Kindness

 "Tell me about when you were a kid," Omi said to his mom.

He never slept without listening to a story or two. His mother was a good story teller a lot better than his father whose story always started the same way - "there was a boy and he went to a shop or market or some place," and then he dozed off.

His mother however was like a library she had lots of interesting stuff to tell. Omi liked to hear about her childhood. It was starkly different from his and that is what made it more interesting. He wished he could get teleported to the time and place when his mother was a kid in Harimath to see for himself what it was like. He wanted to meet Bunty the bird killer, an expert in killing birds with his catapult.  "He made the best catapults,"  his mother had told him, "with wooden sticks and rubber strips carved out from discarded bicycle tires."

The slow whirr of the AC and the pitch dark room made the perfect setting for imaginations and stories and he always wanted to hear stories before he went to sleep. His mother liked to pull pranks and tease him before she started with the good stuff. He didn't really mind the teasing as long as it was short.

"You know I still remember that day, when we went for a drive and you spotted a couple of filthy pigs," His mom said.

He sensed the tease in her voice and braced himself for it.

She started laughing way before she uttered, "Oh how excited you were you shouted COWS! COWS! Look mom COWS!"

"Aaaaaaaa...." Omi cried, "I wanted to hear about your childhood,"

"Okay Okay Omi I don't know what to tell you there are just so many things. It is difficult to choose,"

"Tell me a spooky experience you had when you were a kid," said Omi, "Like ghosts or something like that,"

"Hmm, I am not sure if I have met ghosts but I had a spooky experience once in my life. I must have been about twelve then and I remember it was summers because my Massi - my mother's younger sister, carried a pitcher of cold water for us when we went to spend a day in the hut.

Okay. Let me start from the beginning. It was a bright summer morning. And I was wearing my favorite blue frock dotted with tiny pink flowers. Massi  told me we have to go to the fields near the dilapidated run down godam – a storage facility located at bank of river Dho.

We took a pitcher of cold water and some boiled chickpeas drizzled with sesame oil, garlic flakes and fresh green coriander with us for lunch.

"What about a water bottle from refrigerator? Who carries a pitcher?" Omi chuckled.

"There were no water bottles and no refrigerator in our home the only electrical item we had was my grandpa's old Philips radio set – his prized possession,"

"It means you never played any video games or watched TV?"

"Nope,"

"Life must have been really bad,"

"No it was not. We played a lot of games and had lot of friends,"

"What did you play?" Omi asked.

"Games that you won't understand because you haven't played any of them, like chor police, gilli danda, marbles,"

"I know chor police, I played it once with kids in the park," Omi said proudly.

"You know we were so strong and healthy because we played a lot not like you sitting in front of desktop all day everyday,"

"Aaaaaaaa....why are you saying that? Just focus on your story," Omi cried.

"What would you do during long summer afternoons when you couldn't go out?" Omi asked.