Gangs of Gurgaon

I remember reading about Adrenaline in my school biology lessons. It is the major hormone released during the fight-or-flight(stress) response.  It takes necessary measures in our body for us to make a move -  to fight, if that doesn't work, to run from an imminent danger.

There are two balconies in our new place in DLF city, Gurgaon. A grand front balcony where we occasionally sip our morning black tea enjoying a cool breeze and a back balcony overlooking the apartment where Elisha Cuthbert, the girl next door, is staying. That is the place where we put our washed dress for drying. 

Our area doesn't look like a typical DLF phase 3 lane. It is clean, less crowded and quiet. It really is a nice place provided you can tolerate the presence of few monkeys. Let me add, more often than not they mind their own business without giving people too many reasons to complain.

I had put washed clothes out to dry on the balcony. Until then I had not known that a group of monkeys frequent our balcony. From my room there is a wooden door and a net door partition that leads to the balcony. Through the net door, I saw them.One of my clothes that I had kept for drying was lying down on the floor, and a little monkey, watched over by a fairly bigger one, was playing with it. It was trying to tear it off into pieces, it seemed to me. 

Without any bother the bigger monkey was sitting in-front of the door watching the smaller one playing. From behind the door I made noises to scare it off. It just sat there and watched without even moving a muscle. After some time when it went a bit farther away from the door I stepped out to the balcony, jumped up and down and made some noises. 

Lesson learned: Don't try to scare off a monkey-kid pair. If kid gets frightened monkey sr. will consider you as a threat  and will go to fight mode to scare you off. 

Little monkey got scared with my activity. Its adrenaline charged and its little brain sent signals to make a flight. In that confined space it made a frantic attempt to run.  Big monkey might have thought I had intentions to harm its kid. Again adrenaline charged. But this time, to my dismay, it sent instructions to fight. Monkey's face muscles twitched, eyes got enlarged and it flared. In a fraction of a second it was on to me. I saw the bigger monkey running towards me. It meant business. 

What is the correct usage, run for your good life or run with your good life? I dunno which one is better. It didn't matter then. Adrenaline was up-to it and I ran. Without wasting any moment i got back to my room and closed the door.  It came running in-front of the door and snarled at me. Yes It did mean business.  In the comfort and security of my room I forgot about my shirt and  I looked at it without much of a twitch  

                  

                  " Try scaring me now"

Chi Chak Cho !!

        It's really interesting how memory works. Often, random things evoke memories, memories so old, you didn't know even existed in the first place. I find it really peculiar. Mine definitely. For as long as I can remember, I have had trouble remembering!!. Trivial or significant, it made no difference. 

A friend of mine @Anjoosee had randomly tweeted something and it took me for a stroll down memory lane. So I was pleasantly surprised when I suddenly recollected a song a friend of mine used to sing almost 2 decades back. Not that I could recollect the entire song, but I was able to reproduce the general mood of the song, how it sounded and some of the lyrics. 

Resmin, my old school mate, had joined our school, Rani Jai HS nearby old  and prestigious Nirmalagiri College, in third standard. Before joining there he had done his schooling abroad and was really good in English. He could speak the language, and quite brilliantly too. Though our school followed an English medium education system no one did really speak a word in English back then. Hailing from different parts of Kannur there wasn't too much of a need for anyone to speak the language.  And for us Resmin was like an alien coming from a different planet. He became an instant hit. And definitely your star value won't hurt if you could sing few English songs. There was this particular song that he used to sing more often. He sang this song for almost an year until we made a full Malayali out of him. 

When I checked online, interestingly I found out that several before me had searched for the same song. China Man song it is purportedly known as and was really popular back then. Grandparents used to sing it to their grand kids and they shared it to their grand children and so on, much like a family food recipe.  Several variants of this particular song are available online and I took one which followed the pattern that I had in my mind. 

Here it goes.  

Once in China there lived a funny man
his name was chika waka chi chai cho
his hands were long and his legs were short
because of that he couldn't walk at all  

chika waka chika waka chi chaka noma 
noma noma noma pakatoto 
ichi pie po 
ichi pie ichi pie chi chai cho. 

Then then then the big fat man, 
washed his face in a frying pan,
he combed his hair with his big toenail
and brushed his teeth with a horse's tail 

chika waka chika waka chi chika noms
noma noma noma pakatoto
ichi pie po ichi pie ichi pie
chi chai cho
chi chai cho
chee chhaai chhooo.........

Note: I am not sure about the chorus -chika waka- part mentioned here is what he used to sing.  And like I said earlier there are several variants of this particular song online I just picked one which sounded fine to me. Resmin doesn't remember it much himself. 

He had shared a video with me when I told him about the song. 

May be this is one of my fondest memory of him from my school days and, which I guess, is the reason why it is still etched in my memory.