My Dear 'Pot'

Nineteen ninety five was the year of long skirts over cycling shorts, of pumps, of long braids, of Bombay's "Humma Humma", of twelve going on three and of Sakthi. A little before Diwali on a day like this, we, the city urchins, had gathered to burst our daily quota of "Bijili" crackers. We would hold one in our hand, light it and throw it up in the air just as it was about to burst. We tried myriad experiments with 'Bijili'. It disappointed us that two Bijili's tied together and lighted burst in rapid succession, instead of together, to produce an amplification.

Sakthi strode into our lives, clad in a red shirt, shorts, sneakers [sneakers!]. We stopped our game and inspected him. He looked up at us defiantly and after some thought, pointed at himself and said "Satti Vengayam." [Satti=Pot; Vengayam=Onion]. The next moment his sneakers were off and thrown by the side carelessly and he joined us, barefeet, in the sand. After few moments of watching us, he picked up a cracker, lighted it and threw it up with flourish. Heads turned up to see the thousand fragments that rained from the air and then the grinning three-year-old. We had found a soul mate. Not a word had been exchanged. Besides, his name screamed endless possibilities at us.

It was mutual fascination. He was three, had long hair, had escaped from an island and spoke a foreign tongue which we later learned was called "Creole." Having been brought up in the confines of a beach house by a French Nanny among white children, we, with our bare-feet adventures, and sun baked skin, fascinated him no end.

Sakthi was game for everything. We could make fun of him and he would join in the laughter, shaking his long hair. But the sound of his laughter would stand out for it was fearless, innocent and merry. Sometimes it got us into trouble like when we threw stones at passers-by on the street and duck behind the parapet, his loud giggle, would get us caught. He would look at our angry faces sheepishly and walk up to the indignant victim of our practical jokes and charm him with his grin and endless babble of Creole. When one of us asked him something in tamil, he replied in creole. The language sounded so funny on his infant lips that we broke into fits of giggle. And he laughed along with us. We shared a glee that needed no words.

Sakthi, the Great Leveller, treated a trinket worth a few rupees and the fax machine alike. At the end of his inspections, they all ended up at one place of rest - the trash. He lived the lives of boys in Detergent Advertisements. His sparkling white shirt of the morning was a study in brown when he got back from school. He refused to get his homework done, spoke at the wrong times in the class, beat up boys and smiled shyly at girls. On a particular math test, when he was asked to colour seven out of twelve apples, he coloured four. When questioned by the teacher, he replied matter-of-factly - "I ate the other three." His toothy grin plastered on his face, of course. A year after he joined us, he had shorter hair and spoke perfect tamil. His mother asked him to call me "Akka" [elder sister.] He refused to believe that I was older than him.

Ten years have passed since then. He is twelve and I am twenty one. He sits on a table in my room, writing his Civics Homework. "Six differences between Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha." He hates Civics. It shows on his face. He no longer wears his ready grin. I no longer wear my hair in braids. We have grown up. We have moved on. But I still call him Satti and he still squeals in glee when I lose an occasional board game. He does not remember a word of Creole. He calls me "Akka."

Some things never change. But then some things do.