Where Do I Begin?

Memories can be very fickle when they choose to be. As they now choose to be with me. It is one thing to reminisce about writing, and it is yet another thing to actually start writing, because that’s when you realise your mind is so spotlessly clean and blank.

I don’t remember much of my early life(before I was 5 yrs, although many would share the same feeling), but the first and only valuable memory of my Kindergarten is the incident that has left a permanent scar on me.

It was the moment that turned me into the lifelong fall guy that I have come and chosen to be.

It was just after lunch during my UKG, and my friend and I were just finished with lunch, when we got into a tussle over the food, and being hyper-active maniacs that we were, both of us got onto the bench we shared and started what, for the lack of a better word, I shall call wrestling(jostling?). He pushed me and being much leaner than I am today, I fell off the bench, and my head hit the edge of the bench in the next row. The next thing I know, the doctor was stitching the back of my head(it seems I had passed out), and I was trying hard not to bring down the roof with my shouting.

This guy comes up by the side of the bed and says “really sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you so badly”(and he really didn’t). I was still thinking what to reply, when the Principal barged in and asked “What happened?”.

That was the moment, my life would forever change, the moment itself was so simple and nothing out of the ordinary, but the answer has come to haunt me all through my life, for it became ingrained in my character and mind as my first “lie for a good cause”. It was the moment that would be my reference point for all future events.

I told him “I just skid and hit the bench”. Just the look of relief on my friend’s face made my day. As if telling it one time wasn’t enough, I had to relive the concocted story, ‘n’ number of times at home, every time somebody came to visit.

But, most of all what that moment taught me, was to compare, how much I had to lose and how much the other guy had to lose, because of the truth. (he was literally crying his eyes dry, telling me, how his father would trash the living daylights out of him, if he knew, this guy had done such a thing, and I thought, they had never beat me at home, and never probably would, atleast it would save this guy from a beating, he was also lucky nobody in the class went and complained to the teacher, man, his stars must have been really bright that day)

Although I never considered it a debt, he did get his chance to repay it, and repay it he did, in style. It was the final exam day, and I was given money to buy myself a pencil on the way to school, I saw some toffees on the way, and spent all the money on them. I reached school, oblivious to the fact that I didn’t have anything to write the exam with. The exam started and this guy, sitting beside me, saw me staring at the ceiling, and asked me why I wasn’t writing, I told him I didn’t have a pencil. He simply gave me his, and said “take it, anyway I won’t pass, atleast you shouldn’t fail”.

And then the teacher saw him sitting simply, and asked him “why aren’t you writing?” and he said “maam, my pencil broke before the exam, and I threw it away”. The teacher gave him a new pencil, but not before giving him 4 juicy wacks with the cane.(yes, corporal punishment was very much prevalent then, although I didn’t know it was called so)

It was not so much the gesture that touched me, but the intention, that anyway I wont gain anything, why let somebody else lose something. If there was any lingering doubt about the course my life would take, it got wiped away with that moment. I decided then and there, to make it my motto, to let somebody have the benefit, if they stood to lose more than me because of my actions.

Thus, began the career, of a Professional Fall Guy.

– Gupta Ghost

P.S.
The only regret I have, is not being able to remember his name.