Thanks a lot Nirman jyu. Abba k garnu lekhe pachi lekhya lekhai garna mann lagchha.. so here goes one more.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We also had this lemon tree where we stole the lemons from . Breaking rules was our hobby. We would bunk study and go to empty classrooms. Once when we returned from study, a bit early, we found this 10th grader stealing one of our tube lights and jumping on our bed. Guess what the warden did to her? She had a stick, 3 feet long and about one inch diameter. The girl got it that day? (we were some complainers!!). The stick that the warden had was name ?baal sudhar? (which means improvement of kids). Every morning we woke up with the big impact of bal sudhar on our tiny buns. We were so used to it that it did not hurt anymore. One morning even after the bal sudhar, my whole room kept sleeping. So after the whole hostel was empty and there was no sign of us, the warden came to our room and found us all snoring. As soon as we heard her voice, we got up with a start and reaching the thing closest to us. Some reached for their toothbrush. Some reached for the towel. We were scared to death of our warden Sanju maam. She was beating her way inside the room. And as my bed was in the far end of the room, guess what I started doing? Dressing up, and because I was in a state of half nakedness, she did not lay a finger on me;). My roomie Anita got three thrashings instead. In a state of confusion, she reached for her toothbrush. Sanju maam hit her once, ?abhi tak so rahi thi? (sleeping till now?).. second time ? abhi tak brush bhi nahi kiya?? (haven?t brushed yet?).. So the poor soul reached for her uniform and on came the third bang!!! ?kapde bhi nahi badle? (did not change your dress yet?). So it was survival of the wittiest!! One fine evening after diner, me and my room mates decided to dress me up as a bhoot. I put some make up on my face. My whole face was white and my eyes had black eye pencils around them. My lips were red and I had a torch light on my hand throwing some light on my face. One of my friends sister?s room was in the other end of the corridor so we went there to show her. She was so excited to see me and wanted to show me off to her friends. She wanted me to stand in her room facing the door with all lights off while she brought her friends in. So I took the position and was waiting for her to come in. But there was a small thing that went wrong. Some other friend of hers entered without knowing what was awaiting her inside. As soon as she opened the door and saw me, she shouted on top of her lungs and ran like her life depended on it. I was so scared that I went to the sink and washed my face immediately. Soon there was a knock on our door. There were some pretty pissed off tenth graders there. They had not complained Sanju maam yet. But the girl had run down the stairs and fainted in the corridor. She had some breathing problems and was now in a very bad state. (Dang!! Was I that scary?) I being an eighth grader had done that to a tenth grader. It was pretty bad. We begged and pleaded them not to tell Sanju maam and thankfully they decided that they would leave us with a warning of never doing anything to them again!! Phew. I am sure Sanju maam would have killed me if the matter had reached her. But till the time the girl graduated her 12th grade, she called me her ?bhoot?. And I was well known amongst her batch mates.