Love, Life and Bicycles.

“Where are we going?” I asked my bro. He turned to me as he retrieved his hands from the prayer, and raised an eyebrow, “aren’t you too young to come with us!?” I punched on his arm “c’mon I’m in 9^th standard!! You had two girlfriends back then when you were of my age!!” “But you still haven’t got one! Have u?” he sharply said rubbing his arm….”okay I haven’t but you are not giving me the opportunity to get one, are you!?”I said cutting him. ”okay, okay!! Let’s go to Bongo first, meet some friends then we will think where to go!”

We came out of our school, took out our cycles and within minutes we were on the road to Bongo Vidyalaya ….

It was my first time going out with my bro and his friends during the swaraswati puja. This one day we can throw the books aside and enjoy. They do the same stuff every year…first they got to our junior school where the Puja is organized by the 10^th standard boys. And the same red wall adjacent to the jail on the other side where they pose and click photos to which my bro will be glued for some days. Some of these photos will appear in different face book profiles of friends, comments will be flowing in like catastrophic floods. Next they go to other schools like bongo vidyalaya , Krishnabhobyani & to the old friends places  and then there is the party at night the school ground. The place becomes a night club for that particular night! Their perfect way to end the day. Our school is probably the only school that has a party (I never heard any other school having it!!)  No one’s allowed in the ground except the 10^th standard students and ex-students,& they are wild(my bro once recorded some videos )…. there are no bouncers at the doors but nobody tries to cross the line. After that in their own houses thrash themselves on their respective beds waiting for the day to end and again throw life on us!

“Oh! There is he” my bro said after putting his cycle’s stand in a corner of a dusty playground.

He has spotted Kush da, his best friend… in a distance….he was busy with his own cam. “Oh gawad! His little bro’s with him…. I won’t get bored then!” I said with a sigh. He gave me his sarcastic eye look.

Actually I never get bored with the two of them together…I just feel out of place at times. Its just good to be with your own friends but my besties live faraway places and are not sporty enough to roam about in my town on bicycles. The boys of my class who live in Chandernagore are not interested in this particular activity and I don’t actually want them with me on this day. So I have to make his friends my friends to make this time worthwhile. Kush da’s bro, Kuttuss on the other hand is a good friend of mine though in 8^th standard he can speak like is 9^th or 10^th standard. We come in same category i.e little bros, so I can pretty much bitch with him.

In the meantime he has spotted us and was pacing towards us. “Matching kurtas!!” Kush da said

“Ya this is what happens when you live in the same house!! Everything get same!! Even the clothes!” he pointed out and again gave the sarcastic eye look! “Copy cat!!” he added. I also gave him the same look!

This may seem funny but from my birth every bloody person have been comparing two of us and pointing our similarities once in a blue moon our dissimilarities!! I myself think that we are pretty much alike…except the fact that when he was of my age he already had two girlfriends and became single after that and can get any girl he wanted! Umm….well not ANY!! But I’m not even half way there!!! Thus, he began to use words like ‘copycat’, ‘intruder’ referring to me!!  

Both brothers smiled, as if with sympathy.

Then all of turned our heads towards the opposite corner of the dusty ground where in a small pandal sat the goddess of wisdom.       

“This is odd…where are the students!?” I pointed out looking around the place.

“You very well know where they are! Don’t you!?” Kush da winked at me. My bro sighed with a faint smile “didn’t expect the whole battalion to march out there! ” Kutuss & myself remained silent and folded our palms in prayer, and stared at strange huge cotton balls stuffed on either sides of the idols trying to create the atmosphere of heaven like in cheap Bengali T.V serials….and I background played “Marjani ….marjani” ,the  then poplar Bollywood number…

Yes I knew where they were! They were at Kirishnabhavi, the one of the few west Bengal board girls schools in chandernagare….and maybe one of the most iconic!! That’s our next stop!

