Give It Your Best Shot

The One With Teletubbies, High Kicks and Bitch Slaps

NOTE: As a firm supporter of the swachhta abhiyan, I have replaced all the cuss words with food names in the hopes of getting a call from the PM.

January of 2008 initiated my last ever quarter of the school life. Entire school was busy decking up for the Republic Day celebrations. Being the senior most class, the responsibility of not giving a rat’s ass about anything fell upon us and we nailed it.

My friend Atul and I were strolling outside the main school building like that old couple who always forget their way out of the community park and therefore keep walking around it in circles. At a distance were sitting three junior boys. Upon noticing us walking in their direction, they immediately put on their newly acquired male ego defense by not acknowledging us at all which, kind of, hurt because at that age, I wanted an unrelentingly unconditional respect from younger people.

“Planning world domination, boys?” I quipped as we got within their earshot. They reluctantly stopped their discussion and gave us the ‘get-the-chocolate-fudge-outta-my-face’ look.

“Answer his question!!” Atul chose to be my champion and targeted his anger at the junior who seemed the least probable to retaliate. I don’t remember any of their names and since Teletubbies have been a huge childhood influence, lets call them — Po, Dipsy and Laa-Laa.

Atul moved aggressively towards Po when Po failed to comply. But before Atul could make contact with Po, his friend Laa-Laa rushed in between Atul and him. He was the same height as Atul but leaner with a tinge of rowdiness in his demeanour. Laa-Laa clearly seemed like a bad influence on Po and Dipsy.

Atul on the other hand was a chubby mamma’s boy whose face would turn pink on even a slightly windy day. They were standing eye-to-eye, smelling the stink of each other’s breaths and yet not flinching. Atul saw this defiance of Laa-Laa as mutiny against the natural order. Laa-Laa, in his own personal opinion, was being the socialist voice in this otherwise capitalist bourgeois.

I, meanwhile, was confidently quiet and acting Switzerland in this whole conflict. Once in a while, I would make eye contact with Dipsy who seemed to be my equivalent on their side. People like Dipsy and I come from the school of confrontation where the first rule is — avoid the confrontation.

“Go back to your class or I am going to stuff my Lakhani school shoe up your newly haired ass”, said Atul in a low growl.

“Give it your best shot”, said Laa-Laa as some of his saliva found its way on Atul’s face. That released the kraken. Atul shoved him away by the shoulders and swiftly kicked him in the face.

The kick brought much required fear in Laa-Laa’s eyes and seeing their leader getting his ass handed over to him, it didn’t take Dipsy and Po too many thoughts to decide to skedaddle. I will be lying to you all if I don’t admit that I was awestruck. There’s something alpha about kicking someone’s ass, even if that someone’s slightly younger. Watching Po, Dipsy and Laa-Laa making a run for it, their shoulders burdened by the weight of humiliation, I turned to Atul and said, “You know he has an older brother who is not the best person to be on the wrong side of.”

“Oh…”, Atul contemplated this new information in his head and then shrugged my warning away concealing the fear of a very probable retribution under his newly found badassery.

Fast forward 24 hours later

Around eleven boys from 12th standard were standing in a circle on an elevated platform that was built right behind the school building and was the favorite hangout spot for underage couples who would easily and quite often succumb to the carnal urges of their transforming body. In the middle of the circle were standing Laa-Laa, with a small cut mark on his face from Atul’s high kick the day before, and overshadowing them all was the tall lean figure of Tinky-Winky — Laa-Laa’s elder brother.

Atul and I were, quite fortunately, missing from that circle as we were unwillingly made part of the stage decoration team for Republic Day and were at that moment, cutting out “JAI HIND” off a chart paper. But in the repeated retelling of this story by everyone who was present in that circle, it was confirmed that Atul was being quite sought after by Tinky-Winky. His exact words being, “Where’s that hamburger who messed up my baby brother?”

A word about Tinky-Winky. He was an alumni and not in a nice, ‘donates-money-to-the-school’ sort of way. He was the kind our school management didn’t want to remember or acknowledge. His penchant for violence and stories around it had been exaggerated to almost an unbelievable level by students who, I am sure, are now part of one or the other IT cells.

I had already narrated a word-to-word account of the incident with Atul and Laa-Laa to everyone in the class. They knew what was on stake there. Tinky Winky was personally promising each one of them one hell of an ass kicking if they didn’t rat Atul out.

“How dare he kick my brother?”, Tinky Winky questioned with a grunt, “I am going to falafel him up?”

In that very moment, another classmate of mine, named Ankit, who had a bit of a stammer and a death wish, stepped forward and to everyone’s surprise, said, “Give..ee..ee.. it your best shot…”

Before he could finish his sentence a lightening fast bitch slap thundered across his left cheek.

Everyone else stepped back.

Before Tinky Winky could go further with his interrogation process, the guy who accompanied Tinky Winky whistled from a distance signaling someone’s arrival. Someone who wouldn’t be amused at the sight of a school alumni beating up a student. That someone was our Hindi teacher Mr. Jagdev who was out on his daily walk round the school. Tinky Winky turned toward Ankit and said, “If I ever catch you outside school, you’re dead” and swiftly ran in the other direction with Laa-Laa and the whistleblower.

Mr. Jagdev noticed the commotion and walked over to the eleven boys and the slap victim.

“Don’t you boys have a Board exam to struggle in? Go back to your classroom right away”, he yelled. He didn’t have to repeat himself as everyone scattered away like ants.

One of the guys, Vikas, took Ankit aside. Ankit was still shaking from the impact of Tinky-Winky’s palm.

“What in the name of Rajma Chawal were you thinking? Why would you challenge him like that?” asked Vikas softly.

“I didn’t…I…”, he stammered a bit, “I was trying to tell him why Atul kicked his brother. ‘Give it your best shot’…ar…ar… are the exact words that Laa-Laa said to Atul before Atul….ki..ki.. kicked him in the face.”

“Then why didn’t you say that first? Why didn’t you set up the premise properly?”

The realization hit Ankit harder than the slap. He should’ve paid more attention in sentence structure classes. But to his advantage, every other guy in the class who wasn’t aware of this little detail believed that Ankit took one for his fellow comrade and saw him in a completely new light.

Ankit made Vikas promise not to tell anyone about their small conversation. And why won’t he? His life changed overnight. He was allowed to open the batting lineup whenever we played cricket and girls walked past him smirking like they saw a real life gladiator. As an added bonus, Tinky-Winky couldn’t materialize on his threat to Ankit because exactly a week later he was arrested for battery and damage to public property.

However, Ankit’s dream run didn’t last long as Vikas broke his vow of silence eventually and told the real reason behind his heroic sacrifice to us during the lunch break. Ankit was dishonorably demoted to his old role of umpire in the very next cricket match and the girls completely forgot about his existence all over again.

The moral of this whole story is that premise is important.