Mad Childhood Memories – The Warrior!

What marks a warrior? Blood-curdling war cries? Check. The ability to deal with fear by turning ferocious? Check. It also doesn’t hurt if one can kick like a mule.

If we take all these things into consideration then my older sister, Jaya, qualifies for a warrior. And now let me tell you how she ticks all those boxes above.

I’ll start with the last quality first. That quality for years later made us approach our intrepid heroine with caution. Especially when she was asleep. You see, Jaya loved to sleep and got greatly annoyed when awoken, however gently. Even if it was time to go to school!

The first forays always resulted in grunts that got progressively more threatening. If the person trying to wake her didn’t take heed, then she’d lash out with one strong kick. All with her eyes screwed shut, desperately clinging to the last dredges of sleep.

Due to this quirk, we all learnt to approach her from the direction of her head. Thankfully she’d not taken to performing somersaults in her sleep! Dad, exasperated would just sprinkle water on her face and once her eyes had opened she couldn’t claim, ‘I didn’t know it was you, dad’ stoutly and furiously.

Image Courtesy: Taksh @thesachin

Now to the blood-curdling cries. For all the menace that she oozed when riled (granted the menace oozed only once in a blue moon), cockroaches with their needle-like feet, in the middle of the night, terrified Jaya. Those of the flying variety brought out cries that curdled blood and every other liquid in the vicinity.

Until, one of us jumped into the fray to tackle the cockroach since the other two seemed to think they could scream the cockroach out of our room. That person would pick up a broom, brandish it and jump around all over the bed in moves that quite put to mind some strange kind of war dance till the nuisance was brought down and dispatched. We would go back to sleep still twitching from feeling phantom cockroach limbs crawling all over us. Ew!

Finally, we have the true form of the ferocious warrior emerge. Again it is the middle of the night. Eyes blurrily open disturbed by strange sounds. Only to see another pair of eyes staring right back. Glowing eyes!

Out would come the warrior’s yell as lights were switched on. Sappu and I would wake up bewildered, only to join Jaya’s screams as the owner of the glowing eyes, raced across the room in a mad scramble to get out. The poor cat, hair standing on end, would be so terrified, it would lose all common sense and just hang on for dear life from the window grille, meowing away in affront.

Did I mention that having stray cats around where she was sleeping scared the living daylights out of Jaya? Did I also mention that fear tended to turn her into a warrior queen? Outraged at the temerity of the cat to frighten her out of her beloved sleep Jaya would wield broom, blanket, pillow or whatever came handy. And she usually did a thorough job of beating the heck out of the air, till the cat abandoning all attempts at feline grace simply bolted out into the warm embrace of the night.

Peace would reign again… till the next midnight visitor or till it was time to go to school! :D

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