Laughing childhood.. Buggy free ride to school..

I have lot of memories of humorous incidents of my childhood. I am going to write them down and share few moments of laughter with you all..

I am october 1962 born. I have one elder brother and one younger brother. Elder brother one and half years older to me. Younger one is 15 years younger to me. Our father was a Veterinary doctor in Govt service and a honest vet at that. Hence he used to be transferred very frequently to rural remote areas. Hence elder brother and I grew up mostly in rural settings. Our mother was home maker. My elder brother and I were a bit of naughty. We grew up doing some or the other which would be considered by our father as mischievous. Later in the evening, he would proportionately or disproportionately reason it out with us. Only thing is that oral or verbal option was not used. You know what I am trying to say. If in present age, if the kids would do things the way we did at that time, the present parents would feel very happy and appreciate the creativity of the kids and compliment them. But we were in different era and age, where it was an accepted fact that, sons come into this world for getting bashed up their parents. And it is the duty of every parent to use all tools and tackles to straighten the boys. And there was national authorisation for doing so.

I will start my jottings from around 1968. We were in Davangere, a district place in Karnataka state. Elder brother and I were about 6 and 7 years old. We were enrolled in English medium convent school. We probably were in Kindergarten stage. Our house was in front of Shri Ram temple near Moti talkies square. The school was quite a distance to go walking. There was a buggy (a closed wooden car driven by two horses. This used to ply pupils from home to school and back. Our father could not afford to pay for the buggy charges. Hence we, small kids, used to go to school walking. The buggy used to pick up other pupils from places near to our house. There was a rich girl who used to go in the car. She had a sort of social pride of superiority. This generally happens, right.

We too wanted to go in the buggy as the school was quite far. But could not afford. What we started doing, blew the girl mind off.

The girl’s house was near our house. The buggy fellow would pick her first. It would then cross our house. She would see us standing outside our house, ready to go to school. And the buggy used to move around in our area picking up other students. After few minutes, it would cross the Moti theatre square. This square was just few paces from our house. The buggy, after picking the girl, crosses our house and takes a turn and disappear. In the meanwhile, we used to quickly go to Moti theatre square and hide behind a roadside bench. After some time the buggy used to come there. It has to take a left turn at the square. While taking the turn it used to slow down. We used to come out of the hiding and smoothly jump and sit on the foot board. We used to enjoy the “Open buggy” free ride. About few paces near the school, there again was a turn. Here again the buggy would slow down. We used to quickly alight from the footboard and run towards the school gate. Here we would spend time, till the buggy reaches the school gate. The girl would step out and would be perplexed to see us. She would be puzzled to fathom as to how reach before her.

After about a year, our father was transferred to another place. We too had to leave the school. Till the last, the girl could not find the answer. We used to enjoy her bewildered look.