Harjot

I have a new neighbor.

It's a Surd kid in a little pink turban called Harjot.

All the other kids in my apartment building are badly behaved Tam kids who play cricket and football and break windows and charge into your apartment if your door is left open and break anything within reach on the pretext of finding their greasy ball.

I mentioned Tam kids; so you must understand that there is a lot of coarse swearing in Tam. The new Kids on the Block start off saying idiot and fool and descend within two days to muttal, shaniyan, bemari, somari and within a week, to thevadiya, all lead by a prepubescent but precocious 10-year old named Jagat, (Jaggu).

There are really no other racial, ethnic or linguistic groups apart from these Tam families, not accounting for the odd Marwadi businessman family or Northie DINK couples who come to rent in one of these buildings and soon move away unable to take the accusing stares of the parents of the abovementioned Tam kids (How dare they breathe the same air we do? Bloody philistine foreigners.)

Notwithstanding the fairly multicultural exposure at school, these kids are born xenophobes (as all kids must be, except these are armed to the teeth with expletives and cricket bats and eons of cultural egocentrism running through their veins). So when little Harjot came to play, they did not take to him as friendly little children do. He got called a lot of names (Popular Choice: Urulakazhangu-thalaya or Potato-Head). They grudgingly let him play though.

Jaggu soon came around after his tuitions and Harjot was umpiring. You've got to realize that this is Jaggu's birthright; no one else umpires while Jaggu's around. Unsaid apartment rules. Jaggu started off with some comments which ran on these lines (in tam, of course):

Enna da? Who is this towelhead? He can't be umpire. I'll hit him.

The bullying started all over again, with various kids backing Jaggu up and threatening to beat Harjot up to pulp. This little kid in a pink turban staunchly stood his ground; without saying a word or understanding a word that was said.

Finally, when Jaggu moved in for the kill, Harjot shot out a brilliant left hook contemporaneous with a kick to the shin that took all the wind out of the chubby and overfed Jaggu. He crumpled like a paper doll and subsequently ran off to his mom. The rest of the kids stood, shocked and awed.


Harjot resumed umpiring, and the children quietly took their places.


Languages are merely theoretical boundaries. Who needs words with a left hook like that?