Krishna chronicles – 6

My Kaas and I

There are only two things I love the most – Chiss and Kaas. Chiss I love. The very sight of them bring water into my mouth…I am not very picky when it comes to chiss… whether they are the yellow round ones Ayee and Teacha Aunty hide in their kitchen…or the long thin ones that taste sweetish… or the ones that come from the grocery in colourful packets, I simply love grabbing them by handfuls and shoving them into my mouth. I specially love the ones Bhuyya calls ‘Cheefbolls’… they feel crinkly on my tongue for a second and then melt away… That is what I call absolute happiness. I hate to share my chiss with anyone - even Ayee… She can be so unreasonable about it and she opens another packet, she eats it all herself…and when I ask for one, she refuses to give me saying,
“ You didn’t give me when I asked… why should I give you?”
Then I have to cry and roll on the floor till she says, “Okay, Okay… Will you give me next time I ask?” I nod… Anything to get them…

There is something else that gives me as much happiness to have and I can not have enough of … Kaas. I just love Kaas. I have so many of them… ‘Vun’ , ‘thoo’, ‘thee’, ‘fo’, ‘nayan’, ‘seets’, ‘eit’, ‘then’ of them…( I can count now… only Ayee and Bhuyya laugh when I count… I don’t know why… they stop and make me say ‘fai’ each time I say ‘nayan’… I can never remember to say ‘fai’…)
Yet I feel that I want more… When we go to Discount Centre, I drag Ayee to the place where there are Kaas… ‘ded kaas’, ‘biliyoo kaas’, ‘geen kaas’, ‘pulees kaas’, ‘peyns’, ‘teins’…

I think I fell in love with Kaas when I was six months old. At that time, Bhuyya had lots of Kaas and I used to watch him make funny ‘Wooo….Woooo’ sounds and these small things would run on the floor… Bhuyya would take them when they stopped and start ‘Wooo- wooo’ing again… I used to keep my eyes pinned on them and turn my head from side to side as they moved fast. Sometimes they would move by themselves while Bhuyya stood in one corner… Now I know that he had a box in his hands and when he pressed something, the Kaa moved by itself… It is called ‘demote kaa’… Bhuyya still hides his ‘demote kaas’ from me. I am working out new ways of getting my hands on them…

When I started moving on the floor, I started chasing Bhuyya’s Kaas. If I picked up one, Bhuyya would yell in anger and snatch it away from me… And I’d cry loudly too… till Ayee entered the room angrily and forced Bhuyya to give me the Kaa… This went on till Bhuyya stopped touching his Kaas and his Kaas became mine…

But Ayee keeps telling everyone that I destroy all the kaas… I don’t. I just want to know what makes them run so fast…and what is inside them. So when I get time, I sit and remove the ‘taayer’ one by one… If I can, I remove the doors also.
I have so many Kaas with ‘tayyers removed and vun or thoo without doors. I have so many ‘tayyers’ in one bag… but each time I collect them, they disappear. The other day, I heard Ayee telling Teacha Aunty that when I am sleeping she takes them to the garbage chute and throws them in… One day, I’ll have to jump into the garbage chute and see if I can find all my tayyers and other kaas. But that place is dark and smelly, I am scared to go there… I am very scared of dark places now…

Back to Kaas…

I liked a lovely ded kaa Bhuyya got for his bedde… He called it a ‘taans-fo-ma’… First it looked like a man then Bhuyya opened him and twisted him and he became a Kaa… I liked it so much, when Bhuyya was at ’kool, I took it out and removed parts of it… It wasn’t easy, but while Ayee was busy in the kitchen, I went and sat behind the sofa and did it… But she came in search of me… ( I don’t know what bugs her when I am quiet…she keeps calling my name or peeping in to look at me…) and when she saw that I had removed the ded kaa’s parts, she whacked my bottom with a stick and took it away from me. I hollered a lot but she didn’t give it to me…

I think Ayee loves Bhuyya more… She never lets me touch any of his things…

When Bhuyya came from ’kool and saw the pieces, he was so angry, he yelled at me and tried to beat me. Ayee wouldn’t let him… “ He is only a bebbe,” she said, “Besides, why did you leave your toys where he could find them?” Bhuyya threw the toy at me and said, “Go ahead and spoil it fully…” I still have the ‘ded kaa’…

The thing is, with or without the wheels, doors and lights, I love my Kaas… I can never have enough of them… I know I have so many kaas yet, whenever I see a new one in a shop, my heart starts beating fast and I want it… But Ayee can be very cruel at times… Like the time we went to City Centre. I was strapped to the stupid pram and Bhuyya was pushing me. Ayee and Teacha Aunty had taken us there because Ayee wanted to pick up some thing for ‘Abiche’ on his bedde. There I was surrounded by toys and kaas and I was not even able to touch them… I tried to climb down from the pram but could not… I started crying Kaa…Kaa… Ayee… Kaa… but she ignored me. I tried standing on the pram but I could not… I pulled at the belt… it wouldn’t open. I called, “Bhuyya, bhuyyaaa…” but he said, ‘You sit right there Tisna… Ayee is NOT going to buy you Kaa. Only last night Dajee got you a new kaa…no?” I didn’t like that. So what if Dajee had got me a new kaa? I had removed one tayyer already… besides there were so many shiny new kaa in the Mall… I started yelling again…
People were looking at me and Ayee… I looked at Teacha Aunty, hoping she would buy me one … she sometimes gets me Kaas… but she said, No Tisna…Ayee says ‘No’… I cried and cried, but Ayee just pushed my pram to the place where there are things to make mummum…

Why can’t these grown ups realize that they should not torture little boys like this. Why is it one rule for us and one rule for them? Ayee fills a big basket with wheels with so many things in Discount Centre… When Dajee says, ‘Enough’ she doesn’t stop… So why can I not have more Kaas?

When I grow up I will take Ayee to City Centre… I’ll make her sit in the pram and put the belt round her and take her in front of all the shelves… When she says, Tisna, I want this … I will say, ‘Nyo!’… and smile when she cries loud…

Teacha Aunty says I am growing up fast… right in front of her eyes… But that is not fast enough for me… I want to grow up and like Dajee drive my own Kaa and only then I can take Ayee to City Centre or Discount Centre and…
… say ‘Nyo!’