Friday Word: Pitch

Sanjay informed me that Pitch was the Friday word. The word pitch reminds me of pitching tents and takes me back to my school days. I was a girl guide and we would go on annual camps where obviously you had to be self reliant and do everything yourself. We used to get graded for everything we did and it was added on to the annual grades. I was very serious about grades and absolutely HATED low grades even if it was in Physical Education (gym) and Girl Guide, which were really not that important in the grand scheme of things (to be honest it is different getting a low grade in Math as compared to Girl Guide).

In my ninth grade we went to a camp site where we had to pitch our own tents. We were split into groups of six. The girls in my group were rather spoilt and thought that we could get away with a lot of stuff because Sister C wasn’t with us. They asked us to pitch our own tents and figure how to work everything out. We were graded based on how quick and efficient we were and my group didn’t do well. Then they asked us to cook, which was even worse, and slowly it was turning to be a nightmare for me. They asked us to make Indian bread (chapati) and the group who rolls the perfect round chapati’s would win a prize. All the girls in my group, including me, had total ennui towards anything related to domestic chores. A lot of my other classmates who came from more traditional Indian communities were trained by their mothers and we saw them quickly roll them. My group was the worst as every chapati we rolled was more a class in geography; map of India, map of China, Pakistan, etc.

I couldn’t bear to lose and since necessity is a mother of invention….I had a brilliant idea….I told my friends why don’t we roll them just the way we do and then once we are done we can use the lid of a steel container, having a diameter of six inches, as a mould in order to get a perfectly round chapati. My group was mighty pleased with the idea. One of my classmates asked “But Sai wouldn’t that be cheating?” I replied, “Well they haven’t laid down the rules so it is not cheating.” The other girls happily bought into my logic and went about rolling the perfectly round chapatis with a twist. One of my teachers walked by our group and exclaimed “Wow you girls are really talented! Who made them? You must demonstrate to the other girls” My group mates conveniently pointed to me and replied “Sai will show everyone. It was her idea.” Then much to my chagrin, she announced to my other classmates, “Sai will demonstrate to all of you how to roll the perfect chapatis.” So everyone gathered around our group and I was forced to show them how I managed to get the perfect round chapatis.

In case you are curious about the repercussions, I was made to run three times around the camp grounds. Come to think of it I was very skinny in school…..I attribute it all to running around the school grounds as punishment.