Huck, Me and Arjun- Chapter 1

Chapter-1
The Beginning

Huck Finn had always been a very good friend of mine, sort of a chamcha who looked up to me and my brother as we went about our adventures. He was a first rate fellow, let me tell you that, but the only thing that irked me about him was the manner in which he would carry on about Tom Sawyer, and how we would never be able to live up to his reputation.

If we were to embark on a grand adventure to set off the alarms in all the cars parked on our street, he would tag along and have a super duper time, but would hardly pitch in and help us out. There was no satisfying him! “Tom Sawyer would'a dunn it this'a way” or “Tom Sawyer would nair let a dog scare 'im off, I can tell u that. I Injun swear it tha he woulda got that car alarm to not only shriek but to sing all the sonnets and remix versions of Khaike Paan Benares Waala!”.

Pretty soon, my brother and I would see it fit to rain whoop ass on him, but he would simply smile and take it all saying that “Tom Sawyer woulda made me ache in two score diff'ent places than the two 'o you managed ta”. There was simply no pleasing that guy!

If you were to ask me how Huck Finn came to be with us, I would have to tell you to go ask a witch or one of the priests in the Ganesha temple down the street, for I have as much a clue as one of them astrologers have after carefully looking at a plate of beetle nuts.

It was one hot summer when me and my brother were in Chennai at my grandparents'. We had just finished yet another tome of Twain's and were looking for some adventure, but Paati wouldn't let us go out into the sultry heat. While Arjun and I- Arjun of course is my brother- were cursing our blamed luck and were wondering what Tom Sawyer would have done in this pickle, along came Huck out of nowhere and told us to sneak out like an Injun. Yes, he just came along out of nowhere and told us exactly what Tom Sawyer would have done: “He woulda gone out Injun style and gathered his horsemen and rode of to war against the Yahootee tribe, thas wha he woulda dunn, so wha you two louts still waitin for? Get a goin!”. With Huck Finn's able guidance, we were able to sneak out under my granny's not so watchful eyes, but Huck made it out to be like we were raiding a castle and were sneaking out with the loot, and my snoring granny was the dragon guarding the precious treasure, the peerless Haaji's diamond! He wouldn't let us slink away without nicking my granny's reading glasses from right of her nose, making them out to be the diamonds!

Needless to say, Huck Finn had most of the fun that day, while me and my brother were lumbering under the weight of guilty consciences. He made us borrow my grandfather's scooter and wouldn't let us start it with the key. He forced us to hot wire it like they did in the movies, though that didn't work and we simply ended up switching the headlight's switch with that for the horn, so he made us imagine that we had hot wired it and let us use the keys to start it up. “Tom Sawyer woulda had this horse whinnying away to glory in no time, you two greenhorns are goin to haff ta learn fas, or you will ne'er have half as much adventure as Sid Sawyer!”, so saying he started up the scooter and made me race it around town scaring old men walking along the street and making a huge ruckus with the croaky horn behind the temple elephant waking him from his slumber, which caused his mahout a whole lot of trouble.

That night, when we got home, we were given one hell of a beating. Our parents were on the phone the next minute asking us to return home- which by the way is in Bangalore- and my granny was all teared up and making a fuss over Arjun, but nobody said a word to Huck, he got away with it clean as a whistle! The police inspector who was a friend of thaatha's was at home, he told my paati not to worry him over such trifles in the future and gave us a glare that could have melted the entire Arctic before the methane and carbon do it eventually. We were mighty pissed off after that and refused to talk to Huck, but he just made faces at us, that infernal brat and called us girls' names.
“My Pa woulda bin ashamed of tha lickin, his philosophy in life is to lick a boy till ya can see he is an inch from Death's grubby paws, and here you two are goin on abou tha beatin tha a girl coulda tooked without grimacin!” taunted Huck.

The long and short of it is that Huck stayed with us the rest of our lives to mentor us in the ways of the pirates and highway men. I began this chronicle to make the truth universally known, because not many people know that Huck Finn played a major part in many of the 'adventures' that Arjun and I got into; and in case you are wondering, my name is Advaita, and I'm all grown up now, so I'm no more afraid of getting scolded, so I am going to come out with my whole story on this blog. Keep reading this blog and I'll regularly post our stories. Of course, I also want to thank Adi for lending me space on his blog, and Mark Twain for creating Huck Finn, for without his guidance and mentoring and constant taunts, we would never have had “half as much adventure as Sid Sawyer”!