The tales of brave watchmen......

Another weekend gone by and I am suffering from a splitting headache. Though I wish I could attribute it to weekend binge drinking, the actual truth is I spent the previous two nights guarding the worldly possessions of my friend's family, who had traveled out of town.

Along with a friend I performed my duties assiduously and stayed awake late in to night. To kill time we embarked on a highly philosophical debate which was intellectually stimulating and enlightening. Though the conversation often veered towards the fairer sex and our experience (actually the lack of...) with them or the statistical analysis of the anatomical features of various female celebrities, it was all done with a purely philosophical point of view.

As we sat there, I started reminiscing about our past watchmen experiences. Me and my friends have been doing it since we were kids. Most of my neighbours felt that by asking us to sleep over whenever they went out actually kept their house safe. Little did they know that we were in fact the sort of people who should have never been allowed inside the house in daytime, let alone in the night?

Before you people conclude that we hauled off all the goods in the house as soon has the owners turned the corner, let me explain. We were kids and the most important thing we got when we went to these sleep over was the freedom. We were the masters of the place and as everyone knows when there is freedom, you always are up to no good.

At one of the houses there was VCR and a TV game system. This was our favourite house to 'guard'. We were always waiting for them to go on a vacation. We have spent quite a few memorable nights over there. Playing games and watching movies on the VCR was the favourite past time.

Playing Cards, Carrom and other board games were mild enough time pass. But we were never satisfied with that.

Making crank calls at the middle of the night to random phone numbers always guaranteed for a belly full of laughs. Even though the person at the other end of the line who had been roused from sleep did not think so.

Then there was the raiding of the kitchen. Anything that was edible wasn’t left out and we also cooked making abundant use of all the ingredients available. In many cases, the first thing the house owners did when they returned was to run out to get provisions....Ok I am exaggerating. Sometimes the owners made sure that there was nothing edible left before they departed. Such lack of trust was deplorable.

Another thing was learning the lyrics of the songs which we had seen 'muted' at our homes due to the fact that they were broadcast under the moniker 'Midnight Masala'. Well what can I say?. The nights were long and one had to make do with whatever TV channels like Surya, SUN, FTV offered to keep oneself awake for the greater good of the society.

Of course no thief has dared to enter the houses in our watch. Probably the level of noise we made deterred them. Its not that we have always enjoyed our outings. There were times when I have spent whole night scared shit less due to some mysterious noise outside or a cat setting off a car's burglar alarm or a dog howling the whole night.

Over the years we have mellowed and not withstanding the protest of everyone else, we can hazard to say that we have become wiser. Now whenever we perform these guard duties we just watch a movie or read a book. When there is nothing else, we embark on philosophical musings.....