Prank Pullers

Narayeni’s panty was stuffed with full of papers, which was very carefully tore and cut into thousands of small pieces. It happened when she was sleeping, when she woke up for her trip for the loo, at night she was surprised and unnerved at the same time. It took Narayani really long time to empty her panty. While Narayeni was so perplexed by such type of prank, other girls her started laughing like hell. they used to say the teen girls You know what is the real problem being a child, somebody is always around the corner to laugh at it. And it so happened that at that time Rita her close friend for many years in their time in Bal Mandir. Narayeni in her naivete, thought that it was indeed Rita and her other friends who stuffed all those papers in her panty. Rita, instead of trying to prove her innocence on this matter, laughed and laughed and laughed. As they used to say, to us by our didis in those days, that girls laugh even we see the curled tail of a dog !

When I look back, and try to understand the situation; her laughter did have power to tell   us that she knew something what Narayeni did not knew then. But then, Narayeni did not knew about it. The real truth must have been disclosed to Narayeni  - or even to Rita - later on but I am clueless about it. Even if I knew it then, now its lost in the memory lane.

In another incident, one day, just when Chhaya raised her hand to slap Mira, in the dark hour exactly at that very moment the light came and she was caught red handed by her the would be victim of that prank. If my vague memory stays with me, Mira at this point was blaming her for the other day also, when she was slapped in the darkness. It was the incident at the time when it happened when there used to be load shedding during my childhood days, just like we have it now a days. Oh yes the dark horus used to be shorter than todays. And in that dark hour some girls felt it quite easy to slap  other girls; just for fun !

Mira was a mildly mentally retarded girl and Chhaya was normal girl, yet she felt comfortable to pull prank on her and not other normal girls. May be she wanted to avoid the consequences later on, but I have no clue about her tactic; not then not now. She is the only one and right person to know the real truth about it.

Its really hard to understand the thought of some people, who pull prank on others, especially; to those who are not at par with us in some level [mental and physical] and its really not comfortable feelings to watch them laugh at the cost of others misery.

However, growing up in Bal Mandir and watching different age of people at different stage of life, who pulled different kind of pranks on other children was childishly stupid yet at times it was funny too. Well, let me be honest here, may be not all the time it tickled our funny bones; but the one who pulled it always laughed. And undoubtedly it used to be the laughter of a triumph !

Parvati was another jolly prank pullers and sometimes people need something to pull prank on, like umbrella in this case, which we did not have then. We used to use rain coats and gumboot to go to school during rainy seasons. The other children used to come to school with their umbrella. One day, Parvati borrowed an umbrella without the consent of the owner and then used the hook of umbrella to pull the neck of another girl. The girls whose name I can't remember today, got so angry with that act that she snatched the umbrella from her hand and tried to break it. Although, she could not break it but, was successful to bend the umbrella. It caused panic to Parvati, as she did not have money to give the owner to repair nor she had taken permission to use it -for prank pulling purpose.

Parvati really had to work hard to straighten the umbrella’s flimsy rod and then lots and lots of excuses to settle the deal with the girl. All I can I can about that girls is she was in our class. When I was watching Parvati and her way of having fun I have to admit it now, I was judgemental about that.

But the one that really refuse to leave my mind even today is Tapasya doing some trick on Nirmala to pull practical joke that needed Nirmala to land her hand in the grass floor, where the dog poop was hidden. Tapasya was not even feeling sorry for such disgusting prank but once Nirmala saw her hand covered with wet dog poop, it actually made her cry. Because, I was witness of this dirty and disgusting prank pulled by Tapasya and watching Tapasya and Nirmala closely. It was so hard for me to read the mind of Tapasya [even at that age as I could have been nearing fourteen then] and other girls who joined Tapasya laughing but sadly the same thing made Nirmala cry !

To some extent the prank which was mentioned above in first two was mild and harmless but last two do not have power to tickle my funny bones.

It seems I was just the witness of many such pranks pulled by many girls around me, but; not the kind of person who enjoyed pulling prank on anyone.Strangely, people did not felt easy to pull prank on me. I did not find any fun in that kind of prank. Pulling prank is not just my stuff. Oh ! if you are wondering what tickles my funny bones, all I can say is, I love good clean jokes kinds of that appears on Reader's Digest to make me happy and remain happy. Love life and love laughing, but prank pulling is just not my stuff.