"Your vacation starts next week, no?" My dad asked me. I knew that tone. . .oh I knew that tone.
[FLASHBACK-seventh grade]
"Your vacations start next week, alwa?" My dad asked me.
"Hu.." I said.
"Oh good..two more papers, do well. you want ice-cream?"
next week I was learning how to make paper ducks at a summer camp for kids.
[FLASHBACK-eighth grade]
"Last paper, huh?"
"Hu.."
Cricket camp. St. Joseph's ground, Richmond circle.
[FLASHBACK-ninth grade]
"You want to join the military?"
"Do I look like I want to?"
"Oh good...then you'll love this camp."
The Mahar Regiment's Pegasus camp![Thanks sonu and chandru uncle!!!] Full of obstacle courses ( rope bridges, brick walls, crawling through tunnels, sleeping in tents, dodging scorpions to go to the loo, socializing with rich spoilt kids hailing from "rich" schools, as I called them...bunch of jerks)
Leadership, personality building activities; more socializing with jerk-kids, ten km long treks through barren lands, raft building, rock climbing stuff...
[Tenth grade]
[Reconstruction]
[Scene: my parents' bedroom]
One fine day, my parents woke up.
"We'll send him to a yoga camp" They said in unison.
Sunshine points about the camp.
1)The female volunteers there were just out of this world.
2)I made a lot of friends, I still am in touch with.
3)I learnt how to serve food to people, also to wash my own plate after eating.
4)I got to know the "candle in the dark" technique to dissipate negative energy. i still, very much, do it. [straight face]
5)I learnt yoga is a pussy way to lose weight.
6)I got to lead a crew of retards for a play. People who can't do three different types of laughs are not actors. the crowd loved my performance.
7)I read the "thank you" speech at the end.
8)I actually felt bad leaving the place ten days later.
9)On the last day, we filled out each-others slam books. It was emotional. sniff.
[still have the book. I read it by the candle...lol]
Not-so-sunshine points about the camp.
1)We had to call the hot female volunteers "Didi's" (sister!)
2)The yoga itself was excruciatingly painful.
3)We had to gulp down liters of salt water and puke it out to cleanse out tummies.
4)We had to play team building games every evening. I hate chasing thin people during lock and key!!
5)We had to fill out "emotional quotient" forms. on an average they had 300 questions per questionnaire.
6)They segregated chubby kids on the first yoga session and they were told to follow a different diet...stupid fat kids...he he..er...I WAS NOT IN THE GROUP!!
7)We had to sleep on the floor, on a carpet.
8)Wash our own clothes.
9)No junk food
10)No TV.
11)Common bathrooms. Long lines for them. Sheesh.
12)A 12 km trek to a near by fort. WTF was that!!
No, my parents did not hate me. I actually willingly went to these summer camps. I am what I am today because of them. I learnt a lot about socializing, friendship, give and take, how to slap a guy when he is asleep and make it sound like he dreamt it, in the morning.
Thank you dad. Thank you mom.
