Humor in 'School Uniform'

The little typhoon marching to board the school bus is a treat to watch. Dark green skirt, white slack shirt tucked in, buckled belt, dark blue stripped tie and tightly strapped school bag resting on the back, is the way she goes to school. This often reminded of a soldier in the front – of course minus the arms & ammunition.

 

One day evening, the mischievous girl walked in and announced that she had brought me a gift! She held in her hand, a neatly packed article with decorative ribbon and all. To make the packing more secure, she had used strips of cellophane tapes.

I took the package and tried to open it. But she forcefully volunteered (read prevented me from….) to do the honors. From the open package she withdrew four sketches, drawn & colored by her. The first sketch depicted a hut, a coconut tree, a tree, two small cloud-lets and shining sun.

The second had the same elements but the cloud-lets have grown in size and number. The third panel had still bigger cloud-lets, radiating sun but the coconut tree and the other tree have interchanged their places. Third sketch was having only one change – the coconut tree had a curious appendage attached at the top. 

I had a few questions and she said to go ahead. The first question I asked was “why the other tree looked funny, a blob of green the size of its trunk at the top?”  Her reply was simple –some tree branches are like that! The second question was “what is the curious looking appendage on the coconut tree?” Without hesitation she said, “The tree is yielding coconut!” 

The last sketch was an interesting one. A line drawing, of a girl. The girl was lean and had fat, short arms and slim legs. On one side of her head she had, flying, braided hair tied with ribbon. The picture perfect girl was wearing spectacles & shoes too! The sketch was funny looking. I asked her “who the picture girl was?” She told it is the picture of her mother and was planning to gift it on her mother’s birth day. What gumption!

The way she had done the sketch of her mother fired up my own imagination. An idea slowly began to form in my mind. Giving finishing touches took another five minutes and I was ready with a plan to tease her a bit. Not wanting to abruptly change the subject, I engaged her in small talk to prepare the ground. 

After some time, I simply said “The way you dress for school looked funny!” Immediately she asked (zero tolerance for criticism) me to explain in detail. To keep the humor going, I concocted a story - how my son & daughter dressed up for school. 

Next day at 7:15 A.M sharp, she came dressed in her uniform. It was the funniest sight I have ever seen of a kid in uniform. Like ardhanarishwari, left half of the shirt was tucked in and the other half left over the skirt, un-tucked!

I burst out laughing and she also joined (a rare occurrence) – till our eyes started watering. After a bout of laughing, she complained of stomach pain.

Unless I tell you what I told her and what she did, how will you appreciate this incident?

The other day evening I had told her that my son and daughter wore their uniform differently. The slack shirt had a slit of three inches length, from the hemline, at the back end. This facilitated them to leave the left half of the skirt, un-tucked, over the buckled belt on the hip. The other half of the shirt was tucked in.

This, she believed it as real. Next day, it seems she came up the stairs and stopped at the landing space. She took out a scissors, undid her tucked in uniform and removed the shirt. Then, she cut the slack shirt as I had detailed. Dressing up once again, she came to show me her ardhanarishwari avatar!