Santa Sharpens Memory

The past week has been a busy one for Santa. He was supposed to fly to India to meet the President from Finland. On the way, he decided to see all the good children of this school in Dubai where the niece and nephew study, because they have been so good and reward them. There has been much excitement and chatter. The maps have been consulted multiple times by even those allergic to  Geography teachers to route the map from Finland to India via Dubai.

Seeing Santa in the corridors of your own school must be exciting. I can still remember being about a knee high with no front teeth sitting in a hall waiting for Santa to come. What? After he visits the President of India, he takes a detour down to the South and graces the Lena School corridors for those children have been good too. Duh. I remember sitting around waiting eagerly for Santa to arrive – I was seated along the corner, and this particular Santa, came strewing chocolates and sweets all around to general mayhem. Thinking back, I think he bore a remarkable resemblance to the woodcutter of the school. Anyway, the point is: while he was creating joy all around and throwing sweets, he also poked my eye, which had my eye watering, and my little mind up in moral chaos.

You see, all my life up until then, I’d been told that if you lied, or did not eat, or did something that was to discredit the name of the honorable clan from whence you sprout, God will poke your eyes. It was true, I had borrowed a sharpener from a boy in my class, and promptly lost it. I was in the process of honing several lies to tell him, one of the options being stout denial, another feigning surprise at the existence of sharpeners and the like. Still wondering how to break the news in short, for this boy was known to have attained fame by eating a worm. What if, his revenge was shoving one down my throat?  I hate worms not considering that they aren’t particularly esculent. Technically, I hadn’t lied yet, but maybe God knew that I was thinking of lying and sent Santa as a precaution.

I don’t know how the world rates North Korea allegedly having an arsenal of nuclear weapons and attacking South Korea and the world waiting to see how US would react, but it was definitely not as serious as the problem I faced. Soon after Santa left, a hurried meeting was called for. My best friends rose to the occasion as usual, and we all agreed that it had been a sign. The best thing to do was tell him the truth, and if he runs after me with a worm, one friend said she would take on the task of bringing a teacher on the premises by any means known to her.

I don’t exactly remember the end to this story – I just remember it being a huge anti-climax. It was all quite simple really. I was not chased down corridors with a worm in his hand, I know that for sure. So, it may be that Santa gave him a new sharpener as a gift and he forgot about the one I lost for all I care. But I do remember asking my father if I could have a sharpener for my very own in the sweetest tone I could don, simply fluttered with ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’.

I am sure it tickled the parent to have such a polite request for a sharpener, but these moral epilogues drained one.