Down the memory lane

I am trying to recollect some of my earliest memories, to be exact I want to know how much I can remember of my escapades when I was less than 5. I assume that the events I can recollect are most likely to be remembered by my parents better. I remember that I used to play with my brother, making up tales of a character named appachi-kuchi. Although I don't remember it's role that well, the character was from a far far away place, and most likely it had received all our abuses, since it was played by a dumb doll and our(my brother and I) own differences how the tale should proceed were not easily resolved. As I am writing this I did an isearch to find out that Kuchi is actually a pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. I still can't figure out how we came with that name? May be my brother and I should have been so creative or we already had some Afghan influence.

I must confess at this point that Kabuliwalah(Fruit seller from Kabul) by Tagore is one of my favorite short stories of all times. That reminds me another of my memories, when I used to make my mom mildly to wildly enraged. There used to be this old fellow, a total drunkard who used to clean municipal canals( rather say drainage), and disowned by his family. He used to visit my family occasionally, normally at the end of day, I don't exactly remember the frequency though, but it adds to my oddity that he was one of my favorite visitors other than, may be my grandfather and my cousins. May be it's because this fellow Krishan used to tell me stories. I can't think of any other reason, he totally stank of dirt. At the end of day when he come to our home, I will run to him most likely in my clean clothes just after the shower to the utter disgust of my mother. (Poor her, she must have had a hard time to keep me in clean clothes :)) That's not all, just like Kabuliwalah, Krishnan used to bring me snacks. I think it is a part of our culture for older people to bring their favorite kids some sweets when they visit them ;), although I can't think of a time when pazham pori was my favorite. Still I used to eat them, after having it from his dirty hands. I must add this too, my mom was a bit afraid of Krishnan, thinking that he might kidnap me(shouldn't all moms be like that?). I think I liked that idea, not the part of being kidnapped but mom being scared. In those days, when I get pretty good scoldings from my mom, I would wail out loudly saying that I will report her to Gurkha(whatever gave me that strange idea?). Gurkhas used to be the local watch, kind of like the friendly campus police. There used to be some Gurkha around my neighborhood in those days. I don't remember me wailing that frequently though, may be once.

Now you must be wondering, I must have been a very naughty child. I must say I was a very descent kid, not doing anything that leads to trouble, most of the time. Still what do my parents retell, my little mischievous acts, but only when asked specifically about that phase of life, so that I can remember myself as a very naughty kid. I don't know why is it a part of human nature to recollect all the negatives before positives about fellow human beings. May be if said all nice things about everyone around us, life won't be very interesting.

To conclude this note and to remove confusions, whether Gurkahs are still around guarding Indian neighborhoods, I have no idea, as there are no statistics available at this present time. About Krishnan, he died on some roadside pavement, forlorn :( a few years ago. The rumor was that he was high on alcohol and drugs. There are a lot of such social outcast living among us. hmmm..