My Sister Poo
Poo is my cousin sister and she lives in Rugby. Her real name is Pooja Menon and in the long list of my siblings she is my favorite one. This memoir is about her and how she became an invaluable part of my life.
Pooja Menon was born on May 6, 1991 in Baroda to Rajni and Murli Menon both of them who are engineers. It was a bright sunny afternoon when she came out of her mother’s womb and her parents and grandparents considered the time very auspicious. A few days later when Rajni Mami brought Pooja home to B-9, Panchwati, Amma took a photo carrying her- the same way she would pose with me exactly 2 years, 4 months and 26 days later.
Even though I was born in Ahmedabad, I stayed at B-9 Panchwati for my first 2 years. During those two years, I developed a strong bond with Pooja, Tata, Amma, Mama and Mami. The only thing I remember of my first two years is that I learned a bit of Malayalam and received lots of hugs and kisses from those who came to visit me. So, by the time I went to Ahmedabad I was a spoilt baby. Though I spent most of my time in Ahmedabad, my vacations were spent in Baroda.
As I grew up and my mind began to develop, I slowly started to realize what a great boon a sister meant. Pooja was more than a sister to me. This is because if she were a sister, then the list of adjectives describing her would never get over. However, I shall take some incidents from my memories that show her different aspects.
I had known how to read English from the age of 4. However, I still had difficulty knowing the meaning of T.V. Once we had come in a taxi from Bombay with Mayamashi and I was to be dropped off at Baroda. And on that taxi, it was written T.V. Ah! That confounded word! I remained awake for half of the journey thinking about its meaning. I thought that if I asked its meaning to my elders, they would laugh at me. So I dropped the idea. As we reached Baroda, Pooja was there to receive me and seeing the word she exclaimed that its full form was Television. I was relieved to get its meaning and promised to never forget it. Thus she was my first teacher.
We both used to watch a lot of movies on T.V (whose meaning I still remember) and than based on the stories we used to daydream and fantasize. Often we used to enact them. Our sets were the sofas and chairs of the drawing room and the stairs leading to the upper bedrooms. Ah……. Those moments in which we would be heroes would be blissful.
I also remember an incident in which I had done something wrong due to which Poo had got angry and told me to do 20 sit-ups. While I was doing this, she had an idea. She thought that if I were to do 100 sit-ups, then I would create a world record. This added an entertaining twist to the punishment. At that time we were small and did not know that the world record was many more times the 100 sit-ups. Yet, I did them and when I realized that the world record part was just a fragment of Poo’s imagination, I laughed heartily. Later I realized that many such small incidents had made a huge impact on my creativity and thus Poo had been to a large extent a creative guide to me.
She and I used to play a lot of pranks on Amma. Whenever she used to bend down, we used to sneak behind her and hit her from the behind which would lead to her getting angry and speaking bad words. Meanwhile, we would run away doubling up with laughter. We also used to play cricket in the big lobby with our bat and ball. We also used to play ‘Picnic’ a board game in the afternoon. In the evenings we used to play ‘The Legends of the Hidden Temple’ which was originally an adventure serial. Thus she was a playmate and a friend to me.
As she grew, she became more fashion-conscious. She began to take care of her hair, did nail-polish and started doing ‘mehndi’. When she did it for the first few times, I got angry. So I too started doing nail-polish. I remember that she used to help me choose the colors suited for me and how enthusiastically I would apply them on my nails.
I also vividly remember the first and the last time I put on mehndi. It had all started with me getting an inferiority complex. I had seen only girls like Pooja doing mehndi, so I demanded that what was it that girls could do and boys could not. I insisted that I too should get a mehndi on my hand. So, Poo wrote down Satya with mehndi and thus I got my first mehndi. However, I looked like a girl and in my school became a laughing stock at my school. So I stopped putting mehndi. Thus Poo was my first fashion designer.
