Before i spread "Nimboo Lemon" on the paper and make the things citric, I would like to thank all the living beings who had commented and followed by blog...there are few in this world who, even after being requested many times, have still not read my first blog, and there are few who read it forcefully (i literally opened the blog and presented in front of them, sat on their head until they read it and appreciated)....i got some candid feedback, saying that the words used were not good....well i happily (with a sad face) accept it...i want my blog to be under U/A category, not under a strict A category....so all bad guys, sorry for the upcoming disappointment....
Here I go with "Nimboo Lemon".....This is not just a post, its a real story, about my childhood, about my school days, about 4 kamineys, about the adventures, joy, anguish, love, infatuation, hatred, ego, me and my friends went through during our most wonderful years of life....for good obvious reasons, the real names of the characters are not being used....those who know will actually know about their characters....and i would be spared because their ill-cultured, ill-mannered activities will not be known to the public (this is the main reason for hiding real names).....But i am ok about using my own name....so thankfully i remain manuj arora....
Chapter 1 - Who we are
4 friends, 4 different cultures, one group, named X/4....hang on my dear readers....read the name as I say, or else we 4 will feel offended...the name of the group is "X batli chaar(4)"...there is a story behind this name....we 4 were very good mathematicians...so good that we could have given Mr Aryabhata or Mr Srinivas Ramanujan (2 great mathematicians of Indian history) a great run for their money....if not our teachers, then atleast we 4 used to think like this...and we were always involved with Integration and Differentiation of the Maths.....so when we grew enough to start mischievous acts, we thought of giving a name to our gang....just like a businessman gives a name to a company before starting business...so that all the assets and specially the liabilities are of the company and not of the individual....so the name of the group was important because we didnt want any one to be pointed out later....we wanted the gang should be responsible for the activities....so like a good businessman, we kept a name.....coming back to mathematics, X is the most widely used variable in maths....so X was like a mandatory letter for us to use in the name....."/" this is the symbol of divide...in hindi it is called as "batta"....but as we were great minds and handsome innovators, we made slight changes in "batta" to call it as "batli"....and 4 ofcourse is because we were 4....u all must have guessed this part, considering u r my fans, so u cant be that silly.....so this is a story about me, and more importantly X/4....obviously, there would be many characters over and above 4 of us...because everyone of us had a love story, hate story and not-to-be-told story....
Manuj, Rehan, Champak, Hiten.....we 4 are the X/4 group.....I wont be telling you who was like what....you would come to know when you starting knowing them with their acts.....but just to tell you about the cultural diversification, Rehan is a muslim, god-fearing person, tall, handsome, bad-tampered, favorite among girls (what else do you want man)....Champak is a Marwari, and as all marwaris are, he was miser...i am not sure whether this is the right word for "kanjoos", i wont call him niggard as he wasnt selfish....but kanjoos for sure, good in communication (specially english, which all your teachers want, so he was every teacher's favorite), had many girlfriends, actually enjoyed the company of girls more than boys, but not sure the girls used to reciprocate the same way towards him....may be some....why am i getting so confused...but that was how Champak used to be, serious guy, very technical (some people would smile to this).......alright, Mr Hiten, aka, Raja Babu.....he was the king of hearts, the most amazing person i met, possesses great sense of humor, wicked sometimes, but sensible too, short guy, ready to do anything for friends, diferent taste of life, not best among girls, but all over the place...u dont have to find Hiten anywhere...he would be everywhere.....even the most strongly built and the most fatty people used to salute him and never used to mess with him.....true rockstar.....and finally me, manuj.....punjabi boy, shy, not too outspoken, inclined towards quietness, good in studies, good in sports, good among teachers, not so good among girls, a very simple person among the dashers....
me and rehan used to think, why nimboo lemon is actually called as nimboo lemon.....i mean, nimboo and lemon are one and the same words, even if they are putting 2 nimboos in it, then why not "nimboo nimboo" only or lets be little sophisticated and name it in english as "lemon lemon"...but thats what the "nimboo lemon wala bhaiya" used to call this as.....i told you, we were the bunch of great minds and this thought could only have come to the great minds like us, not people like you....but unfortunately that time people considered us as "kids", else we would have been scientists by now.....anyways, let not discuss serious things here....so, it used to be school days, very less pocket money, we used to roam on cycles, rather one cycle, rehan used to ride and i used to sit on the "danda" or "pipe" (whatever good name u want to give)....we used to follow girls on cycles, the head used to swing 180 degrees if a charming or not so charming girl used to pass through....sometimes, we used to go to the same street again and again, every minute, where any girl would be taking her dog for a loo....well just to straight out things, i was not the culprit, rehan was....what a simple, sober, introvert person can do sitting on the "danda"...i was helpless...the cycle steering was always with rehan and he used to define the path for both of us.....
so those days, nimboo lemon used to cost Rs 6/-, and we generally used to have maximum 5 or 10 rupees in our pockets....one day, i was having Rs 2/- and rehan was having Rs 4/- in his pocket....but we were very desperate to have nimboo lemon, it was like a prasad which we used to take everyday....without nimboo lemon, our day was like amitabh without bachchan, cake without cream, tap without water (i can give many such one without other examples).....so we wanted to have nimboo lemon that day, but we could only afford one glass....moreover, we were standing in a rushy market of Krishna nagar, where lots of people were having nimboo lemon....we were very particular about our self respect and self esteem.....we never wanted that world should us as those youngsters who could not afford 2 glasses of nimboo lemon.....so we thought and came out with a brilliant idea...to have nimboo lemon as well as to protect our self respect and self esteem.....though i am over emphasizing, but we were actually genius......being genius was not in our hands, we were just too good since birth.....so coming back to the crunch situation......we made a excellent plan.....i went to the "bhaiya" and rehan was standing far, among the other people who were drinking.....i shouted towards rehan and asked whether he wants to have nimboo lemon or not....he shouted back to me with a NO, i dont feel like having it, u have it.....everybody heard that who were standing there.....this ensured that we would now need to buy only one glass...so half of the plan was executed.....we protected our self respect.....so i took the glass, came towards rehan and started drinking....after i finished half of the glass....i said to rehan with a high tone that i am not finding the nimboo lemon good today, i am not at all enjoying it....i guess something is missing....shall i throw it if you also dont want to have it?.....he also raised his voice and said to me that if you dont want to have it, then why we should throw...we should not throw and waste the drinks and the eatable...so if you are not feeling like having it, i will take it, even though i am not willing to have it, but again we have been taught that things should not be wasted.....so remaining half, he drank.....now, my dear friends....ca you beat that....every person standing their thought that we took one drink because one was not feeling to have it....not because we were not having the money....secondly, one person didnt like it, and as good educated boys, they didnt want to waste the things, so the other boy had it even though he never wanted to had it initially....so we had our drink, and the self respect and self esteem was still maintained.....this could only be done by the people of X/4 group......thats a challenge.....
enough of chapter 1, i will be back with the adventures of X/4 group in the future blogs.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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the intention of writing this blog is to share my childhood days with those people who are not aware of it.....it was not a super rocking childhood....but for every individual, their childhood is the most beautiful memory.....i thought to put some of the beautiful moments with u....when i started writing blogs, i wanted to write about the problems, issues, one face in the day to day world....and i would continue writing those things....but this is on the lighter side.....i hope you would also love it......
