Babool Babool paise vasool

Finally I reached home, after spending three months dipping daily in Saambhar and washing clothes in korma (the local veg curry ..it sucks big time!!) .

Once when I was a li'l curious child, I needed to board a city bus daily to attend my maths tuition (math's kaa master bahut peet ta tha yaar !!). One day inside the bus, I was standing as all the seats were occupied (it seems these people captured those seats just as the bus was rolled out of the bus manufacturing plant).
I made a 'filmy cute anaath besahaara bacchaa' face fishing for some aloknath-types to let me sit on their seat. But nobody was willing to buy in to my 'sorry' state as the daily commuters were well aware of my moronic intentions and they would never part their bums with the prized seat for a 'chaloo chhokra'.

Then suddenly a 'naya murga' saw me and with a kilo of gutkha in his mouth said
"Arey itna chhota baccha bechaara khada hai,aao munna ihaa humaare god mein baith jaao"…
I thought of letting out a "bhagwaan kare tere bacche jiye,tera ghar aabaad ho" but thinking that it was too early for my age to say that . I 'innocently' settled in his lap.

"Thankkiyu uncle" I said with all the meekness and gratitude the world churned out in a year.
The person sitting next to 'my shikaar for the day', let out a sarcastic "heh!!" seeing me sitting pretty. Obviously he was a daily commuter witness to my daily 'kameeniyat se bhare' antics.
The rickety bus was moving at the pace of an octogenarian's evening walk the only difference being that the old man would be harmless and this bus was like a blind bull with its tail on fire (to the plight of the ppl on the road) and arthritis-stricken legs.

The "bhala aadmi' on whose lap I was sitting seemed to generate half of the annual revenues of goa gutkha. I was wondering what he had more for the lunch; rice or the stuff he was chewing on.

My bus stop was still about fifteen minutes away. My math's teacher would be waiting with a 'babool ki chadee'(stick) in his hand hoping that the gargantuan homework he gave us to complete would be unfinished and he would wreak havoc by lashing out a sudoku grid on my baby ass by wielding his babool stick.

At the beginning of the month when we used to pay our monthly fees, he would accept it with the widest grin possible, and then I couldn't help thinking about the then famous ad jingle "babool babool paise vasool".

We used to pray to shaktiman to save us from him but as we came to know that the superhero won't help those who didn't eat Parle-G (the brand he was endorsing then) we always had a Parle-G pack ready in our tuition bags only to be robbed off by the master's li'l asshole son. (And obviously we couldn't complain). He derived gr8 pleasure in watching his father acting as sivamani(gr8 percussionist) with our little bums as his drums.

Thinking all this gave me a cold shiver. But my lazy ass self would forget all this when I reached home. I used to loiter around the neighborhood sniffing, which aunty ji is cooking what in a hope to gobble some of it by moaning

"Mummy ne to aaj khaana nahee banaaya.Bolaa ki daal roti khaa lo*sniff*sniff*"

And the aunties falling in to the trap would feed me more to extract some 'raaj ki baat', which would become a topic of some hot gossip across the neighborhood." Maalum hai chunnu ki mummy ne aisaa kiyaa…..maalum…"

And my shocked mum would say
"Tere jaise bacche ko to aur peetnaa chahiye"..And no surprises all my excuses to
Bunk the maths tuition class like
"Mummyyyyy pate dukh raha hai.aaj jaa nahee paaunga class"

"Tere ko to peet peet kar le jaaungi tuition.chal naalaayak" .A jhaadoo in her hand made me to oblige.
And my mum and my tuition master were like alpha-Charlie on the BSNL landline

"Alpha to Charlie.. Alpha to Charlie ..chunnu ghar se nikal gaya hai ..Over!!"

" Charlie to alpha… chunnu abhi tak nahee pahucha hai …Over!!"

As you can see there was no chance of me bunking the class by loafing around the city once I came out of my house. Life was tough and tougher with an incomplete homework.
------------------------
My bus stop was still a healthy five minutes away. I was looking around for some vacated seat desperately because the 'bhala aadmi' was about to spit the bucket full of matter, which he had in his mouth. Then suddenly my eyes got glued to a poster stuck above the window which read……


GUPT ROGI MILE !!
(………..
some hindi medical jargon..
…………….)
Dr. Shah clinic, Room no. 45
Hotel sunshine
Bus stand ke peeche-17

This was all regular stuff for me being a daily commuter but what I noticed was that a new doctor was in town (Dr. Saini and Dr. Jain were winding up their operations here). But the thing that took my breath away was that the 'Bhala aadmi' carrying me, was religiously noting down the address written on that poster. And for the first time I felt something beneath my bums (which were rendered senseless by the 'babool ki chadee')…I immediately got up and ran for the exit and before getting down the slowing bus I cried out

" Saaale GAY buddheyyy….teri.@#$#@"

The 'bhala aadmi' would have been shocked. And the person sitting next to him would have said " I told you not to seat him.. he is such an ungrateful li'l moron"

As I came out panting, I realized that babool was the only thing, which I wanted to FEEL on my bums.

Life moved on after that incident took place.I continued going to the math's tuition at the behest of my mum and to the chagrin of my bum.

Days, months, years passed on, time flew. My 10th board results came out and accidentally I scored 95+ in mathematics. I remember that day I went with a box of sweets to the math's tuition. When I touched his feet I could see his eyes bubbling with pride and happiness. He called out his wife and all nice words were said and even the teacher's li'l moron (who grew into a naughty boy!!) was happy for me.

When I came out of his house clutching a gifted pen-set I was wondering how on earth this cold-blooded man could be happy for me. How he could say all those nice words he said. How could... he have a heart?

Well time taught me. After my 10th I moved to DPS to complete my +2 in a big city and then to my engineering college. Slowly all links to the old town weathered away. My mum told me that the teacher's family moved to some other town where he got a job in a residential school.
And Now I am about to complete my engineering colg life. Next year I will be working for Wipro. And this day when I look back I can SAY..

"Maths teachers DO have a heart !!"

Contributed by Abhishek Asthana