Majid

Majid is the guy with whom I played 'goti' (marbles) when I was 11.
Majid is the guy with whom I promised to enter in the milk-selling business, because according to him - 'waha bahot paisa hai'.
Majid is the only guy with whom I was friends with when I was 11.
Majid is the guy with whom I spoke yesterday....and he confessed something that finally settled a part of my eternally restless nerves.

I was really good at 'goti', specifically a game called 'faul (to be pronounced - faaoul) goli'. In this game, each player puts equal number of marbles in a ring drawn on the ground. One is suppose to hit-and-remove these marbles out of the ring using another (shooter) marble held very peculiarly in your hand to own them (the marbles in the ring). To elaborate about the positioning of the shooter-marble in the hand, one should rest the thumb of the left hand on the ground, then hold the shooter-marble between one of the remaining fingers of the left hand and any number of fingers of the right hand, so that you can aim. phew!! It's all right if you did not understand that :D

Point is - I was good at this particular game and my dad had qualified it as an unsophisticated game (specially because his beloved elder son was disgusted with this game and no other smart or convent-going kid will play this). But I wasn't a convent-going kid anyways, so why bother!!! And where does Majid fits into the picture!! Well, we used to play 'goti' together and he used to get good pocket money for buying marbles. With my skills, I robbed him off as frequently as thrice a day and continued accumulating marbles in a plastic bag. I am thankful to my brother who quite promptly used to pull me off from the game just before my dad came home from work, that saved me from good amount of hours of mutilated listening. One bag became two, and then more. Had my dad come to know about the marble filled bags, first of all, he would have trashed the bags, followed by me getting a graceful request to leave the house (Not kidding!!) Eventually, I robbed Majid of 5000 marbles which literally made from my first 50 odd marbles. To hide those bags, I dug a hole outside my house and buried my hard earned after tax possession. I had to give away few tens of marbles to my neighbor who saw my deed, but promised to not tell anybody if I give him some of the marbles - which I agreed to, that is why I called these marbles as - hard earned after tax possession.

Ritual was to un-bury the buried every day to count my marbles, or at least number of bags. After couple of months, someone stole my bags and I went literally crazy. I felt as if my retirement funds and all savings are vanished in thin air, and I am 60 and without a life threatening disease :(. My mom tried to console me, but I did not stop crying and was telling her that its dad who found and threw them - 'I saw him happy today' ... sob...sob! I doubted my neighbor and he refused of any felony, so did Majid. I thought it is no fair to have doubted Majid for how willingly he buys new marbles and loses each one of them to me. Majid, as best he was, continued to buy and lose marbles to me :). But I never reached the 5000 mark again. I guess I had lost my goti charm and appetite!!!

I spoke with Majid yest after 15 years. He was mad at me for doubting his business acumen and not standing by my promise to partner him in the milk-selling business. Before hanging up, he confessed he was the one who stole HIS marbles.