Rahul, My Story

My Experiments with Truth – Part 1

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It all began in my fifth class. Well, everything began in my fifth class. Almost. HPS brings back memories of my ‘first times’.

• I smoked my first cigarette. I tried breathing in smoke from a lit paper rolled into a dummy cigarette I made during class. The experience was horrible, which was probably why I hated cigarettes until I learned they caused lung cancer.

• I tasted my first alchohol. Nana had a friend who drank and I had a cousin who worked as a doctor in the Military Hospital. Adults use so many code words when they discuss grown up stuff with kids around. Little do they know that those kids take less than 5 minutes to break the code. Beer (Code word ‘Beerakaaya‘) was cheaper and unrestricted for the Army. One fine night, I got to taste beer and I swore it would be my last time – yuck!!!

• I learned my first cuss word, FUCK! I mean I learned the word FUCK. I did not know what it meant, neither did I know what the FINGER – ,,|,, – meant except that it felt really cool to flip people off without a second thought. Then my sister joined HPS an year later and flipped me off in front of my friends. Naa Karma!

• I watched my first movie with friends in a theatre without my parents’ knowledge. It was my ‘rich’ friend, Rishi’s birthday and he invited all of us to watch ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ after school. This was also my first Pierce Brosnan’s movie. I called up Amma and told her that I had a practice test match – unlimited overs implies a really long game. She asked me to get back home by 6:30PM to make it to Bhaarateeyudu movie. Lucky day!

One thing I so very well remember is that during the movie all of us were shouting and whistling (simply following some other group doing the same sitting close to the screen) whenever we saw a sensual scene – even though we had no idea of what was really going on.

• I bunked class for the first time. The then airport, Begumpet Airport, shares boundaries with HPS. While playing football after school, my friends and I used to watch airplanes take off right in front of our eyes, our mouths wide open. But never did we get a chance to see the runway.

It was the carpentry class. I had just finished designing an AK-48, in my head of course. It even had a 10 bullet magazine with spring loading and ejection of used shells. I then carefully explained my design to my teacher and also requested him to get me some good piece of wood to work on, after which he went into his office and did not come out for a really long time – must have suffered from a fit of laughter. Right about the time he went in, another plane took off and I really felt like seeing the whole process of takeoff. A couple of friends around me had the same urge and somehow, telepathically I guess, all of us decided to bunk the class and climb up the small hill at the backside of the school to get the best view of the runway.

The trail that lead to the top of the hill was isolated and scary. It also turned out to be a truth-dare type activity. Kids as we were, we used our wildest imaginations to interpret certain things like strange symbols written on some stones along the way, red colour of a tributary (of Musi?) flowing by the foot of the hill, et cetera.

Finally we reached the top and MY GOD, what a view! We had spent only about 30 minutes there when we noticed a guard at the foot of the hill running towards us, to catch hold of us of course. The sudden adrenaline rush brought us back to the class in just 5 minutes, and back to our seats. But we managed to see an airplane taxi onto the runway and take off, and that thrilled feeling took a few weeks to subside. More than that, being one of the first students from my class to bunk a class was even more thrilling.

Hmm, those were the days!

FYI : AK-48 is still in production.