My Last Chappu

Shankar
Aug 25, 2001



"OWWOOooouunnnnng" groaned Sunil, his body doubled over in pain. He was clutching his groin. His knees slumped to the ground in a few seconds. He looked like he was kissing the ground. Now THAT is the desired position of a well delivered CHAPPU! I had delivered it. It was the last chappu I have delivered in my life & it was a real beauty! Boy, was I proud of my accomplishment!

I know, everybody's wondering what a chappu is, or who the heck Sunil is. Bear with me, I'll ultimately come to that. Sorry Latif, it has nothing to do with you. I must admit, though, your increasing participation on triggered two distinct, but related childhood memories that I thought I could share with you guys.

Chappu was a neologism invented by prepubertal boys in my locality in in the 60s. knows how many of them grew up with me. Asking a prepubertal boy growing up in "how many friends do you have?" or "do you have a best friend?" is the dumbest question a grown up can ask. Of the countless known & invented games we have played, was the favourite. We used to draw stumps on a building wall. Batting turns were by the

luck of the draw. Obviously when a guy gets clean bowled, the batsman usually never agrees with the unanimous decision. If he starts acting like a jerk & refuses to relinquish the bat to the next guy, he gets a chappu from the fielder closest to him. A well delivered chappu solves the problem in a second.

To deliver a chappu, a fielder has to stand a certain close distance from the jerk. He then rams his knee into the jerk's groin with all his might. The object is to have the knee crush his testicles. Frued is right, castration anxiety is the worst fear of prepubertal boys. The batsman doubles over, & the bat is instantly released so the game can continue without any unnecessary delay. By the time the jerk recovers from his writhing & moaning, he's completely forgotten what the argument was & meekly takes his place with the other fielders. With all humility, I must say I was the deliverer & recipient of countless chappus. Its quick, instantaneous & a ruthlessly efficient. Its the most effective conflict resolution tool for boys & perfectly legal (ie when parents are nowhere in sight). Thank you for still preserving our fertility despite our boyhood sins.

That brings me to Sunil. Sunil & I lived in the same building, went to the same school & shared the same schoolbus, same classes since KG, &, if I may, the same "chappu experiences". His dad was a very prominent pediatrician in .Our families are very good friends & we often socialised & went on vacations together.

By the time we reached puberty, several changes were taking place simultaneously. Now that we were introduced to the esoteric concepts of human & fertility, we were aghast at our repugnant behavior & considered chappus the height of sadistic immaturity. The countless girls who lived in the buildings were no longer disgusting subhumans, not worthy of even looking at, let alone stoop to talk to. We found that we were drawn to those subhumans & actually liking it! Embarrassingly at first, but boldly later, we were looking for any excuse to start talking to them. Heck, after a while we thought we were studs & started calling them "chicks".

By the time we come to our graduating year in high school, society starts pressurising us to choose a . Freud is right again, the perfect resolution of the Oedipus complex is for boys to aspire to be just like their fathers. Since both our fathers were doctors, medicine was the ONLY worth considering for Sunil & I. There is cutthroat competition to get into medical college. In those days, had 4 medical colleges with a total of about 500 seats combined. Out of them at least 100 (roughly 20%) were reserved for "scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, nomadic tribes etc etc". That meant hundreds of thousands of potential doctor wannabes had to compete for 400 odd seats in the open enrollment.

In order to get into medical college, you have to do 2 years at a regular college, with a Biology major. First year is considered the best year in a budding doctor's . Scores are not counted for medical college admission, so the object is to just scrape by & have as much fun as you possibly can in a year. Sunil & I enrolled at the St Xavier's college. St Xavier's & Elphinstone college are the two most coolest/notorious colleges in . They have the coolest "crowd" in . BaBa blacksheep to the core & proud of it! The "chicks" in Xavier's & Elphinstone were not only the best looking, but they were always willing to lie to their parents & come out with us for late night partying.

When I look now back at that year it seems like a magical, mystical haze of hashish, & er you know what. Not very proud of it now, but been there-done that; & in a way, the greatest year of my life. My best vacation was when a whole bunch of guys & gals went to Sunil's holiday home on Gorai beach. We were stoned out of our minds continuously for two weeks on a deserted tropical paradise beach. I'll leave it to the reader's what guys & gals do on a deserted pristine tropical beach.

In contrast, the Second Year (or Inter ) was the worst year of my life. I completely abandoned my sinful debauchery & spent every waking moment studying & attending classes. To my shock, Sunil seemed quite cool. He continued his merry ways, cutting classes, hardly ever studying & continuing with the parties. Do you realise how painful it is to be dissecting the nervous system of a fricking cockroach, while Sunil is at Gorai Beach with a bunch of guys & cute chicks, strumming a guitar & trying to sing Bob Dylan songs?! Never mind that Sunil sounds worse than Dylan (if thats possible) & looks 10 times worse than Dylan (if thats possible), the thought of all those chicks cooing around him still brings tears to my eyes. InterScience mericully ends & I score a pretty decent first class. Not fantastic, but with luck, good enough to get into medical college. Sunil scrapes by with a high third or "pass" class. "There go his dream, but he got what he deserved" I thought.

To get admission to medical school all the Deans of the 4 medical schools sit in a designated area & students are made to form a single line in front of them--the guy with the highest InterScience score in University is first line line, & so on, in order of merit. The line goes on forever, circling several blocks. To my shock I was waaaaay back in line! For a frightenening few hours (which felt like a lifetime) I thought there could be more than 400 students who scored higher than me. Mercifully I was one of the last guys to squeeze in. I was assigned to Grant Medical College (GMC) because I didnt have a choice. The brainiest geniouses usually choose GS medical college, which is one of the most prestigious medical colleges in . GMC is usually the last choice. I wished I could have got into GS. Both my dad & Sunil's dad graduated from there. Eventhough I thanked my lucky stars to get into medical college, I felt like I had somehow let dad down. "Sighh 's punishment for my First Year sins" I thought.

Then, to my shock, I saw Sunil running over to me. He's got an admission to GS!!, he says. "No,no,no, thats not possible!" I said. Then he pulls out some goddamned Certicate of proof that he belongs to a nomadic tribe! "NOMADIC TRIBE!?!?!" I holler, "your has parked their butts in for generations!!". "Yeah, but we belong to a caste of a nomadic tribe! Hey dont look at me that way, this is what happens when you brahmins abuse us for centuries!", he replied.

Mayor Koch said "A Conservative is a Liberal who just got mugged!" I know EXACTLY what he means. Forget mugged !; I just got raped because of the sins of my forefathers! Heck! if I'm punished for being this evil sadistic brahmin, I might as well play the part. Thats when I gave Sunil the most beautifully executed last chappu of my life.

Disgusted by the caste system & how it hit home, I decided to leave my country like a nomad & go to the US, where what you do is more important than who you are. The story is true, but the name Sunil is a pseudonym