Krishna Chronicles -1

I am Krishna… My ayee calls me ‘Bebbey’ when she smiles and yells ‘KRISHNA!’ when she is angry… I live with my Ayee, my Dajee and my brother Vinayak. Vinayak is older to me and Ayee and Dajee wanted me call him Anna or Kaka… but when they were not there, one day, he told me… “Krishu, I don’t want you to call me Anna or Kaka… I want you to call me Bhayya… so till you can say ‘Bhayya’, don’t call me anything…
Now, he’s just a typical big brother… all bossy…though I can punch him neat, you know… only he’ll either catch hold of my arms and roll on the floor over me… or punch me back. I prefer punching back because, I can immediately let out a howl…and Ayee will come running out of the kitchen and wallop him… If we roll on the floor, I can only squeal and no one can hear me…

Anyway, I decided to call my bhayya ‘bhayya’ … and people are trying to make me say Bhayya and I say “ONG – KA” or ‘MAAMA’ which makes them laugh and repeat even more loudly ‘BHAYYA… BHAYYA’ till it gives me a headache and I just wander away … and they give up! One person who keeps trying is Teacher-aunty. She lives in the house opposite to mine. I like going to her house everyday. She’ll give me ‘chiss’ to eat. Sometimes salty chiss and at others sweet chiss. I know how to open her cupboard and take out a bowl and say ‘Chiss…’ and she’ll laugh and fill it for me.

What I don’t like about her is that she won’t let me touch anything in her house. There are so many nice things…small and colourful things on her tables…but if I try to touch them, she says… ‘No Krishna…don’t touch.’ If she doesn’t, Ayee does. It is no fun being a kid. They never let you do what you long to do… But they have no such rules…they touch things, take them and play with them while they talk, talk and talk… That’s another thing I don’t understand about these adults… they talk all the time… Like when Teacher-aunty comes home for tea every morning. My Ayee says she doesn’t like to drink tea alone. Alone? I am there no? Obviously, I don’t count. That is why she makes only two cups of tea and lets me only dunk my biscuits into her cup… I wonder when she will give me my own tea. She gives my brother…

I love it when Teacher-aunty comes for tea. For one thing, for the next one hour, she and Ayee will be busy talking and I can do whatever I want in the bedroom…Like driving my fleet of cars on the bed… and like climbing on to the bed and jumping. I love doing that but if I do it, Ayee whacks me on my bottom. I love climbing on top of the cupboard. For that, first I have to climb up the bed and then up the pillows and blankets Ayee has stacked on the headboard of the cot and then shinny up to the top of the cupboard. I feel very big up there. The floor looks so far away… and I can see the whole room from there. If I stand up, I can even touch the ceiling. The first time I did it, Ayee was so shocked, for a few minutes she didn’t say anything. Then she clambered up the bed and lifted me down. After she got me down, she whacked my bottom so hard, it hurt till Dajee came home in the evening… and when I tried to complain to him about Ayee, she interrupted and talked and talked and talked and he whacked me too… I was so angry I went and hid behind the sofa and didn’t come out till everyone started eating which made me feel hungry too. And for many days Ayee stopped stacking the pillows and blanket there… and I couldn’t climb because it is too high… But now I know how to carry my plastic chair up there and then climb up to the top… but I have to be careful or get punished…

I love the days when Bhayaa is home. Two days, he won’t go in the big bus with his bag and then, we have fun. We play, we fight, we have fun…. Only Ayee is always yelling on those two days… Some days Dajee is also there both the days…and then we go out… Ayee is always smiling when we go out because she needn’t cook… otherwise she’s always cooking and cleaning and cleaning and cooking… I like Ayee… I like Dajee too but I am afraid of his eyes. Sometimes he looks at me without blinking… especially when Ayee tells him I have been naughty… or if I do ‘Soosoo’ on the floor… And I stare back… I smile at him and try to make him smile…but if he is really angry, he looks scary…. Then I cry. When I am big, I’ll stare at him too!

When I am big I’ll do a lot of other things…

When I am big…

When... ?