Chootu

Chootu do cutting chai!  Chootu ek bada paw lana!  Chootu…Chootu…Chootu….!!!

They cannot live without me. My name is not Chootu, it is Abhimanyu but all call me Chootu because I am small, not a baby but not also a big man. I think I am 10 years old.  I am a very important person in Sambhu Tea and Snacks Corner. The owner Sambhu chews paan and sits at the counter, always handling the cash box and Shuklaji takes care of the kitchen; everything else is done by me. Cleaning the tables, collecting order, delivering tea and snacks, collecting the lipped glasses, collecting money, cleaning cups, plates…almost all important things I do.  I wear a dirty and worn out half pant while on work but I have a beautiful T-shirt which I wear on Tuesday when the shop is closed. That T-shirt has photo of Salman Khan on the back, I look very smart in that T-shirt therefore I wear it on holiday. The Tea stall is my home, after the stall is closed for customers in the night, I join the benches and that becomes my bed. Shuklaji also sleeps in the stall, only malik goes home, he has a big home and family. I sometimes go to his house when some cleaning work has to be done, he has a very cute daughter, she once gave me a playing marble, I still have that, very safely kept in that small container on the ventilator. I also have some very important papers in that container, several photos of Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachan and many more heroes which I tear from newspapers.

No...no, do not think that I am uneducated; I can read all film names on the posters and also know the names of all heroes. But confuse with the heroines, they look almost the same, still I am working hard to differentiate them and would be an expert in identifying them very soon. I know maths also, if a customer has to pay for two cutting chai, I collect 12 rupees, if he does not have change I take twenty rupees and ask for two rupees and return 10 rupees. If he does not have change I return eight rupees, one five rupee coin and three one rupee coins, one should be very careful with one rupee and two rupees coin. 

The boy who works in the nearby stall is my friend, his name is also Chootu but his real name is Avinash. But my name is better..Abhimanyu. My chest swelled with pride when I heard that the name of a hero is Abhimanyu in some film which I went to watch several times, all night shows with Avinash. He once taught me how to steal money from the cash box, one need to have money after all to watch movies. Avinash once got caught and got lot of thrashing but no one could catch me for I am very smart.

My malik loves me, once Shuklaji jerked me on the rear of my head and I got thrashed with the concrete cash counter, my forehead bleed, malik immediately tore a piece of cloth and bandaged my head. He gave me a day’s leave and bought sweets for me. Shuklaji does not love me so much for he finds reasons to smack me but I run away making it difficult for him to catch. I run very fast, in fact fastest.

They say that I once had a father and mother, they lived nearby but I think they died in some accident and someone sold me to malik, I do not remember them and therefore do not miss them. People say when I was born my father threw a big party and he had great dreams for me.  Someday I will suddenly become grown up and have a motor cycle to drive and good clothes to wear, exactly the same way as small Amitabh Bachan became grown up in Mukadaar Ka Sikandar.

Once a lady from NGO came to meet me saying I should go to school and stop smoking bidi. I replied in a filmy way “Kisi ke baap ka nahin pita!”

Chootu…Chootu..table saaf kar… I must go now, business time main samay kotha nahin karte….