The Legend of Saru

Throughout the history of humankind, there have been people who have risen to the status of Legends. In my household, this status belongs to my very dear sister Saru. As goes with all legends, you hear stories, some believable, some downright implausible about them. So I will try and recall some of these believe it or not stories about the person who lent out a part of her name to me for all eternity.

My earliest childhood memories are that of standing on my balcony looking down awaiting my sister’s arrival and when she arrived, rushing to the stairs to welcome her home. I remember nothing else from ages 0-5, but this scene comes and goes like a flashback of an ominous dream, wonder why? I also remember a rag doll she got me once she was visiting home from college, also the fact that she used to receive an awful lot of letters and cards and that she bought a Phillips Hi-fi music system with gigantic speakers once, but I was only a child then, what would I know.

When we were kids, she loved to teach us all lessons. You know, it's hard to picture her without hearing her saying, "I'm going to teach you a lesson, you fools!!”. Her fondness to teach us lessons can be derived from the fact that as a child she wanted to be a teacher, and not because of her love for knowledge or books but to have access to a larger pool of children who could be taught a lesson or two. I wonder how that could have worked out given the fact that as a child, so I have been told, she had the weird lisp that was incidentally copied by shahid kapoor in the movie kameeney, during those days her introduction used to be... Faru Farma, Nurfery A. I think people of all ages, genders and nationalities can benefit from these lessons, though some of them contain certain aspects of violence.

The Lesson of Tough Love!

Children, at an early age, realize that public humiliation is the best tool to turn the tide in their favour. Of course, most of them have ever met Ms. Saru, for she has often stood calmly next to a wailing child in the market, and offered the child a critique on his/her tantrums by saying that the outburst was lacking effect, drama and soul. This critique was usually followed by a well thought through suggestion that the child in question should in fact lay down on the road, roll on the ground for a little bit just to make their case a little believable for consideration. That’s how we learned how to be content with whatever we get.

The Lesson about extra terrestrial life!

Some people have weird phobias, like fear of vegetables, fear of ugly people etc. The children of my house had a fear of aeroplanes. Like all phobias have a story behind them, this fear of aeroplanes was based on a fact shared by my sister with our nieces that whenever an airplane flies by, there are people on that plane watching out for children playing alone outside of their homes, and whenever they find a child like that, a hand comes out from the aeroplane and grabs them and takes the child away with them. This is the reason that whenever an airplane flew past our house, our nieces ran inside for cover screaming for their lives, the fact that we used to live next to a ground which was often used as a helipad caused many afternoon mayhems. This is how we learned about life outside out planet.

Lessons in Education!

My sister has influenced the education of a whole bunch of children that were born after her. She was the first one in the family to get an MBA degree and according to the latest census our house has a total of 5 MBAs and counting. If this trend continues, pretty soon we would be able to open an MBA college of our own. I admit I could have become a great chef, if only she had not shown her contempt for the hotel industry by saying that if someone from my family joins that industry, I will personally ensure their loss of life. Having been a victim of her numerous slaps during the course of many math homework sessions, I never could take that chance. This is how we learned what to be in life.

Lessons in Fashion!

I know my sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes even though she has to go out and buy new ones for herself. I once told someone, I can only wear clothes that were bought either by me or my sister, and I get complimented only when I am wearing her clothes. My clothes/shoe collection continues to grow, courtesy of her hand me downs. I proudly admit, in the past 3 years, I have only purchased 3 items of clothing, and still have no place to keep all my clothes. She has so many clothes and shoes that she can put a well stocked up Marks & Spencer’s store to shame. You know how people go out for shopping to feel good, because they can catch a glimpse of new and beautiful stuff, for the same feeling, I just had to walk into the next room open her wardrobe. Oh what a splendid sight it wass! This is how I learned to be speechless!

Lesson about teaching others a lesson!

I have only heard these inspirational stories about her, so don’t know how true they are. Story number one is about how she beat up a guy with her bare hands on a railway platform when he tried to misbehave with her and how the crowd applauded after this spectacle. Story number two is about a guy who used to constantly bug her in college and used to turn up every other day at her hostel and how she one day decided to meet him, took him inside the hostel and asked her friends to dress him up in a sari along with well coordinated make up and jewellery so that he could be humiliated enough to not bother her again. These stories taught us how to stand up for ourselves and not take shit from anyone at all!

Lessons in Beauty!

Being as beautiful as she is, I admit once upon a time I used to be really jealous of her but with age i have come to appreciate her beauty and how she is not at all pompous about it. Only last week, I got a call from a friend of mine, who very bluntly told me that she saw my sister’s photographs from her college days, which was followed by a comment on how pretty she is and how i am nothing in front of her, believe me it was a weird call to get at 7:30 in the morning. On another occasion, she came to drop me for my train back to college, when a guy friend of mine was dumbfounded for the entire time she was there, as soon as she left, the first question out of his mouth were, who was she? When I told him, she is my sister and a little too old for you, I could actually hear his heart shatter to pieces. This is how i learned to be humble about gifts from God!

Lessons yet to be learnt!

Among many other things that she has already taught me, there are lessons yet to be learnt. I would like to learn to be as poised, neat and sophisticated as her. I would love to learn how she manages to be sensible all the time and the reasons why my parents always give priority to her opinions than mine. If only I can match up to half her personality in my lifetime i would die a happy person.

A perfect sister I am not, but eternally grateful for the ones I've got.