593. Chewing gum memories

When I was a little boy I was crazy about a particular brand of chewing gum called "Big fun". When we buy those chewing gums, we would get a free cricket trump card free. I had an entire pack of trump cards with me because of my addiction towards big fun. I would always have a big fun in my mouth. I became a big fun addict because of Krish Srikanth and Viv Richards. They were the chewer boys in the sports world.  

Once when I was in class 4,  my class mate Uthara became my biggest enemy. She was the biggest girl in the class and I was the smallest boy in class. She would whack me, toss me and knock me down with her fists every time I got into a fight with her. 

On one such occasion, when she punched me down, I got up, took out the chewed gum from my mouth and entangled it around her hair. She tried her level best to take the gum off her hair and that only made matters worse and in the process she ended looking like Mallinga.

The next day she came to class with a new hair cut and she was very much ashamed of her short hair. I am not going to get into the details of the treatment I received from my class teacher, the school headmistress and the correspondent of the school for my art work on her hair. I was banned from chewing gums in school and the school banned chewing gums. 

One place where people around the world love sticking chewing gums is "Under the desk". Any desk in class room in India will have a chewing gum stuck underneath. This would help us in sticking any secret stuff underneath the benches. There were some friends who used to stick the gum under the benches and then take it again and chew when ever they wanted to. When you stamp on a gum accidently, you will get a yukky feeling.

I spent 2 and a half years of my life in Singapore. The one thing I hated about the country is that you cannot see any chewing gum in that country. Yes chewing gums are banned in Singapore. The ban came into effect after people like me started placing chewing gums between automated doors in trains and on the sensors in escalators. So that was a phase in my life, I did not chew any gum.

When I landed back in Indian soil in the year 2011, the first place I visited was the Men's room at the airport. When I visited the urinal, I noticed that the Urinal was clogged because someone had spat a chewing gum there. That was the first chewing gum I saw after 2 and a half years. Do you spit chewing gums in urinals?

-Chronicwriter.