CHAPTER 4: Splash, Swish, Swoosh!

It is that time of the year when sporting multi-coloured nail paint on your finger and toe nails was not a doorway to the principal’s cabin.
Even showing off a pink facepack could not single you out from the assembly line.

My hair smells of slimy egg yolk, the ends of my teeth have stains of red gulal, and my head is still tizzy after downing tumblers of what I assumed to be ‘flavored milk’.

Two hours of ‘splash, swish and swoosh’ could turn a sparkling clean yellow petticoat into a potential rag to swab the floor.

Uncles, who usually wore a frown above their buttoned up shirts, needed no music to sway their coloured bodies after gulping down some adult pani puris.

Aunties, who generally discussed their house maids and mothers-in-law, continued to do so.

Colony boys marched into the warfront armed with dangerous weapons: eggs, bottles of urine, gutter water-filled balloons and evil grins.

It was during such moments, belonging to the ‘Kachcha Limbu’ gang, meant that you had to be prepared to be sidelined.

The big boys showed off their boyhood by putting their dangerous arms to use, which I heard Ruchi murmur to her friend “was meant to ‘patao’ us tuition girls.”

“Patao?” I wondered.

The girls giggled and screeched, while the boys attacked them without any shame.
They seemed to have a lot of fun, teasing each other and splashing balloons on one another.

Anu and I watched, wondering why we weren’t ‘pataod’.
Why were we left with pichkaris and water balloons all to ourselves?
What was it about the dangerous big boys that made all the Didis giggle from ear to ear?

“Would it also happen if I got rid of my yellow petticoat?” I thought.