I think it was the December of 1987 or 1988. I was all excited about going to Calcutta to see R…actually I was more excited because it was the first time on a plane…..I had all the ideas that I would take the window seat and enjoy the cool breeze from the plane…and wave out to the other planes passing by….and touch the clouds and maybe get some pieces of clouds in a plastic bag…..talk about not being informed…I think my parents did not teach me the right things…..well the flight to Calcutta cleared all the misconceptions I had….what a big disappointment that was….

The time I had in Calcutta though was awesome….no parental control…Rajiv and me free to do whatever…..all the kachra food…the shopping….Thums-Up and Bijoli Grill (it’s a cream soda) any time of the day and kitna mangta utna piyo…..I think it was more to do with the fact that if R and me had food, movies and Thums-Up we would keep out of trouble….R was like this cool elder brother…who knew it all (Panterr will vouch for that…FSCL yaad hain na??)….popular with his friends and the way he spoke I always felt that I had so much to learn from him….the fake stories he told me about his robot called Rambo….Ohhh my God!!!! I thought that was the coolest thing…..

New Years Eve….our parents put us to bed early and left to celebrate the New Year with my youngest bua in Bhowanipore….sometime later I get up and don’t find my parents (read mom) around and realize that we were duped into sleeping early so that they could go and enjoy….so the fact that they duped us and my mom’s absence..well I took that real bad….and I start howling at the top of my voice…..R gets up and comes to me….and tries to pacify me….nothing works….then his neighbour..I think his name was Shivshanker…comes over to try and stop me from crying…..I know R was acting like this big brother …saying things like… “Puneri main hain na..tera bhai…tu dar mat….” which over the years evolved into his trademark statement “Chinta Nako….main hain na!!!”….but nothing helped……the howling kept on increasing….until I heard the magic words…. “ Tu roo mat Puneri…..tu Pune jayega na to mera sab Tintin comics le jana”….now the moment I heard this I continued crying though the volume had gone down….realizing this was working, he continued “ Tu mera sab video games bhi leke jana”……hmmm…that’s good I said…maybe I should just sob a little more…so I continued sobbing with breaks..mind you ..now the tears had stopped….so he says… “ Tu mera denim jacket bhi le lena”….and that was enough to make me stop crying…content that I had made a good deal….I started smiling and stayed awake for a while with R watching some movies…I guess it must have been Thundercats…ohhh we were big fans of the Thundercats and the Eye of Thundera….

A few days later it was time to start packing for Pune and while mom was packing all the stuff I very casually go and get all of R Tintin comics, the video games and the jacket…and beforeI knew it he had snatched everything away from me and said….. “Voh to tu roo raha tha isliye maine aisa hi bola ki tu yeh sab le ja”….I was shocked…he did not even let me get close to the bag, which would have enabled me to sneak a comic or two and probably a video game….I was devastated…..this was my second big disappointment of the trip, after the plane incident……I wanted to punch him in the face just like I wanted to punch the guys who forgot to put windows with latches on planes so that they that could be opened and I could wave my hands outta the window……

If only I would have punched R and managed to get some of that stuff, I would not have had such a deprived childhood….