Fancy Siblings

There are ordinary childhood memories… and then there are memories that your family refuses to let you forget ever. Those are laughing prompts at every family gathering.

This is one of those.

About forty years ago, when annual school fancy dress competitions were treated like national-level events, my brother and I were preparing for ours with much excitement and confidence to win.

 I was around twelve and he was ten. I had chosen to become a sabji vaali.

Now I had a fair idea about what she does , but I had never given much attention to the appearance of a sabji Vaali. So. When it came to the attire,I wanted the best of everything.

My  mother tried her best to explain reality. “A sabji vaali doesn’t wear fancy things,” she said patiently, handing me one of her old cotton saris.

I looked at it with deep disappointment.

“This?” I asked, as if she had offered me a potato sack.

I demanded a prettier sari. 

Then matching bangles. 

Then earrings. 

Then lipstick.

 Then a proper hairstyle. Then nice sandals. Recalling it now , my mother must’ve felt like she was not preparing a sabji vaali. She was funding a low-budget movie production.

But I was unstoppable.

A bamboo tokni filled with real vegetables to place on my head. Not fake plastic vegetables. Real ones. Heavy ones. Somehow the authenticity mattered here , even at the cost of neck pain.

Meanwhile, my younger brother had chosen to become a beggar. Unlike me, he had no interest in glamour . He took an old pair of pants and tore them at the knees himself. He rubbed dust onto his clothes and  his hair. He smeared coal stains across his face, wore broken slippers, and then added the final touch— he practiced walking around with one hand stretched for alms and the other scratching himself continuously. He had researched the character.

When we reached school, I walked in adjusting my hair and balancing my vegetable basket like an entrepreneur entering any business summit. While my brother  looked like life had decided to punish him.He approached the role with terrifying dedication.

Backstage, children dressed as freedom fighters, kings, fairies, and national leaders stood neatly in line.

When my turn came, I marched to the stage confidently and began selling vegetables to the judges with full business enthusiasm.

“Fresh bhindi! Fresh tamatar! Le lo, le lo!” That was something I got correct. I even tried persuading one judge to buy potatoes.

When my brother’s turn came,he shuffled onto the stage scratching his head, limping slightly, looking so heartbreakingly believable that the judges visibly froze. One of them actually blurted out:

“Oh my God… couldn’t you think of becoming someone else?” And yet, despite emotionally alarming the panel, he won a prize.

As for me, the judges laughed and said:

“This sabji Vaali has standards !”

Even, after four decades, the memory revisits picture clear -

Me- looking anyone but a sabjivaali and  my brother — one scratch away from receiving actual charity from the audience.

The funniest part though, is when my brother pulls my leg on that incident , I retort back jokingly - how perfectly those costumes matched our personalities even then, na ?