Memories are strange. Some hit you suddenly, without any context or reason, totally arbitrarily.
I must have been around 10 yrs old then. One would think that a double-digit age would imply some amount of responsibility and sense, but lets not forget that it is me we are talking about. Please don’t misunderstand what I just said. I was extremely smart. In fact (blush, blush) dare I say I was the mastermind behind most of our plans. My problem was that I seldom gave thought to the consequences. Which, some of you will scoff, implies that the plan is incomplete. But for me, at that age, the plan itself was the vision. And the vision was the plan. The other details mattered not.
As I was saying, before I interrupted myself, I was around 10 years old then. We had just shifted into our colony in Baghdad. The campus was at a nascent stage. Everything was still being built. We had to live in tiny caravan like houses, which could be dismantled in a couple of hours. (We actually ended up living in those caravan-houses for our entire two and a half years stay in Baghdad). There were two rows of these cararvan-houses, built close to each other like on a Lego board, which ran parallel to the campus wall. The area between the wall and the houses was dug up, presumably to build a garden sometime in the distant future. Baghdad, much to my surprise, had turned out to be a green city. In fact, it was fairly disappointing, because I had kind of hoped that we would be living in the desert. The colony was my only consolation. It was dry and very desert-like. It was not unusual to spot a scorpion or two.
Anyways (How I hate it when I keep interrupting myself!), at the end of this parallel-to-the-wall-dug-up-stretch-of-land was a tap that leaked. As children, every little thing is fascinating. And the leaking tap caught our attention. We noticed that a huge pool of water, about two feet in diameter, would accumulate every morning (and then evaporate in the cruel scorching sun’s heat). It all started with us playing boat-boat in this tiny puddle. We used a thick carton (it was really thick) opened out and folded into a raft-like thing. As you can imagine (though we were considerably lighter then) that we would barely manage to stay afloat for two seconds. THAT is when the brainwave struck me.
What if the whole area of dug up land was filled with water? It would be like a river. Oh the possibilities!
But who would switch the tap on? It required presence of mind, unbound courage and supreme intelligence. Who else but me?
That night, I dressed in black. I intended to paint my face black as well, but my mother seemed suspicious when I asked her for shoe-polish (I never ever polished my shoes.), so I decided against it. I waited till it was quiet outside (Though considering the few number of people residing in the campus then, it was quiet all the time!) and stole out. Walking in the shadows, I managed to achieve the task without attracting any attention at all. I was the lord of the night. The Queen of the shadows of the dark.
The members of our group met that night at a club dinner, and I gave them the nod of my head. The job was done. We were all very excited but we dared not discuss anything in front of our parents.
The sun rose the next morning, bright and shiny. I woke up bathed in sweat, rudely being shaken by my mother. Oh Oh! Not a good sign. I gave her my best first-thing-in-the-morning angelic smile. No change in her reaction. I knew then that she knew.
I don’t really remember much of that morning. Except that there was a lot of screaming (You know how mothers can get sometimes!) and a lot of crying (Yes, sometimes the Queen of the shadows of the dark also cries.) and a confiscation of my outdoors-playing rights for the next three days. Apparently, our plan had been successful after all. The whole area had got flooded as per our plan. Unfortunately, it had also drained out the colony’s entire water supply. And the over-flow of water had short-circuited the electrical wires. So no electricity and no water.
But boy oh boy! Did we have fun or did we have fun. Playing in our river of water. That is, once our parents dared to let us venture out.
I must have been around 10 yrs old then. One would think that a double-digit age would imply some amount of responsibility and sense, but lets not forget that it is me we are talking about. Please don’t misunderstand what I just said. I was extremely smart. In fact (blush, blush) dare I say I was the mastermind behind most of our plans. My problem was that I seldom gave thought to the consequences. Which, some of you will scoff, implies that the plan is incomplete. But for me, at that age, the plan itself was the vision. And the vision was the plan. The other details mattered not.
As I was saying, before I interrupted myself, I was around 10 years old then. We had just shifted into our colony in Baghdad. The campus was at a nascent stage. Everything was still being built. We had to live in tiny caravan like houses, which could be dismantled in a couple of hours. (We actually ended up living in those caravan-houses for our entire two and a half years stay in Baghdad). There were two rows of these cararvan-houses, built close to each other like on a Lego board, which ran parallel to the campus wall. The area between the wall and the houses was dug up, presumably to build a garden sometime in the distant future. Baghdad, much to my surprise, had turned out to be a green city. In fact, it was fairly disappointing, because I had kind of hoped that we would be living in the desert. The colony was my only consolation. It was dry and very desert-like. It was not unusual to spot a scorpion or two.
Anyways (How I hate it when I keep interrupting myself!), at the end of this parallel-to-the-wall-dug-up-stretch-of-land was a tap that leaked. As children, every little thing is fascinating. And the leaking tap caught our attention. We noticed that a huge pool of water, about two feet in diameter, would accumulate every morning (and then evaporate in the cruel scorching sun’s heat). It all started with us playing boat-boat in this tiny puddle. We used a thick carton (it was really thick) opened out and folded into a raft-like thing. As you can imagine (though we were considerably lighter then) that we would barely manage to stay afloat for two seconds. THAT is when the brainwave struck me.
What if the whole area of dug up land was filled with water? It would be like a river. Oh the possibilities!
But who would switch the tap on? It required presence of mind, unbound courage and supreme intelligence. Who else but me?
That night, I dressed in black. I intended to paint my face black as well, but my mother seemed suspicious when I asked her for shoe-polish (I never ever polished my shoes.), so I decided against it. I waited till it was quiet outside (Though considering the few number of people residing in the campus then, it was quiet all the time!) and stole out. Walking in the shadows, I managed to achieve the task without attracting any attention at all. I was the lord of the night. The Queen of the shadows of the dark.
The members of our group met that night at a club dinner, and I gave them the nod of my head. The job was done. We were all very excited but we dared not discuss anything in front of our parents.
The sun rose the next morning, bright and shiny. I woke up bathed in sweat, rudely being shaken by my mother. Oh Oh! Not a good sign. I gave her my best first-thing-in-the-morning angelic smile. No change in her reaction. I knew then that she knew.
I don’t really remember much of that morning. Except that there was a lot of screaming (You know how mothers can get sometimes!) and a lot of crying (Yes, sometimes the Queen of the shadows of the dark also cries.) and a confiscation of my outdoors-playing rights for the next three days. Apparently, our plan had been successful after all. The whole area had got flooded as per our plan. Unfortunately, it had also drained out the colony’s entire water supply. And the over-flow of water had short-circuited the electrical wires. So no electricity and no water.
But boy oh boy! Did we have fun or did we have fun. Playing in our river of water. That is, once our parents dared to let us venture out.
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