“Let’s go then!” Kush da said. All of us followed his words like lifeless robots, we took out our cycles sat on them and went out of the gate….and then it happened…..my bro trying to the lead the way went a little forward, but stuck in a slow moving jam, myself trying to catch up with him a little behind….….  Kush da  and Kutuss a little back of me. A rickshaw form the same side tried to overtake my bro but in failure pressed closer to him. And slowly as the jam cleared….and the three wheeled carrier began to move and we heard a sound “Cheeeeeeeeee!!” My bro’s new kurta got tangled with the rusted screws of the rickshaw, which had torn his right pocket to some length!!! “stop!!” he cried loud enough for the rickshaw diver to hear and to stop him doing any more damage to the purple jute cloth!! The startled driver pressed his brake hard….turned around with a irritated look on his face to see what has happened….seconds after there was a cry higher than my bro’s previous one! We turned around almost in equal timing…the cry came from Kush da’s epiglottis!! I opened my mouth to ask what happened, but he opened his mouth instead and cried out again in self confession “I loved that kurta!!!” we looked at each other and bust out in laughing .There we were two almost adults and two sensible teenagers laughing their heads off in the middle of a jam on the town’s most busiest road and the rickshaw driver still staring at us in a even more irritated look pasted on his face!!  

We reached Kishnabhobani somehow controlling ourselves we kept our cycles facing the giant lake adjacent to the school. You won’t laugh when you are in this school but you would have a ‘mission accomplish’ like feeling! Or it’s just me…I guess it’s just me I asked my bro about this and he confirmed that it’s just me. “Nobody fell like that!! They have better things to do in there…but to fell absurd things!!” he said. Never the less we entered through the wide open front door. It looked like miniature Santineketan! Colorful Ranglois on the ground, beautiful women who wore colorful saris probably once a year. I was amazed by the scene that lay in front of me……most strange thing is that at first sight you won’t see the girls but idle boys who roaming around the place. Mostly, giggling, staring at the people with bad things in mind (it was clear from their expressions!)And trying to hit on girls(whose category is limited to minimum )

“Guessed it right I think!” I said thinking aloud.

You might be think that we were there for the same reason as we are also boys….but we were not like them we knew how to control our thoughts, actions and most importantly also our hormones!

We were there to meet a friend of ours and to see the idol not to stand there like idle people and imagine getting laid……

Me & Kutuss were left alone (like always) when my bro and his friend went to search for their friends…. I was observing  the rangolis and the decorations to take ideas from them as next year it’s our turn for the school idol.  When we were done roaming about we sat on the concrete slab. My bro came back soon with his friends. “we are going to her house….u guys wanana  go?” my bro enquired. “I wanna go home!!” Kutuss said. “Nay I’m exhausted too and I will be bored there too…let me drop you home ” I suggested. “Ok then adious amigos!” Kutuss said trying out his Spanish!

We took out cycles out and took separate routes…. And soon we reached his house…he dragged me in and offered me to play Angry Birds with him! I thought for a while and stated that there is no use of going home in the sun and I have no work to do in my house at this point of time….

“Let’s shoot some pigs!!” I exclaimed. He smiled and led me to the computer room…..

We sat and played for two hours, did facebook, talked for a while and again played that easily addictive game!! Around 2pm I got out of his house and headed towards mine….after 15 minutes I reached my mentioned destination , folded my kurta away and hanged it on a hanger and crashed on the bed. Within seconds in floating in dreams.

Same day. 6:45 pm….

I woke up with my eyes half closed…saw my bro dressing up. The kurta wasn’t there instead was a black t-shirt layered with a shirt… “Where are you going!!?”I asked with a feeble tone, it was a known answer…but still I asked “you well know where I’m going! Tell dad I will be home by 9….” He answered fixing his watch. “I will join you in the party next year…you know” I said getting up. “Next year I won’t be here! This year is my last…. ” he replied curtly …. I crashed back on the bed and stared at the pale white ceiling “bros don’t go to parties together?”

“Good night…” he said.

I turned to him “Good night”     

Blogger’s note: I don’t know how but the title came to me somehow. I knew it would be about the three things, love, life and bicycles….but didn’t know how to connect the three together in a good way. Then one fine morning in English tuition my sir told us write a dialogue on sarasawti puja…. & there it was the perfect link joining the three. It took me nearly over a month to finish it off as it is a sensitive piece involving our lives. The incidents didn’t occur this year alone… it is a collection of two years! And to be honest some of them are frictions also…(my bro doesn’t talk that much or at least not in that way )…. ‘the kurta tearing incident’  did really happened this year but I wasn’t a witness of it as I was at my grandpa’s …. I heard it from my bro and tried to fit in it!! I took innumerable breaks during that particular incident! Because I didn’t know how to portray it properly as I wasn’t there!! But I know kushda cried! And also know he’s goanna kill be after reading this!!! Of course there are some loose points…I ain’t no Sakesphere! Never had tried to be one! But this is how it is. This is my life. Hope you become a part of it! If not I will convince to become one….. thank you for reading.

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                         Living life.