Part 2: The Blue Worm
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We had a red zero watt bulb put up in our bedroom because Dad thought I would be afraid of the dark. The red bulb creeped me out more with it's horror atmosphere than pitch black darkness. I used to have nightmares regarding Giant Ants coming and banging on the bedroom door asking me for the sugar I stole from the kitchen, complete with an eerie red aura around them.
It was around that time when my brother left Saudi Arabia to pursue his studies in India. I was too small to understand what migration was, and once I asked my mom where he went to. My mom, being a dramatic person, said, "He has gone to a happy place. He would be very happy there." She used to watch a lot of melodramatic television serials and I watched them too, along with her. So when she said this simple sentence, I took it in the metaphorical sense. I thought my brother died and my parents were covering it up so that I won't be sad.
I cried a few days after that. I missed his presence in the house; his last minute food hacks, for instance, he used to feed me rice and ketchup when I felt hungry; I missed him locking me up in a suitcase and giggling for hours after that. He wasn't sadistic, he was just a different level of awesome.
Those days communication was restricted to just one call per week. My parents never gave me the phone even if they called him, so I never got to know his whereabouts. You can't blame me. I watched way too many serials for my age.
It was until I visited India two years later I realised he was alive.
I was euphoric.
He continued locking me up in suitcases for a good number of times though.
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Primary Section wasn't as eventful. We had different buildings for lower classes those days. So the new building was like a breath of fresh air.
I am not the fighter type. But I do get into some. And when I do, my parents would have a field day chasing me around the house and knocking some sense into my head. Usually with a belt. Or a cane.
One such incident happened in first standard. There used to be this girl in my bus who always brought chicken nuggets to school and ate it early morning in the bus. I usually got out of the house with nothing except sick smelling milk in my tummy, and the sight of chicken nuggets in the morning used to drive my hunger pangs crazy. We were on good terms, the girl and I but, we fought one day, pretty bad.
The next day she brought chicken nuggets filled with cheese that smelled like murder. She teased me about it too.
She knew how to take revenge.
So did I.
Three hours later, my class teacher rushed into my room asking for me and I sat there looking innocent.
Field Day.
My crime? Strangling a girl who an even tinier version of Pikachu, because she refused to give me those mouth watering chicken nuggets filled with cheese, over some stupid fight. Location, her classroom. Witness: Her class teacher.
I can't believe I had the guts to do something like that.
She deserved it at the time though.
Six years later, I apologised for my irrational behaviour, because she ended up being my classmate, and I was always kind to my fellow classmates, unless of course, they refuse to give me chicken nuggets.
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Once I got blamed for something I have no idea about and suffered greatly for it.
I fought with another girl and she ended up drawing in her Maths book, writing my name in it and blaming it on me. The teacher believed her obviously, which was pretty illogical when I think about it now. Why would I draw on someone's book and write my name there? Being me, I would have tied her up, set her book on fire and make her watch it burn. I would have gladly taken the blame.
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Thinking back about it, I always had issues with girls, whereas even though the boys I befriended were absolutely idiots, but they taught me how to play pen-fight, thumb-wrestling and odd-or-even, which was productive in the long run, seriously. For instance, years later I babysitted a few boys they absolutely adored me because I odd-or-evened with them.
I fought with boys too. Rarely.
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Our school was pretty cool, when I actually sit down and think about it. Primary and Upper Primary students had lot of tiny competitions that brought their skills. Good ones too; we had a 'Mental-Maths' and 'General Knowledge' test every month, and if we get above 15 on 20, we get good looking certificates, the thick kind proper ones, not paper. We used to have hand-writing competitions and I won once in first standard, my Mom used THAT to motivate me in twelfth grade, as if that was going to make my life easier. We had 'Talent Shows', the only thing the entire school looked forward to the entire year, because they showed us the auditions too, and it was pretty cool to see kids come and outshine the others and it was pretty awesome to see kids come and disgrace themselves. I had nothing to lose because belonged to the audience. My mom used to irritate me, asking me to go onstage and sing, or dance; SOMETHING.
"Look at Her! ( referring to the neighbour's daughter) She doesn't know how to dance, yet she tries. Why can't you?"
I wasn't the shy type, but like I said, I don't like disgracing myself in front of people before my talents developed, and my talents were on Level Minus Seventeen then. But I have embarrassed myself pretty often, for someone who thinks things like this at that age.
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I migrated at the end of second year. My parents thought migrating me India for a while was bound to teach me some discipline, which wasn't happening obviously in Saudi Arabia.
And so I went to the Carmel Girls Higher Secondary School, in Trivandrum, Kerala. To solve my mom's issue with me not participating on on-stage events and staying strictly off-stage, I decided to go for a group song. They weren't there to see it though. I learnt a few good prayer songs, lyrics all messed up, which I used again back in Saudi, to gain popularity. I was a day-scholar, means I could come and go from my home; opposite of a 'hosteler'. I stayed with my dad's brother and wife. I used to go to school in an auto-rickshaw, along with a bunch of other kids.
I just stayed there for six months or something, because by then my parents missed me, and I was going nowhere with the discipline thing.
And so I went back.
The rest of Third Grade.
In Saudi Arabia.
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Coming up next:
Part 3: Migrations
-The Violet Woman
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