his friend. The next day, both PC and his friend decided that they had had enough of beating in their life. They formulated a plan to run away from home. Staying near a harbour offered them an opportunity to build on their plan. They decided to run away and board a ship, become a cabin boy, sail the high seas for a few years, earn a lot of money and then come back home. The logic was that once they returned when they were grown up and with their hard earned money, nobody would beat them. Thus began an adventure... After returning from school, the guys packed all their clothes in their bag and left all the books out. Next day, they took this bag to school. Now the school had another rule - if you do not get a book for any subject, that teacher would punish you. So they both were punished throughout the day for the 8 subjects for which they did not carry any books. After school, having endured the punishment throughout the day, PC and his friend were hungry. Each one had Rs. 20 - Rs. 25 on him. They saw a 'thela' selling egg-roll. And they decided to have their full. Having finished a sumptuous meal, they realized that they had only Rs. 20 - Rs. 25 between them. Which means only half the amount of what they had when they started off from school in the evening. They had managed to overcome their hunger, but the exhaustion because of the day's proceedings was too much to handle. So they decided to chuck their plan as they were too tired. They decided to return back home, bag and clothes all intact, and implement this plan another day. A temporary halt in the execution of their dream... And currently, PC no longer harbours that dream. I am not sure about his friend. But this is not the end of PC's adventure.

Sometimes PC's parents would conduct surprise checks and check his bag. Fortunately or unfortunately, that was one such day. And that resulted in some more beatings... But I must say, children have tremendous endurance capability. After all, what else will you say when a child gets punished throughout the day, scraps his plan (a setback for the child's mind) and then gets beaten again at the end of the day. Hats off to PC...

Cut to the present - Both of us are working in the IT industry, trying to figure out what we want to achieve. :) Hopefully, this realization will dawn on us soon... Till then, keep smiling...