Hellos to everyone.This is my supposed  entry for Dec 06 contest (if it qualifies)
Once upon a time long time ago… well once because I was never able to repeat my caper again and long time ago cause my failing memory reminds me of my growing age (life thou art an irony!). Okay coming back to what I was writing before I forget its where, when and how.

Now, I was in school at that time, I guess in 5^th standard. All of us first cousins lived in the same town and all but me went to the same school. Being a very close-knit family we used to hang out together (much to my chagrin).All my cousins right from size of Jerry to that of He-Man (I related all of them to only and only cartoon characters) sung songs in praise of their school while the chorus consisted of a lucid account of the fact that I was unlucky to be studying in a different, non-achiever school. Although I never felt that I was unlucky, for my school was as good as theirs (I still believe it) but I did not have the courage to fight them which made it all the more worse.

 Then one day my very bookish brain (My hobby was studying, Oh! God How boring can one be) came up with a novel idea. Ours was a boarding school where students came from as far as U.S. & South East Asia (all spoilt children of NRIs) with maximum strength being of Thailanders. I had often observed them talking in Thai with each other (even they used to sing songs instead of talking). And looking at them chatting away to glory, bang! I got my idea.

 “Theka meka mai loooooooooong”, God knows what it means or whether it means anything at all. But a proud me went to my cousins and this above written gibberish was my opening sentence. They looked at me quizzically and I very proudly told them that I had learnt Thai and could teach them also if they would give me “gurudakshina”. I was obsessed with mythological serials and their lingo also (ya I know what you are thinking)

Those proud and equally gullible cartoon characters fell into my trap (after all how could I , a non-achiever know anything that they did not) . With a promise of 1 Cadbury Dairy milk chocolate each, I taught them thai translations for these three words. ”hello”, “how are you” and  “Thankyou”. What translations I gave them only God knows for I’m confident even they must have forgotten (Good for me). You think it is ordinary then wait till I tell you this-once I got the chocolate I even gave them a thai translation to their name absolutely free (I think I’m good at marketing. What say?) Imagine my cousin shallini was ”aabzu gabzu” or something like that.

All in all, in a week’s time I had an elated soul, 5-6 Dairy milk chocolates and some gibberish spilled all over a note book which had the title ’English to thai translations.’

I think I finally, truly enjoyed coming from a ‘no-good, non achiever’ school

“I hereby certify that my submission is my original yet unpublished work and that it has not been copied from any place. I also certify that any legal issue that contests the originality of my piece is my sole responsibility, that rediff or the contest co-ordinator are in no way responsible for the same.”