Oh brother!

It’s that time of the year when I have to go through the pain of filing my taxes and as usual I am late. I finally get my Income Tax statement from the accounts department and am very happy to see that my IT deduction is in manageable figures. This means that ‘me’ the severely Income Tax challenged person has done all the right things this year. I show the statement with a touch of pride to my eldest brother. He glances through it and frowns. “Something is amiss here. Why are you paying so much tax?” He asks quizzically. My smile dries up.

Suddenly from nowhere my nemesis, also known as second elder brother (SB) scoops up the statement from my unsuspecting eldest brother’s hand and gleefully glances through it, his smile growing wider and wider with each column he surveys. He gleefully turns around and says loudly for everyone in the vicinity to hear.

“You know what? You forgot to claim depreciation for your brains!!!!”

grrrrrrrrrrr

Now a word about this creature I call my brother. I am supposed to call him ‘chetan’ (elder brother) as he is three years elder to me. But I have steadfastly refused to do that since childhood because that honor is reserved for my eldest brother ONLY!!! And that is because he has earned that honor by NOT pulling my hair, sneaking spiders / cockroaches into my study table drawers, scaring the hell out of my friends by suddenly jumping out of nowhere wearing a gorilla mask and being a major pain throughout my growing years. So, much to my SB’s chagrin I made it a point to call him by his given name. Of course we ( me and friends) had devised other names for him too, which I shall reveal not here, in case there are children below 12 years reading this post. I don’t want to get into trouble with the Expletives Censor Board.

Of course like most hardened criminals ( read ‘annoying elder brother’), he too has his moments when he felt a twinge of repentance and sorrow for the horrendous crimes against humanity ( read ‘younger sister and friends’ ) At such times he would remorsefully try to make up for his misdeeds by treating me to an icecream, or to a ride on his precious motorcycle seriously jeopardizing his love life and my limbs. Of course my suggestion that I print a short message on the back of my T Shirt announcing that I am his sister to clear the doubts of his adoring fans (read ‘gals who don’t bother to look at him’) was greeted with enthusiasm. His enthusiasm soon dried up when he saw the caption.

“I am the sister of the bozo driving this junk”

As me and my friends grew up, so did his pranks. Consider this.

School Graduation Day!

Seven girls in the my house trying on the ugly purple saree that Sister Principal had made mandatory for all of us to wear for the ceremony. Of course being girls we decided to start getting ready at least three hours before the event!!! Not that tying an ugly purple saree requires three hours, but gals will be gals I guess. Finally mascara’ed, powdered, lipstick’ed, perfumed and saree’ed we were ready on time. SB gallantly offered to drop us (I must have lost my senses to have accepted his offer)

We get into the car one by one, gingerly picking up our sarees and sitting down carefully so that we arrive mint fresh at the school auditorium. Suddenly SB’s phone rings. He pulls over, gets out of the car and talks leisurely for a good ten minutes. Then, ignoring the anxious stares of seven pairs of eyes gets into the car casually and we resume our journey. Then he pulls over again. This time to check non-existent punctures on the tyres. After a thorough check of ten minutes or so of our precious time coolly ignoring the frantic pleas of his passengers and hyperventilating sister, he again gets into the car and we are off. We check our watches; we are going to be 20 minutes late!!! My friend Nina suggests to SB that he step on the accelerator to make up for lost time. He does …….and we start crawling at 30 miles per hour!!! I look at him horrified. However SB is unmoved. He says there is something wrong with the car. This was no occasion for a joke, besides we were horribly late and I could imagine an auditorium full of girls and the faculty sitting grimly waiting for us to arrive. I feel tears pricking my eyes. The urge to call Mom and bawl was too tempting.

I suggest that we take an auto. The suggestion is turned down, as the thought of sitting in a windy auto and keeping our appearances and sarees intact was a physical impossibility. Finally with a car full of wailing, cursing and groaning passenger SB drives into the college a good half an hour late! The girls pour out, pick up their sarees to make a dash for the auditorium, when SB remarks casually:

“ Oh by the way…..Sister Ann called. She said the Graduation Ceremony is delayed by one hour, due to VIP movement on your college road!”

I leave the rest to your imagination dear bloggers. Of course the car was already reversed engine running, driver in seat with leg firmly on accelerator before he let out that earth shattering revelation!

This guy is Marquis De Sade personified. I mean even the good Marquis would be proud of the refined and painful torture that we were put through that graduation day. I mean no blood, no gore, no broken bones or other grisly sights that you see in torture scenes in movies. Just plain, undiluted, sadistic, torture for the years we let out air from his mobike tyres, complained about him to my Dad, stole his hair gel, CDs, keychains, mobile for furtive SMS’s, sneaked about him to mom etc. etc. etc.

Today is this descendent of Hitler and Goebbels's birthday. And on his birthday I would like to say:

Happy Birthday Cheta!!

However having said all that I must admit, that carrying my pink school bag with matching water bottle to the school van everyday during my Primary School years, takes lots of guts. And teaching me to swear in Malayalam and Kannada also takes lots of guts. Because when Dad heard me saying “Poda patti” (dog!!!) he wasn’t amused. But then the very next day you taught me to say “nayinde mon” ( son of a dog).

Never say die right? ( that's his credo)