Nautanki Pooja- "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi".............................................. It was already 21:45 when my phone rang at my quarter at the east brigade. I hate late callers but picked up the phonethinking an emergency call. "hey Nepte you gotta be here at the west coast brigade at 11:00 sharp tomorrow morning." said SNDY from the other end. She told me she has organised a Pooja at our brigade. that is very un-characterstic of Nautankies i thought. i asked her what kind of Pooja it was. she said CNC Jugnaath pooja. i had heard Satya Narayan pooja but never heard of CNC Jugnaath Pooja before. "Well, i think they do Satya Narayan Pooja to please Satya Narayan bhagwan, so this pooja must be meant to please our Juggy da CNC at Nautankiland, after all he has not been in the Nautankiland for a while", i thought. That's a good reason for Pooja for nautanki loving Nautankies, i thought. I personally do not want to attend any Poojas, not because i am a non believer. Pooja just refreshes my unpleasant memory of my child hood where i was punished very badly when i said "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" moving my childish index finger up and down at Pundit bajay. "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" is nepali version of "shame shame...." and usually used at children when they are unwilling to wear undergarments. it is meant to train children to hide their private parts- bluntly speaking. there i was - a all trained kid of about five years happened to witness Pundit bajay's what i was not suppose to. and started "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" right at the middle of shanti swasti mantras he was chanting while scattering droplets of water at all of us. That was all they needed to punish me. My index finger was bent and almost broke, a big slap on my soft cheek that almost sounded like a clap was good enough to continue the interrupted shanti swosti episode. They just had the height advantage over me not to witness what i did to start "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" that night. Anyways, i had to be at the west coast brigade for Pooja no matter what! after all the way SNDY talked to me over the phone was more like an order than a cool invitation. I was at the west coast 10:45 sharp. I asked the RP at the door where the Pooja venue was. He was unwilling to disclose the confidentiality of Nautanki till i showed him my ID. He gave me a huge salute that scared the crap outta me. Must be Col. Camo's trainee, i thought and headed to the Pooja place. SNDY had chosen to do Pooja under the big Pipal tree. Pooja had already begun when i was there. I saw two Pundit Bajays at the Pooja place. SNDY is real to bring Juggy back i thought. I noticed myself holding my index finger after i saw bajays. I have put some height so i don't have to worry about breaking it this time- i thought. And was much more relieved to see Loote following Bajays every where they went. "Loote dont dare to do "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" i said to in my head and grinned at myself with a long sigh of relief. Pooja place was real cool. it reminded me of Dakshin kali picnic back home. Where i could smell the burning incenses and smoke coming from burning green leaves that Flipty collected to make some "malpua" for Pooja. And when SNDY rang the Pooja bell periodically, i almost said "Bolo Dakshin kali Mai ki Jay!" I was very happy to be there. However i was very much surprised to see Pundit bajays. They were not anybody ordinary. They were our Gen. CH and Col. Camo. Gen. CH had his head shaved and had kept Tuppi for this Pooja. He had red chandan on his forehead that went upwards on a straight line from between the eyebrows to the end of the parietal bone. it looked like a surgeon's mark to precisely run the scissors during operation. he looked more than Chandakya than Gen. CH that i have known for past couple of years. Whereas, Col Camo looked more like Dronachrya with all that hair that one could notice on the upper part of his body where his leather dhoti had not covered. He had a red round tika on his forehead, which looked like as if sun was rising from his forehead. By the time i got to observe everything Pooja seemed to be over. SNDY was chanting mantras while circling her right hand with a bundle burning incenses. Her prayer in front of CNC juggy's picture went like this: Tume wa mata cha pita tume wa Tume wa bandhu cha sakha tume ba Tume wa bidhya drabyam tume wa Tume wa CNC ma ma deva deva! After this prayer she saluted the picture and prayed a loud for him to come back. it was Gen. CH's turn for prayer. He did everything like SNDY did and saluted the picture. Then after Col. Camo followed and repeated the same ritual. However, when he saluted the picture the button of his dhoti came out. No wonder i was noticing him walking weirdly before. TL did not take the right measurement of his waist. The button came out with speed of a stone from a catapolt at 30 degrees angle and followed the trajectory till it landed at Flipty's right ear where she was still making maal pua. Apparently she got hurt, i could tell the way she fell on the ground. all of a sudden: SNDY: Nepte you titar bitar. her command was furious. i think she thought i would come with some sarcasm as usual. that was the first time i had seen her face that day. she had made three lines of bigut on her forehead, at which her long nose was making 130 degrees angle. i could see her nostril flared when she made that order. At the same time i saw TL rushing to Col. Camo with other dhoti, she tossed dhoti without looking at him. npl2us: yes ma'am. i was in satark position but i could feel my index fingers moving up and down as if i was doing "kurikuri dajai chauree ko poi" at Col. Camo. I turned around and fled the scene without breaking my finger this time while calculating the force of impact of that button on Flipty's ear on my way back. It must have been tough on Flypty to survive that shot of a button. And tougher for SNDY and TL at insisting Col. Camo to wear leather dhoti specially when everything happened in front of their Nepte. And toughest was for Gen. CH who did not have a clue how to react at that situation. he just kept his mouth wide open as if he was ready to swallow three- four maal puas at once. i do not know what happen next. " Aint they lucky me not being a minute more there after the button incident? I bet they are!" i am thinking. In Jest! whoever wants Jugnaath's parshad from Pooja they can call SNDY da bridadier.:-----)