Happy Birthday Lil' Sis! All Hail the Awesomeness! :D

Malu and me in Hyderabad (Nov, 2013)
(She hates this pic.. hehe..)

Ever since I published my 'Contemplation of a Chettan' post, I've had this idea (three guesses who put it there..) to write a piece on some of my fond memories with my little sister. What stopped me was indecisiveness as to what ones to choose.. Too many fun ones and too many dramatic ones to conclusively decide which ones to pen down on the interwebs..

But as tomorrow's her birthday I had a brainwave to include something that would tell lots about her without writing a book about the hilarity and ridiculous wonder that is my baby sister. And as all chettans must I thought should strike a balance between her brilliance and stunning stupidity at times (not really.. hehe.. more like naivety or innocence). One's duty as the sacred guardian of 'Creative Ways to Mock the Malu' must be held above all.. :D

So here are two stories that come to mind about the birthday girl about to celebrate her 23rd year on this planet and the years before on whatever planet she came from (irony follows..).

The Recognition of Intelligent Life :D

The year is 2001. As a busy, busy 14 year old doing important 14 year old stuff like laying around and bossing the other inhabitants of the house around in order to get over the fact that after a long time I was in the youngest batch in school.. and that too the rather intimidating theater that is 'senior' school (Our school was split into two branches at two locations at the time).

So the 10 year old who I occasionally bumped in to, on the busy route between the living room and the kitchen was an easy target. After being exiled in to the bedroom during my evening TV viewing hours she had become quite a voracious reader, among other interesting activities like unscrewing the ceiling fan in her mind (something she spent hours doing - her version of boredom meets meditation I suppose). So my plan of solitary laziness (which I was excelling in btw), was interrupted when she began asking me for suggestions on which books to read from our collection at home as they were 'grown up' books. After I guided her unceremoniously through Enid Blyton's various creations and then through your generic teen sleuths on the unforgiving quest for justice against conveniently idiotic villains she still kept bugging me every other day. So, finally, having had enough of  her insanely selfish quest to read books and improve her mind instead of staying quietly in the room and hearing me watch TV while unscrewing the fan with her mind, I decided to teach her a lesson.

The next time she came to me for a suggestion I led her straight to George Elliott's 'Mill on the Floss'. A book I had given up on, after trying three times to get through the first 20 pages (I'm a lazy reader too).

I also carefully planned a victory speech in my head when she would return flabbergasted by the amount of boredom in 'grown up' books. Two days later, her babyship approached me again for reading material.

I was about expound upon reading being a serious skill and drill in to her thick albeit small head that she should read books from the school library where she might find things suitable for her age.

"This is why I said I can't choose for you. My tastes are different from yours because I'm older and more in to this reading thing than you. You've just started. There are so many books out there. There is a development of tastes and intelligence when it comes to literature. The reason why you got bored with the one I gave you was because.."

"Oh I finished it. I liked it. Lots of human behavior to study and appreciate. Tell me more about this Thomas Hardy fellow. What's his work like?"

And there was born in my awareness, my intellectual and emotional peer and counterpart who fortunately for me lived about ten feet from my room.. :D

Tales of silliness to follow in part 2..