The Banana War of 1999

 

The Banana War of 1999

Mealtime used to be a nightmare those days – be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner. That one tumbler of milk which I had to gulp down along with the breakfast used to take the life out of me. Despite the failed attempts of resistance each morning, I would still put up a fight every new day to avoid consuming that white liquid. Five minutes of fight would also mean that a white layer of cream skin would have formed over the milk, adding to the pain. Imagine a 5-year-old kid, eyes tightly closed, tears rolling down his cheek, nose tightly closed by his little fingers, forcing himself to drink something that he hated, a part of it flowing down the corners of his mouth. It was indeed a sorry sight!

Lunch at home on weekends was another physical tussle between me and my mother. Pretty much the same story – a plate of food, tears, running around the house and all the drama that follows. However, lunch at school was more of an emotional torture for me. We had to eat our lunch at the dining area, which was a corridor adjacent to our classroom. It made sense not to allow the UKG kids to eat inside the classroom. The corridor had neatly arranged square tables. When the bell rang for the lunch break, we had to fetch our lunch boxes, walk out to the corridor, and take a place at one of those tables. There were no chairs or benches; we had to stand and eat. Each table accommodates four kids. The corridor had enough tables to accommodate all the kids in UKG. But, but, Daniel Elias Varghese did not have to take a table. Because his lunch used to be just a banana! Yes, just a single banana!

In 1999, Daniel was the luckiest boy known to me. Every school day, at lunch time, I used to envy this little chap with neatly combed oily hair, standing in a corner of the dining area, peeling a banana, and finishing his lunch in the blink of an eye, while I stood there with a box full of rice, thoran, moru, fish/chicken, and pickle. How I wished to be the Daniel who just had to eat a banana for lunch! I cursed God for putting me in a family where I had to eat rice meals. This emotional turmoil happening inside my little mind used to be halted by the sound of the bell that meant that the lunch break was over. The amount of rice left in my lunch box was directly proportional to the scolding I would get at home later in the evening.

Finally, I made up my mind and one fine evening I pitched the idea of ‘one banana for lunch’ to my mother.

“Why not; from tomorrow onwards, you can also take one banana, along with rice…”

Given that she was the mother of an underweight child who was already taking tonics and other supplements as per the directions of a doctor, this insensitive response does make sense to me today. But not in 1999. So, I threw a tantrum. After finding the verbal war to be a losing fight, I finally declared, “I will take a banana for lunch tomorrow. I will eat it; no more rice!” I stomped off to the kitchen to fetch a banana. To my dismay, our kitchen did not have the kind of big nenthiram bananas (ethapazham) that Daniel used to get for lunch. There were only small ‘kadali’ bananas. But I wasn’t one who would give up easily. I ripped out one banana, and then another one to compensate for the small size. I walked towards the drawing room, opened the small compartment on the front side of my bag and tucked the two bananas safely inside. Lunch for the next day was sorted.

My routine after coming back from school was pretty simple – have tea and snacks, roam around the house or play with my friends in the neighbourhood for an hour, take bath, study (not out of intrinsic motivation, but out of external threat), watch the evening news and mega serials on Doordarshan along with mother, slip away and fall asleep to skip dinner, get woken up by dad to eat dinner (he had a knack to coax me), family prayer and bed time.

This one evening, as mother and I were listening to the news, I heard her mumbling, “there’s some bad smell in this room, something rotten”. My ears heard it, and my brain ignored it. Only for a while. A shock wave ran through my body. I stood up and jolted towards my school bag.

After the valiant act of putting two bananas inside the bag a few days ago, I totally forgot about it, only to remember again today. A bit too late though. With trembling hands, I opened the small compartment of my bag. Over the few days, the two little bananas had undergone ‘decomposition’ – a concept that I would study in school a few years later – and formed a smelly paste. I turned back and looked into my mother’s eyes. I knew what was coming… Well, … THE END!