KFC

“Aye, don’t move. Your maikkap will get spoil.”

I cringed at the terrible metallic taste in my mouth.

We were getting ready for my first grade annual day. My classroom had been turned into a makeshift unisex dressing room.  Chatty mommies & excited teachers were flitting around screaming instructions and adjusting costumes on fidgety 7-year-olds. 

Back to my metal mouth. 

My teacher was painting my lips red with a terrible-tasting red lipstick which I’m sure she bought on the local train.

As she started smudging that red tint on my cheeks…. (easy substitute for rouge – pronounced roooosh – which has been packaged today as a 21st century Instagram make-up trick. Ok I digress.) ….my eyes fell on…. HIM.

My 7-year-old surfboard abs (sigh!) summoned the butterflies. He was my first ever CRUSH. Let’s call him Aman. 

Another teacher was trying to stick a fake beard on his flawless porcelain Gujrati cheeks. His smooth jaws protested & rejected the glue. My teacher was relentless. His hazel eyes darted uncomfortably & landed softly on my tinted face.

He (awkward) smiled.

In that heart-stopping minute, I became intensely aware of my sweaty pits. And more sweat coursing down my face, threatening to bleed all that local-train make-up. 

And my itchy costume.  MY F***ING CHICKEN COSTUME.

In this big cosmic joke of a moment, here was my crush – looking dapper in a pint-sized tuxedo, sporting a stubborn fake big-man-beard, smiling at ME. And here I am, wearing excess cheap make-up, longing to itch and dressed like a CHICKEN.

Here are 2 pictures from the 32-picture reel which immortalised my chicken day. No filters. And no filters can mask my pissed-off look either. 

(What was I thinking? HOW DID I CONSENT TO THIS?)

And then after our ‘Ol Mc-Donald’ performance in which I was the ‘Chick Chick here’ (yeah RUB IT IN), I was asked to make a tiny little announcement on stage. (This chicken was one of the ‘public speakers’ of the class).

Still in my embarrassing chicken costume, knees wobbly & leaking through my pits, I go up on stage. I am about to deliver my well rehearsed lines when my eyes land on Aman. Tiny tuxedoed Aman, was in the front row of the audience – perched on his good-looking mamma’s lap, grinning bearded-ear to bearded-ear & sticking out a best-of-luck thumb at me.

As if to match my costume & to stage cosmic joke #2, chicken-like Sushma FORGOT HER LINES. 

In the killing awkward silence that followed, all I could manage to say – ON THE MIKE, IN FRONT OF 300 PEOPLE INCLUDING MY CRUSH – was ‘S-U-S-H-M-A Sushma.’

And I knew I’d be fried chicken when I see my teacher who had rested all her hopes on me. 

Crispy, Oily KFC. Kalyanasundaram Fried Chicken.

Definitely not my brightest moment.

So many YEARS have passed and I’ve still been the metaphorical chicken shying away from putting myself, my work & my writing out there. I love creating content but never cultivated the discipline to consistently make my work public. 

Even if I had to, what topic would I write on? Will it be entertaining? Helpful? I asked myself.

But finally here I am, writing this blog that holds my life stories. My personal essays. 

And I have started where I chickened out & this space is all about S-U-S-H-M-A SUSHMA. 🙂

Share your childhood with me in the comments below!

P.S. Aman now lives in Silicon-valley with his prim-and-propah wife & one-and-a-half kids. He’s a big-shot techie & has a REAL beard. I stalk him on Facebook but don’t feel the flutters anymore. (Maybe that’s because my surf-board abs have been exchanged for abundant belly fat that masks the flutters. Or whatever.)

P.PS. Teacher covered up for the speech I forgot. My chicken moment was a standing joke for a long long time.

P.P.P.S Cheggout this amazing scene where Maddy eats chikkan just to impress a girl! Video & GIF courtesy – Ultra