If we talk about Pooja and not about BPNAS, then it would be a great injustice to her. I was in 2nd when I and Poo sort of thought of starting it. During that time, Pooja was a great fan of Karan Johar and would often dance to the songs of his pictures. My mother discovered this talent and proposed the idea of a cultural programme. I had Poo proposed this idea to our friends Bonny, Anjali and Namrata. They dismissed the idea as a joke but as we met and talked, the joke became a reality. So we started practicing dance. We then had to send invitation cards to everybody in the Panchwati society. This responsibility was given to me and Pooja. I was shy and not very interactive with people except for my friends. But she gave me the strength and confidence to complete the difficult task.
Then we practiced our songs and dances and items that we were going to present. For the first time in my life I realized the importance and meaning of rehearsals. As the day of the programme drew closer, I had to fight wars of nerves. Pooja was the only support to me those days as she talked to me constantly and decreased the tension. Now, as I think about it, my eyes fill with tears as I realize how much she cared about me. She too was nervous, but instead of telling me to calm her down, she decreased my tension.
The cultural programme was a big hit and we talked about it for a lot of days. I knew that Pooja was the reason it had been a big hit. She had been the body and the soul of the programme. I had lasted through it only because of Pooja’s help. Hence she became a kind of guide to me.
Another incident happened that proved that Pooja was more than a sister to me. I and Pooja used to go to computer classes in Baroda. On the last day, there was an elocution competition on various topics and I had not prepared for it. So, on the day before, Pooja herself doing less of her topic wrote about my topic and gave it to me. In the night I read the topic and the next day I got the second prize. I was stunned as I realized that I wouldn’t have achieved anything without Pooja. Even now, when I think about it I feel an admiration at her high level of maturity which I will never be able to achieve.
She was the first person to give me nicknames. I had given her the nickname Poo, as I had seen her liking for Winnie the Pooh, and she had his qualities of maturity, helpfulness, caring nature, kindness, etc. My first nickname was Chottu, which Amma had given me. Then, with the arrival of Poo the age of nicknames started. My first nickname was Sattu, which she calls me even now. The second nickname was Satty and the third and most recent was Sat, which is my nickname when we chat on internet.
During my trip to Kerala, she became my true friend. Vishnu, my cousin brother used to irritate me with his idiotic talks but during the night, when I used to chat with Poo my anger would melt away. I used to tell her my problems and she used to give different ways to solve them. During that time I wouldn’t be in Kerala but somewhere in Rugby listening to her as she told me about the countryside, her school and the 13th standard. I would also tell her my thoughts and views on Indian people and places and my secrets. Soon, I realized that she had become a keeper of secrets and indirectly my soul.
When she finally came to Ahmedabad for a week, she had not changed one bit. Though, she had become a bit more sophisticated and gadget-friendly, she had the same qualities I had liked about her. She saw me at the airport and told me,” I should stop calling you Chottu as you have grown like a bamboo.” And we heartily laughed as she craned her neck upwards to see my face. For a week she stayed and for a week I was happy. I only had one bad view about her and that was that she had become a T.V addict. This hurt me a little but I thought that every person has some bad qualities and one must accept him like that. After all, she had accepted me as a brother even though I had an immature mind and a childish behavior. As the week finished and she left for Baroda, she taught me something. Times is unstoppable and so make good use of every second you have. My parents had become fed up of telling me the same thing but it was she who had made me realize its true meaning.
After she went a strange emptiness came upon my life. I started pondering about new ideas that could divert my mind. But every time I tried to do so, I heard the familiar tinkle of anklets, the thick voice, saw the mature and dignified face and the short and determined stature of an independent, firm yet caring girl who had been my sister.
I will always be indebted to her for giving me a proper feedback of my first romantic poem ‘Without You’. She said that she liked the poem but found it a bit too lengthy. As I reread the poem I realized that she had been right. Any girl would have slept if I would have recited it to her!
Poo’s most endearing quality was to live in the present, cherish the past and ponder about the future. On the last day of her visit to Ahmedabad, we talked about B-9, Panchwati that had been sold down. We remembered the sweet incidents associated with it. And later as she was going, she told me that after ten or fifteen years, we would buy it back after getting enough money. And as her determined face became smaller and smaller, I remembered the incidents I had with Poo, B-9 Panchwati and the realized that there was a deep connection with them. And finally I became aware that even while going she had taught me another lesson that reminded me of the famous dialogue of the Rocky Balboa picture-“it isn’t over till its over”.
