Tangent
Tangent’s entries
# 1
Today would be a red-letter day in my life. Hadn’t slept a wink over the last few days. Had bragged about it for days to friends ...... Doordarshan news had spent a full 5 minutes on this. The Hindu Newspaper ran special supplements .Shops offered special discounts….Newpapers were scoured. I memorise trivia , to impress friends ..Amma wakes up 5.00am prepares a tiffin carrier full of food…yes appalam is a must…I wake up at 5am too…a quick prayer to all Gods.(They know what I want to happen today)....quick mouthfuls of dosais..and an hour later in Pallavan bus No. 25B , along with a hundred other noisy people to make the one hour journey. To paradise. To Chepauk. To watch India play England. My first `live’ cricket match!
#2
The opposite apartment neighbors had moved out a month back. The new tenants were moving in next week. Heard that they had a kid my age. Just what I wanted..a friend.. I was real eager…I could play French cricket..run races ..play carrom board…have macho Phantom/Tarzan fights, Bombay Trade (the Indian version of Monopoly)…..I could get him to play driver/conductor and certain other inconsequential trival games that only a second-grade boy can understand…The move-in day came. Truck load of household stuff – green color steel cupboards…lots of noise…Nice family.
But…how was a 7-year old boy like me to understand that Kiran could be the name of a girl?
#3
It was the day when I was stepping into adulthood. I was moving from 5th standard into the 6th. Suddenly I was a big boy. Suddenly I realise the past years of toil..Suddenly,I have moved past the first seven years of schoollife. Suddenly from primary school into secondary school. And suddenly from science, the subjects became divided into physics, chemistry and biology…and language became second language and third-language.
It was all so sudden. It all changed - the first day when I wore uniform full-trousers instead of the short khaki-drawers.
#4
“You cannot even become a porter at a railwaystation!” – thus spake a furious appa, when we both realized at the same time, that I had missed a question ` Write an essay about a railwaystation’ in my first ever Hindi annual examination.
I swear that question wasn’t there when I saw the paper in the exam hall. I swear it wasn’t.
But I look back at it and smile…and it’s irony….I do work on the platforms… …it’s called windows, solaris.,…net…
#5
The depression caused much elation. It was in the Bay of Bengal! And on a school-working day. Avidly watching the news or hear the radio say beyond `telengana,rayalseema..' ` fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea'.. to blurt out that `schools would be closed'..that darkening skies and swirls of water and whooshing winds. The precise moment of pleasure occurred when the change from the school uniform into the non-uniform `colour'dress.
#6
It was Diwali day. We had more paper trash from the cracker-bursting than the apartments next door. Our crackers were louder… ..we had more fun..we had more trash....we won!
Until those ragpicking kids came. clothes.in tatters..searching for unburst crackers in our pile of papertrash…. their Diwali was yet to begin.
#7
It was always comparisons. Look at the upstairs kid..he's learning the tabla. Look at the kid downstairs..he has got more marks that you… look at your cousin..she has won a certificate in..Math Olympiad. Look at that kid in the next apartment block…he won a proficiency medal…he runs faster..she eats quicker... he wakes up earlier.…..it was always comparisons..Pity….. the kid did not know how to compare his parents against others.
# 1
Today would be a red-letter day in my life. Hadn’t slept a wink over the last few days. Had bragged about it for days to friends ...... Doordarshan news had spent a full 5 minutes on this. The Hindu Newspaper ran special supplements .Shops offered special discounts….Newpapers were scoured. I memorise trivia , to impress friends ..Amma wakes up 5.00am prepares a tiffin carrier full of food…yes appalam is a must…I wake up at 5am too…a quick prayer to all Gods.(They know what I want to happen today)....quick mouthfuls of dosais..and an hour later in Pallavan bus No. 25B , along with a hundred other noisy people to make the one hour journey. To paradise. To Chepauk. To watch India play England. My first `live’ cricket match!
#2
The opposite apartment neighbors had moved out a month back. The new tenants were moving in next week. Heard that they had a kid my age. Just what I wanted..a friend.. I was real eager…I could play French cricket..run races ..play carrom board…have macho Phantom/Tarzan fights, Bombay Trade (the Indian version of Monopoly)…..I could get him to play driver/conductor and certain other inconsequential trival games that only a second-grade boy can understand…The move-in day came. Truck load of household stuff – green color steel cupboards…lots of noise…Nice family.
But…how was a 7-year old boy like me to understand that Kiran could be the name of a girl?
#3
It was the day when I was stepping into adulthood. I was moving from 5th standard into the 6th. Suddenly I was a big boy. Suddenly I realise the past years of toil..Suddenly,I have moved past the first seven years of schoollife. Suddenly from primary school into secondary school. And suddenly from science, the subjects became divided into physics, chemistry and biology…and language became second language and third-language.
It was all so sudden. It all changed - the first day when I wore uniform full-trousers instead of the short khaki-drawers.
#4
“You cannot even become a porter at a railwaystation!” – thus spake a furious appa, when we both realized at the same time, that I had missed a question ` Write an essay about a railwaystation’ in my first ever Hindi annual examination.
I swear that question wasn’t there when I saw the paper in the exam hall. I swear it wasn’t.
But I look back at it and smile…and it’s irony….I do work on the platforms… …it’s called windows, solaris.,…net…
#5
The depression caused much elation. It was in the Bay of Bengal! And on a school-working day. Avidly watching the news or hear the radio say beyond `telengana,rayalseema..' ` fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea'.. to blurt out that `schools would be closed'..that darkening skies and swirls of water and whooshing winds. The precise moment of pleasure occurred when the change from the school uniform into the non-uniform `colour'dress.
#6
It was Diwali day. We had more paper trash from the cracker-bursting than the apartments next door. Our crackers were louder… ..we had more fun..we had more trash....we won!
Until those ragpicking kids came. clothes.in tatters..searching for unburst crackers in our pile of papertrash…. their Diwali was yet to begin.
#7
It was always comparisons. Look at the upstairs kid..he's learning the tabla. Look at the kid downstairs..he has got more marks that you… look at your cousin..she has won a certificate in..Math Olympiad. Look at that kid in the next apartment block…he won a proficiency medal…he runs faster..she eats quicker... he wakes up earlier.…..it was always comparisons..Pity….. the kid did not know how to compare his parents against others.
posted by ammani at 2:38 AM
6 Comments:
All the stories were real crisp and clear.. The entries which had a twist at the end would always inspire me.. I am quite biased to such entries..
I wud vote as below
1. Ram - (Bicycle Rider followed by the Bargain and then by Hide and Seek)
2. Varun
3. Tangent - #2, #6, #3 and #5.
my vote for prize three goes to story 7 - so true!
I rate Chenthil's story and Kasturi's story titled "God" as joint number 1. 2.5 points each. I like both stories for their simplicity in bringing out human emotions and social irony respectively.
Third place to the Cyclewaala story by Tulsi.
My vote goes to story written by Tangent especially the 2,4 and 7. Way to go
Renuka
Story 7 pleasse:)
Tangent's stories nos. 2, 4,and 7 get my vote for their play on words, ad the situatios--so familiar. But one thing, call it a sequel to story #7--these days, the kids very well know the art of comparing other parents to theirs---"How come we don't go to Switzerland in the summer?" "Why can't I have a cellphone(with camera, mind you)?" "Do you know, the so-and-sos have got an automatic transmission car!"
Kids are much more adept at it than parents!
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