Once upon a time .....

Long ago , at the dawn of Jan 13Th , 1986 was born , yet another useless addition to the earth ...and you guessed it right it was none other than me. and then .......hmmmm .....well even I am getting bored ...So lets not go back so far .

Once again long , but not very long ago , I was in my third standard. The age where we thought we could be anything and everything we wanted . Where the dreams had no limits , no apprehensions , no discouragements , no self doubts ..phew lovely old third standard . Being more specific ..lovely old third standard 'C' section...

"Arun its already 8 and you are still not out of your bed..the auto will be here anytime " ...and there I was dreaming about a world with no maths homework , no Mrs Rachael Jacob (our class teacher/science teacher aka terror) , no kalpana sundaram (our class leader who always used to write my name first on the board in between each and every period when the dreaded ritual of ' MINDING THE CLASS ' was going on) , and no Ramani Matthews ( our mallu geography teacher who had an unusual way of pronouncing each and every word with the letter 'o' - and adding to it she kept spitting unknowingly with each and every word she spoke ... still remember the front benchers trying all their tactics producing awkward movements thereby escaping from the saliva trajectory ..and the joy they get on escaping each and every shower ...priceless ) and our yoga teacher who in the name of some 'never ever able to pronounce ' asana asks me to interchange my hands and legs , to stand but not to stand , to sit but not to sit , and on top of it asks me to keep smelling with one nostril closed and in case I do it wrong she comes close and asks me to smell again...wish she would take bath some day or the other ...and suddenly the realization comes - I am getting late to school .

I quickly brushed , took a bath and put on my shirt and trousers ( the uniform version of patta patti ) and whoaaaa ...I was just in time for the auto .. With the usual fight with my junior , 2nd standard hema for the allocation of seats inside the auto ,finally I just about managed to make it on time .

The day was Thursday and thankfully there was no geography or yoga period . The only worry was Mrs Rachael Jacob's science class which was scheduled as the third period .

The first two periods went off smoothly and now it was time for the science class oops sorry science period . Mrs Rachael, my class teacher/science teacher arrived with her usual cunning , wicked , baleful and evil look adding more fears to my premonition .

"Sri gurub yo namaha" the chorus of the class broke the silence .

She began " I have received a few complaints from parents saying that most of you here don't have the habit of wearing an underwear " ....what the fu@$..well not exactly , I used a much subdued version but I don't remember what it was exactly ...anyway the emotion is conveyed I guess ..

"Oh god " I thought to myself . Now in case you are thinking as to why I am tensed it simply means that you have not been reading this post carefully as I had already thrown you a clue beforehand . Anyway if you still haven't found it out , bad on your part . Go to the first line of the 4th paragraph .(lazy buggers . k . I will reproduce them for the sake of my readers )

I quickly brushed , took a bath and put on my shirt and trousers

That's precisely and exactly what I did .I never had the habit of wearing an underwear because I was one of the rebels during those days and I always believed an underwear served just one purpose.

In case your shorts tore your underwear would protect your so called 'manam ' ( the word usually associated with kannagi or simply put - your honour ) .

And I didn't wear one because :

If ever my shorts tore it would be because of either my yoga classes or other breathtaking antics .But however they would mean that even my underwear would tear because such were the extremity of the asanas taught . So either way 'manam' is gone so why take the pain .

To this day I am astounded at the brilliance of my logical reasoning abilities at such a young age .

The thinking process was suddenly disturbed by the announcement that she would be coming personally to each and everyone and we had to show her the top part of our underwear . Thankfully since we were in our third standard we didn't understand the real possible repercussions of this bizarre checking .

Well , now what do I do . I ain't giving up so easily . I took my handkerchief inserted it inside my shorts and tried rehearsing it to my friend . "Wonderful . No way she can find out ", he applauded me . whoaaaaa . "well done arun ..go ahead", I told myself.

She was nearing me . A few signs of perspiration started showing up on my forehead . But unfortunately the kerchief had a different job at hand now .Arun show me yours she said . I did exactly as rehearsed but unfortunately the one I had was a ladies handkerchief and the beautiful pink flower at the end of the hankie showed up . aga .

For the next few minutes my ears had gone into the mute mode . I could see her yelling at the top of her voice .I could just see.... She was at her evil best . "You bloody , trying to disguise a hanky for an underwear . Get out of the class ". Well , mission failure .

Now I was an 'OUT-STANDING' student. Though I have bagged the title a lot many times throughout my school never was it for a reason as great as this . There were few more unfortunate souls to give me company . But still I stood with my head high as if I had won a 'Bharat Ratna ' award .

Unfortunately for me , the principal was on rounds that day and she saw us . And as unfortunate as it could get , she asked me "Whats the reason ?? " . "I didnt wear my underwear " , I told her proudly . An uncontrollable smile gushed across her face which was soon accompanied by the boisterous giggles from my fellow "underwear wearing" classmates .

Well , one thing was for sure . I started wearing my underwear from that day onwards . And the tradition continues till date . Thanks to the awe inspiring ritual by Mrs Rachel Jacob .

Ahem ...Ahem...So all is well that ends well......