Guns

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bishuprose

Guns

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No Austromate , this isn't about war or anything.No killing no untruth either.Yes, I was maybe 13-14 years of age. I was like a cocaine addict to reading western comics those wild west stuff.I imagined myself to be a gunslinger shooting at my opponents [for fun of course] with my 0.45 colt Laughing No .. not at all.. I was not in the least a violent boy.But somehow the comic pictures of gunslingers clad in breeches and having two guns in their leather holsters and the bullet studded broad belt made me crazy.I must own a 0.45 colt. A real one.


I was only 36 kg but I carried myself like a 100 kg man.During Durga Pujas we children wer allowed to by toy guns which had a roll of 20 or so tiny gunpowder-like pimples stuck on a narrow strip.This strip could be "loaded" and the shiny silvery tin revolver could fire the "bullets" as fast as I could press the trigger.But caps cost money and one cap can't be shot twice.So the fun ended as fast as it had begun.During the whole Durga Puja season i.e. 4 days, scarcely 10 strips of "ammunition" could be afforded.After my "bullets" were exhausted I'd envy the other boys "phut-phutting" their caps in miserable cacophony.


Our Bangla almanac is released around 14th April when we Bangla boys began our New Year. In the almanac or "Panjika" there were advertisements of revolvers which were advertised to scare robbers and said to make big sound.Oh how I longed to own one ! But the cost was prohibitive at Rs.5/-. In any case I'd buy one when I earned money for myself i.e. when I grew up.In the meantime I used to borrow my mother's stitching needle ,thread and some old cloth and sew a cloth holster into which I'd put the toy revolver and practised drawing it fast.What fun it was !!!


Whenever I stroll on Chowringhee Road I still glance at the almost real looking revolvers which have greatly evolved since the 60s and make huge noise. Though I can afford a gun like that somehow I dont buy.Just a deep deep sigh as I pass by the dangling guns. Every Durga Puja so many kinds of beautiful cap guns are sold very close to my home.I look at the small children and smile as they proudly flaunt their guns.


Such were the shooting memories of a mindless idiot who hasn't anything better to do.Laughing



Author's Notes/Comments: 

For Austromate's eyes only_ From a plastic brain

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