Hide And Seek

They say,” A life without friends is useless”.  I thought very hard on this and found that they say it true. Actually they have said a lot such true things about friendship. I don’t know how to define friendship but God, I miss my friends a lot. We were just the three jerks ruling our own world. I wish we could always remain together but life changes, place changes and we don’t always get what we wish. When we were together we never knew how good friends we were but one thing we knew for sure, altogether we could fuck the whole world. And now, when we ain’t together there not passes a day without remembering them.  Well, I am not here to cry but I, Abhi and Nishit have a lot of memories together. We were the real nocturnal; we never slept at night and whole day after the classes we used to sleep like buffalos.  Our nights used to pass either in talk of the town or in scaring the neighbours. My next story is about the talk of the town but this one is about scaring the neighbours.

My story revolves around sector 4-D of Bokaro Steel City. Almost all the people of that sector were real “Udaas Aatmaas” (sad spirits) except our host, Uncle Bhagwaan Singh. Two more of our friends cum brothers, Ankit and Rohit, lived in same quarter. We were the innocent boys just living our lives to the fullest. We never knew entire colony was irritated at our enjoyment until one day or rather one night. It was 2:00 am when someone gave the idea of playing ‘Hide and Seek’ and we were not in the habit of giving away that kinda adventurous idea. All of us agreed at once with our own set of rules. All the lights had to be off and in complete darkness seeker had to spot the other players and one had not to hide beyond the boundary of the house. Hiding spots included two rooms, a garden and corridor, backyard of the house or anywhere within the boundary. But our real nightmare was an Aunty next door whose home was full of douches. She lived in the first floor of the building which was next to our room. Not to mention she had a daughter of same age as ours and from the very first day she had been watching us as if one of us was going to elope with her daughter some day. God, I still remember her witch type scary looks. I swear I will pee in my pants if I ever see her in my dreams. But her daughter was more a smart ass than her mother. Anyway, I am not going to describe dipshits more and will return back to my game.

Round 1:

Ankit was the seeker in this round and rest of us had to hide. He went to backyard for counting 100. We had no clue where to hide as it was the first round but the darkness of the night was in our favour. We dispersed randomly, some in the garden, some in the room or roof and rest anywhere. We could hear him counting ....97 98 99 and on 100 he cried,” Come out, come out wherever you are”.  Even in darkness he was aware of the dress we were wearing and with little difficulty, he was able to spot each of us. So he started:

“I see you Abhi, you are hiding on the roof”.

“I see you Raj, you are hiding in the garden”.

“I see you Rohit and Nishit, you are hiding in the room”.

The first one to be spotted was Abhi and he was the next seeker.

Round 2:

Round 1 had given us some experience. In this round, every one of us had some of their own plans but little we were aware of the noise we were making in that nocturnal game. But we never cared and carried on our game until it turned into a violent one.

Nishit, the biggest asshat, seated on a concrete bench of garden covering himself with a white bed sheet so that the seeker would know someone was sitting but not know exactly who. And the worst part was, that bench was directly visible from the window of witch-auntie’s room. Ankit was hiding himself somewhere in the garden. I and Rohit had hidden ourselves behind rose bushes in the opposite side of the corridor. From this place, I could see Nishit covered in white and witch’s window was visible from here as well but anyone from the window wouldn’t see us because of the darkness and bushes. Abhi finished his count and thought of a new way to spot everyone by climbing on the roof of our room. I could see him on the roof from there. He spotted the white figure on bench first but before he could figure out the person behind the white bed sheet, I started whistling to a tune to divert his attention. I didn’t know that tune was loud enough in 3 am morning to drive the hell out of somebody in next floor. Maybe the noise of the night would have disturbed in some of her private works at night. And what happened next has been one of the biggest nightmares of my life. I was still whistling when the lights were on in the witch’s apartment, the window opened and from what I heard next, I swore never to whistle again in my life.

