Child Abuse!!

This incident is of the time when it was OK for parents to beat their children to discipline them. There was no human rights commission set up to "save" them from "injustice" or whatever it is called and very frankly, it always worked. Children can very often be very hard to handle and well, when it comes to trying one's patience, they sure excel in it. This was just one of those times...

At the time of this incident, I was in seventh standard and my sister was in third. The only thing she loved more than teddy bears was sleep. There was never a day when she didn't have to be nagged and pushed and pulled and threatened to wake up to go to school. She was always grumpy and behaved like she was doing a favor to all mankind by getting ready to go to school. It was my father's job to wake us up and see to it that we reach our bus stand well in time. And, hence, there were a lot of un-pleasantries shared between him and my sis. Everyday, he would start waking her up half an hour in advance, only to find that she woke up later by exactly a half hour than the scheduled time. And, then she would make up for the 'lost' sleep (due to my dad's nagging) in the loo, in the bath, and at every possible place on earth. This was her idea of getting back at my dad for waking her up. And obviously, we got late for the bus, there were times when we rushed up to it and got it in the nick of time and there were times we were way too late even to see it go. At all those times, my dad would have to take us in his scooter to the next closest bus stand where the bus came for a second trip...and he hated it sure as hell, because that got him late for work and my dad hates being rushed. He is a planner, he always charts out the plan well in advance and never waits till the last minute. The whole incident obviously upset him badly coz his day didn't start the way it was supposed to.



Coming back to our story, on that day, we didn't even see the bus go. And this was after having literally having to push my sister out of the house. For some reason, she had been extra obstinate and mean and took thrice (not twice but thrice) as much time to get ready as compared to usual. As a result, my dad was obviously extra angry, and well, when words fail you, the hands automatically start working. So my sister was in for a thrashing...and a bad one at that, since once my dad got angry, it took him quite long to rid himself of the anger...more importantly, when the object of his fury was right in front of him. At first, he started scolding her at which she very nonchalantly replied that had he not woken her up in the first place, all this could be avoided. This was much more than what my dad could handle and he started beating her up left and right. Looking at my dad hitting her so hard, my mum was terrified and tried hard to stop him but to no avail. Then she hit upon a brilliant idea, and said, why don't you let me beat her up, to which my dad gladly agreed, why, I fail to understand. But, you see, when you get someone else to do your job, you don't get satisfaction and that was exactly what happened with my dad. He started prodding my mum asking her to hit harder, "Aur maaro, aur maaro...abhi kuch nahi hua hai", and things to that effect. By the way, all this was happening at 6:30 in the morning, in a quite peaceful neighborhood. And my aunt had come over the previous day and was sound asleep in the bedroom till the moment she heard loud cries of my father.
She literally ran all the way to the living room half-scared and half-asleep and fully terrified and in between her huffing and puffing asked, "Kahan hai chor? Kahan hai chor?" (where's the thief?).
Turns out she thought we had caught a thief in the act in the wee hours of morning and were in the process of beating him up. It took her a good ten minutes to realize it was not a thief and only her dear old niece who was being punished.
Till this day, she narrates this incident to one and all and tells them what a temper my dad has. ;)