- Funny Version -
Illustration by Lore Pemberton
I’ll be dividing it into two parts: Improvisation and Fun “Games” & Lit
Like I said my pressure is pretty low so please ignore all the errors… I’m not boasting but when I was around 8-9, I was extremely interested in Journalism and I wanted to create my very own newspaper 📰 so I sketched everything right from the front page with the photo and headlines (+ a cover story) to the crossword puzzle, sudoku & comic strips, there was also an entertainment section/Page 3 and I think I’d named it Movie Buzz (derived from the fact that I was always into films and I liked calling myself a “Movie Buff”) it took me 2-3 days to finish writing and drawing all those 7-10 pages.
When I was around 7 and my brother was 5, we were both very good at sketching and drawing and I also loved writing (English Literature and Science were my favourite subjects) so I had the habit of using gel/ball point pens since the age of 5-6, all other kids would ask me why I always had pens in my pencil case… and I would say it’s for home use :/ my mother had to buy me ballpoint pens cuz I would write a lot and finish gel and ink pens very fast… I was good at drawing and arts as well but I’ve lost all practice now and in my condition, my hands sometimes get really stiff and numb, my pressure also drops, my brother was like a born artist so he would always hold his pencil like a paint brush lol all his KG and Primary teachers would always ask him how he would write like that hahaha we would joke and say he’s like M.F. Hussain. He would hold the pencil between the pointer and the middle finger that too in a slant position (with a lot of style and panache like a “typical artist” and he had not seen them anywhere so it was completely natural lol which made me realise that you can be born talented or be innately blessed like that, it’s probably something you are born to do) When we were 7 & 5, I wasn’t allowed to have anything much cuz I had child asthma and wheezing, everything would trigger recurring episodes of that, I was always attracted to Bengali sweets, Ice Creams, certain fruits and dairy products but I couldn’t have any of them, so one fine day, me and my brother, we created our own product line, as an adult I feel proud about that because that was quite impressive - for a 7 and 5 year old, back then flavoured yogurts weren’t available in India and we had not even seen any of them as we’d never been out of the country but we included them in our “Dairy Products” (it was just imaginative) we also designed the packaging and we were both working on our own individual brands - in our drawing books of course haha it was nothing real but it was like a good start. We also made a lot of fruit based items and things like Frozen Yogurt, Flan, Cream Cheese Spread, Flavoured Puddings, Cream Puddings, etc. Might sound rude but this is one more reason why I don’t want to have kids, I mean… what’s the point if my children aren’t this talented or cool? Coming to the fun part… we would play a few toxic games as well like there was a time when we had seen a lot of drunkards in Aahat & C.I.D. (they would start with those typical bar scenes) and we were too young to understand that it was a quite “bad” so as 6-7 year olds we would take Thumps Up & Limca (the latter looked a lot like Desi Daaru) and we would also collect snacks to completely imitate them cuz we would see them having chakna and all and then we would pretend like we were high… and then at some point my mother almost had a heart attack when my brother copied one of those dialogues which he had heard in CID or something, one of the uncouth drunkards or bevdas was bad mouthing his “biwi” or wife… he was so good at acting lol, he was far better than me, he would remove that voice and everything and literally act like a sloshed drunkard 😂 🤣 We used to find it very “funny”, btw do you remember those chalky Candy Cigarettes? Whoever came up with that 😂 we would take them and then tell each other, “Psst… look I’m smoking” it was so epic hahaha like every other kid, we loved spiting our parents and giving them a huge shock… 
Next, when I was 6, I wanted to be a Fashion Designer (I’ve always been obsessed with clothes, fashion and style) so I wanted to have my own Brand/Fashion house and I would wake up my brother at 8 in the morning and drag him to the living area, we had a dual sided Easel with two boards (and I think a paper mount or something) on one side there was a chalkboard, we weren’t allowed to use chalk because the dust would trigger my asthma and wheezing and the other side had a white board with a marker and wiper/duster, I was 6 and my brother was only 4 and we would hold these “Board Meetings” early in the morning where I would create three discussion topics, 1. Resources 2. Budgeting 3. Employment for my “Fashion House” and my brother would snooze & take nap breaks in between… He would carry a big Notebook and pencil :/ to jot down ideas cuz he was too young to give me any inputs and I would tell him, “You can’t sleep, wake up it’s a board meeting” I’m pretty sure he would hear that as “Bored Meeting” I would then say, “You are fired”
