DADS ELDER BROTHER

DADDY'S ELDER BROTHER !!

It was a sunday. I got up early and after my bath and breakfast, went to my friend in the neighbourhood for
playing games. My friend was a cute four year old girl in the adjacent bunglow.

When I came home after a couple of hours I found a stranger sitting in
the verandah in my father's rocking
chair and smoking from his tin of State Express cigarettes - and reading the newspaper.

Even though I was just five year old, I did not like this cavalier attitude of somebody smoking from my dad's tin of cigarettes without his permission . I thought I should find out who he was.

I musterd up courage and
approached him. He was almost my father's height and had a somewhat
similar face. Not quite though. The face was bigger and sort of puffed up and the eyes were barely visible . This gentleman had a big red nose and huge swollen lips. Who was he and what was he doing in our house when my dad was not there !

He found me staring at him and smiled patronisingly. I did not like
to be patronised by a stranger so I did not return his smile.

"who are you ?" I demanded.

In the meantime my mother came out with a cup of tea for him and was about to say some thing with an amused expression in her eyes when he stopped her.

"I am your Taujee" he said
affectionately. Taujee means father's elder brother.

I never knew that my
dad had an elder brother too. I had always been told that he was the eldest.

"And where is my father ? I asked the so-called self styled Taujee.

"He has gone to office early", he replied and went back to the newspaper he was reading.

"But today is a sunday !" I retorted.

"Your father has some important work there today", he said from
behind the newspaper. I thought he was deliberately hiding behind the newspaper and shaking with laughter !

Anyway the idea of spending my sunday with a chap with a big red nose was appalling and I proceeded to my friend's house again, to play carrom.

When I came back in the afternoon father had still not come back from office. As my father used to go to the club in the afternoon for playing tennis, I thought he must have gone directly to the club.

I did not see him at all that day as I went to sleep quite early. The taujee of a fellow kept occupying my father's rocking chair and kept smoking his cigarettes. I thought he was wearing my father's tweed coat too but I was not very sure. May be it was his own coat !

I saw my father only the next morning when I got up. I told him about the stranger who was, in his absence, occupying his rocking chair and who kept  smoking his cigarettes .

"He said he was my Taujee. Do I have a taujee?" I asked him.

" Any body can become a Taujee. I find that you are going into those bushes when you play Hide-and-seek with your friend. That's where one becomes a taujee. ", he said and mom could not help getting into a fit of laughter.

I wondered what was the joke ! What had the bush got to do with becoming Taujee. And how could I become a taujee myself. I was only a kid ?

The mystery was solved shortly afterwards by Katwaroo, our cook. I had come out and was sitting on the steps outside in the verandah, totally confused and wondering why mom was laughing so uncontrollably.

And then I spotted Katwaroo wrapping some rags to the tip of a long bamboo pole and pouring kerosene oil over it.

" What are you making" I asked him.

He told me that he was
going to set the kesosene soaked cloth to fire and burn down the big hive of yellow wasps in the bush.

"They had attacked your
dad yesterday morning", he said pointing out towards the bushes,
" Didn't you notice how big and red his nose had become yesterday !! The whole face was swollen. He looked like another person. Nobody could recognise him.". And he continued to tightened the cord holding the pieces of rags to the pole.

Oh my God !! So the joke was that fiction-of-a-Taujee who was actually my dad ! Dad had been attacked on his face by a swarm of yellow wasps when he was pruning that bush!  And I took him to be a stranger !

No wonder my mom got into a fit of laughter !!

On one big impulse after this momentous discovery I rushed back to where my father was sitting and,
throwing my arms around him, buried my face in his chest in a huge hug.

"What happened ?" he asked , totaly surprised by this display of emotions.

I said nothing. With a twinkle in my eyes I planted a huge kiss on his
cheek and dashed out of my house to share this  great discovery with my girl friend !!!