So there I was, the lights were on, the window opened and I saw a lady whose scary face I could recognise on first sight. She yelled,” See the ignorant shameless fuckheads, they are whistling at 3 am in the night. They have crossed my tolerance level now. First thing in the morning Bhagwan Singh will have to throw them out of their rooms”. There the situation tightened, Abhi was still on the roof, Nishit covered in white and I being abused for whistling. But the comedy or tragedy continued. Her abuses were still going on when Nishit stood up and moved to room without even removing the bed sheet. Aunty saw that and thought we were trying to scare her hiding ourselves in white clothes. Abhi on the roof thought when the drama was over, he would return back to his room. But then I, Rohit and Ankit ran to our room hurriedly thinking the intensity of the situation. Abhi could not guess what was happening below. On hearing the bang of the doors of our room, he misunderstood our host had woken up and he alone was to be trapped. So he jumped off the roof in front of that witch. Our host had not woken up but his jumping off drove the fuck outta her. She guessed he was peeping in her daughter’s room at night or was trying to steal or something. She got more and more furious. We didn’t know what havoc the next morning was going to bring on us. We could still hear her yelling,” I am gonna call the police now and put you all behind the bars. I will fucking ruin all of your careers”.

We didn’t fear her threats but one thing was for sure, our parents were going to be notified of all our mischief and activities which we never did like stealing or peeping.

“Hell, man! What are we gonna do next morning when she will be creating disasters? Who knows, she may even call the police”, I said seeing fear in every other’s eyes.

“C’mon guys, we were not stealing or peeping. We were just having little fun. What should we be afraid of?” said Abhi trying to comfort everyone.

“Nobody is gonna believe us and moreover public fun at 3 am is not the right thing to do”, I said.

“I am not gonna face your host or that witch. I don’t belong here. First thing in the morning, i am going to get the fuck outta here”. That was Nishit.

“I know you, faggot. But remember one damn thing, never dare to come back once you move your ass outta here in the morning”, said Abhi angrily.

Situation was getting worse. We didn’t know what to do until i came out with an idea (I wish it had worked).

“Listen guys! We are already apprehended. We can’t do anything except saying things to defend us. So here is the plan. Now its 4 am, three hours later our host goes for a walk. That witch will come down and complain everything to him only after he comes back. But before she goes to him and state everything, we will go to him and say our own cock and bull story. We will say that a snake came out of nowhere in the night which made us damn scared. Abhi climbed on the roof out of fear and we were whistling and howling to make it go away. This will explain everything of tonight and there may be a chance that we can be saved. And her coming later after us won’t do much harm as he would already be aware of whole incidents. What do you all think?” I explained them my plan. Everyone agreed to it and we decided to remain awake till 7 am. But you know, sleep is the sweetest thing in this world. All of us one by one fell to a deep slumber and when my eyes opened first in the morning, it was 9 am already and the disaster was done. I kicked rest of their asses to get up. Nishit was already gone and we were to face the consequences.

Few minutes later arrived the most awaited person and started:

“I treated you like my own sons and this is what i get to hear about you people. Everyone is complaining about you. You should be grateful to that decent lady. She wanted to call the police. She could have ruined your career but she didn’t. And who was the one climbing on the roof?”

All of us pointed at Abhi thinking “grateful our asses to that decent lady”.

“I know he is the most notorious one. I have had enough of you all. Now you all find yourselves another place to live and before that call all of your parents to meet me”.

That was rude but we had nothing to say in our defence except for the same story we planned last night. So I started saying,” Uncle, there was a snake................”

But he was not buying that story then and it made him even more furious. We were than standing like convicts with our heads hanging down. Later he did neither make us leave nor called our parents but stopped showing his usual affection and that was obvious.

We never made a noise again and in return we got a sympathy note from that witch’s daughter saying,”Silence doesn’t look good on your faces”.  It worked like petrol in our burning asses....

Read My Other Stories Here:
A Thorny Way To Heaven
Life: As we live it
Together Forever : An Untold Love Story
Cyber - Love
A walk through the dreams 
3 Bullets
Love Wars  
Ghost-Hunt