The Next story is quite funny… but please don’t judge us, we were only 5 & 3. My mom and aunt would watch a lot of T.V. Serials especially during this time ie. in the early 2000s where Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi and all other daily soaps were at their peak, and we would constantly see all these adults, conniving adults… signing and forging “Contracts” & “Property Papers” or more precisely (if I have to use the exact term in Hindi) “Property ke Kaa-ga-zaad”and “Das-ta-khat” I should’ve added several exclamation marks at the end to create a similar impact because they would get very dramatic whenever they would use those “phrases” they would literally sign in a very stylish manner and then throw the pen, at times they would even throw the papers on the other person’s face… we were so influenced that we came up with a game 👀 I created Property Papers, we just wanted to “sign” them as sassily and then probably throw the pen but we weren’t allowed to do that. I had never seen an actual public document in my whole life (I mean, I was only 5 🤷🏻♀️) so I just came up with whatever I could imagine, I was a year ahead (due to early admission) so I was already in 1st Grade and my brother was in KG, he was 3, I had a School Calendar/Diary where we had a personal form (one copy was with the teacher and the other was supposed to be used as a ref. for parents, guardians and strangers in case we would go missing) there was one more form which was related to my school… I thought this “Contract” - we just wanted to use that word, was something like my school form, so I created a few fields like First & Last name, then D.O.B. + the main attraction - two Signature fields, for those “Dastakhat” the Vampy, conniving, evil dastakhat and the Negative Male Character who was inspired by the very notorious Hindi Cinema ka Ranjeet/Evil Cousin/Mill Owner’s felonious embezzlement waali dastakhat… we knew it was a bit toxic so we didn’t go that far *phew* 😮💨 but we were planning to sign in a similar manner and then throw the papers on each other’s faces. So like I said, I created those fields, then I wrote, this owner (her name) is selling her house to this buyer for… I knew 3-4 zeros would be too less so I added 5 zeros, precisely for 2 lakhs (back then you would get real homes in that budget at certain places) Now comes the main part and I’m not talking about those signatures… I thought, we needed a “passport sized” photograph just like my school form, hmm… but we couldn’t possibly use chubby photos of two kids aged between 5 & 3, it had to be an “Adult” thing, so we chose whatever we wanted to become as grown ups, I took a pair of scissors…
I was trusted enough to use them since I was a lot into arts and crafts, my brother on the other hand would cut his own nightsuit every time he would get a chance *purely at a whim* (for real :/) I needed those scissors to cut a perfect passport sized photograph for my “Contract/Property ke Kaagazaad” like I said, it wasn’t supposed to be between two kids, it had to be between Adults. Compared to my brother I had much more “realistic expectations” regarding who & what I wanted to be on growing up…
You can try making a guess… and no don’t tell me we stuck our parent’s photos, think like a 5 & 3 year old… Realistically speaking, I wanted to be a Beautiful, Stylish, Blonde Barbie Doll so I stuck Barbie’s passport sized cutout (from one of my doll’s cartons) and my brother, well he was a bit extravagant… you could even say “far too ambitious”, for some reason, he wanted to be Mickey Mouse so I stuck Mickey’s cutout and I wrote Barbie and Mickey’s names there, I always knew my fav doll’s birth name so it was Barbara Millicent Roberts and Mickey was just plain and simple Mickey Mouse (I had to write Mouse as his last name) then came our fav part… The Signatures I tried my best to sign the word Barbie with utmost style and precision, then I flung the pen or tossed it somewhere and my brother, he was quite impressive, although he was only 3, I think he had observed everyone a lot while they were signing, God knows how (and when 🧐) so his sign didn’t look like a doodle, he did it very confidently… in a single stroke, he created a loop and he also added a period. That day, Barbie sold her house to Mickey Mouse for 2 lakhs… and then came the *final part* where we shouted for no reason & threw the papers at each other’s faces… Finally Dil ko thand pohochi… here’s more, before signing, my mother had to go to the Xerox wala or the photocopy guy (she was extremely mad at me) cuz I wanted to get them printed (Xerox & fax machines were more common back then) because I had created all those papers using a Pen and Coloured Photos/Cutouts so I came up with this idea in order to make them look more “Official” in Black & White print. The Xerox guy was disturbed, *utterly disturbed*
Love,
Zara Sauleh 𝒞𝒵.
I’ll be narrating Part 2 Lit - tomorrow, it revolves around a very weird habit which we had during our childhood… it’s not toxic but it’s extremely funny
Comments