Summer’s the Time for Fun

Come  April –May and  Summer will begin. For students, this period is significant for the Summer Holidays. After the long drawn out tension filled exams, a Summer Holiday is just the safety valve one needs to let out steam. Everyone however is not fortunate enough to proceed on Summer Holidays, for reasons economic or otherwise. Not for nothing do they say that necessity is the mother of invention. To sum up, come  Summer, some of these children are resourceful enough to find their own Indian Summer.

I had a similar experience one unforgettable Summer. No, it was nothing like the Summer of ’42, no roll in the clover. No slam bang, thank you Ma'am. Very surprisingly girls had no role to play this particular Summer. We were in the first year of college and had just completed our final exams. About 7 of us were not going on any Summer Holiday. We were absolutely free for about 2 months and for once, our mothers were not complaining, that we spent most of our time outdoors! When you indulge in the same activities day in and day out, ennui tends to set in. One day one of our friends Ross, informed us that his father had to suddenly go to Malaysia on a short term assignment. He had already left with Ross’s mother. Ross had an elder brother who left for work in the mornings and returned late in the evenings. This meant that his house was free for the entire day! Somebody up there was certainly taking care of us! 

We met the next day itself, soon after Big Brother left for work. We made all sorts of plans. Since the mornings were extremely hot, we decided we would stay put in the flat and gauged ways and means of engaging our time. Some one suggested playing Flush. Now we were just kids and this mention of Flush, brought deep flushes to our faces. Flush after all was gambling. We mulled over it, then like true descendants of Adam, decided we were unAble to resist the temptation. We just hoped no one would raise Cain. Adam had an apple to chew and bite, we just had to chew on the fact that that we had no money to spare. We realised that temptation does bite. We dug into our deep pockets, which were the fashion at that time. (Now you know where the phrase dipping into one’s resouces came from). All we came up with was change. Well this is one type of change no one objects to! So we settled for stakes of 5 paise and 10 paise. 5 paise obviously being the stake for going blind. The righteous visionaries amongst us were convinced that if found out, we would all be burnt at the stake. Fortunately we only had a John (with arched brows) but no Joan of Arc. 

So more like the outlaws from the Wild West, than knights of King Arthur, we sat around a table and made our debut in the big bad world of vice. Assuaging our conscience was easy, the stakes were just for small paise!  Since our hard to get money was about to go up in smoke, how could gamblers not smoke? We smoked non-filter cigarettes and made the toxic sticks stick. We were merely replicating a hand to mouth existence! This went on till one of us burnt his lip. You bet the poor guy yelled in pain and gave all the rest plenty of lip. You should have seen us in action. We slanted our eyes (like Clint Eastwood) picked the cards off the table, in one smooth action. The three cards were never viewed all together but one at a time, in stylised slow motion. Like seasoned actors, we prolonged and savoured the suspense till it was unbearable. We were careful never to show our feelings even when we  espied a Flush (3 cards of the same set) or bullets (2 aces) or slugs (2 two’s). The vocabulary of our constabulary or amateur  card sharps, was sharpened to a fine edge. Those of us who ran out of funds, had to borrow from the winners. The usurious rates of interest would have driven lesser mortals to suicide. Fortunately it was a free market economy out there. A puff was sold for 5 paise or 10 paise, depending on how deep one dragged at the cigarette. Carbon credits and emission norms existed even then!

At lunch time, some one came to deliver a dabba. It contained lunch for Ross and dinner for both brothers. Some of the naughty guys would immediately tuck into the contents. Poor Ross found the whole thing gross, perhaps even dross. His plaintive pleadings: At least leave some for my brother or I’ll have to face the music, fell on tone deaf ears! Yes, music though played non-stop. Since we did not want to attract undue attention, we toned down the volume. This actually won us Brownie points. The neighbours were amazed that we were so well behaved. The cards ensured that not all of us were flushed with success. So many of us turned to other wordy sorry worthy pastimes like Scrabble or simply reading. Quite an achievement with all the bedlam prevailing. We took a lunch break, only to shuffle back after an hour or so to resume our nefarious activites. This went on till about 6.30PM. Then collecting the spoils of war and other baggage, we dispersed, well before Big Brother returned from work. You bet an exhauted Ross was overjoyed to see us go! He had to immediately keep the house in order. No mean task as any Speaker of any House will testify! His joy however was short lived. Next morning like the recurring decimal, we were back to set the wheels in motion once again. This cycle went on for almost a month.

Today the members of that Good for Nothing Gang, have spread out all over the globe, diversifying into various professions. A Sea Captain, a HRD Manager, a Banker, an International Events Manager, a Chartered Accountant, a Professor, an IT wiz, a Restauranteur in New York…. Ross himself is the Treasurer of some swanky Night Club in Nairobi. Well it figures. We all know in which treasury he cut his milk teeth.  
Treasured memories such as these, will live forever.