The World Wrestling Federation or WWF as it was called then, was a rage among us teenagers in the 90’s. Every boy had a favorite Superstar and would imitate his style and wrestling moves. My superstar was the “Rattle Snake” Stone Cold Steve Austin. I must have attempted in vain a million of his “stunners” on my sister in our day to day fights, only to get thrashed by my mom subsequently.
We guys in the neighborhood were naive enough to organize matches between ourselves. Each one of us were rechristened as a superstar. We had the usual rules of the WWF and more often than not, we would get a little hurt. I know it sounds dumb now, but it was macho for us then, backing out meant the “sissy” tag for the rest of your teenage life.I stayed in a flat back then. All the ground floor flat’s had balcony’s with railings. Most of the flats were unoccupied and we had broken nearly all their doors for our indoor games. These balcony’s were our arena for the fights.
“Figure” as we called him was our favorite punching bag. I don’t really remember now as to how his name came about. May be because of he resembled a geometry figure rather than a human(kidding). He was a little over grown for his age, if you did not know him then you would be scared to fight a boy like him. But he was of the meek types and we being the pricks we were ,made sure he got enough blows on his fat belly.
One day, me and Kusugal (a friend of mine) provoked Figure into a Triple Threat Ladder match. For people who are not familiar with WWF terms, this match was a 3 way ,every man for himself fight. The only way to win was to climb a ladder and grab your title belt. In our case, the railings of our balcony was the ladder. We would hang a paper belt high up on the railing and one man needed to avoid/beat the other two, climb the railing and grab the belt to be the Ladder Champion. Kusugal was our Ladder champion. He was nimble on his feet and would somehow escape our grip to climb the railings to grab the belt.
Figure knew he had no chance against us. Even if we had left him alone and simply watched, he still could not have climbed those railings. But there was no way out. He had to accept the challenge else he would have been ostracized for the other sports we guys played.
Earlier in the day Kusugal had suggested to me that we challenge Figure for this match and then team up to bash him . I accepted. Kusugal was known as Destruction Boy among us. He would simply break windows, beat dogs, cut cable wires, pick up fights etc. I dared not be in his bad books and anyways I too wanted to beat the hell out of Figure.
Everything had fallen in place. Figure had fallen into our trap. I entered the ring in my usual style like the way Stone Cold did ( It would have been terribly funny then to see a 12 year old imitating Austin’s trademark middle finger). There were a few other friends watching from outside the balcony and obviously they were there to see Figure thrashed. We pounced on the poor guy, I delivered many of my trademark punches and Kusugal was at his destructive best. Figure would punch us once in a while and then cocoon himself.
We did not even attempt to win the match, we were happy beating the hell out of him. The crowd was egging us on. Then suddenly Figure’s sister saw us and ran home to call his mother. We knew we were in trouble, the spectators had it easy as they were not inside the balcony. They just vanished. We guys had to either go through the door or climb and jump the railing’s.We chose the door. Figure’s mom nearly caught us at the door, but we escaped.
Then the usual stuff happened, she complained to my mom. Figure had accompanied her to my house. He had a few bandages on him. This Man-Boy was crying like a baby in front of my mom. I felt like laughing. I knew what was in store for me. As they left and the door closed, I ran around the house as my mom chased.I had to make sure she had to toil to beat me. She would get no easy beatings against Stone Cold. Kusugal got the same treatment at his place.
I was banned from watching WWF at home. But I would anyways watch it at a friends place. Kusugal remained as destructive as ever and as it turned out, he and Figure went on to become classmates in high school.
A few days after our ladder match, Figure’s mom promptly took him to a Karate School. In hindsight that changed his life. He became much more confident may be over confident about himself and a little aggressive also . We guys avoided him, may be we were scared of him.
Few years later, Figure got his chance for revenge. To the same ground floor flat in the balcony of which he had thrashed him arrived another boy ‘Gowda’. Gowda had turned out to be a good friend of me and kusugal. We had told him of all the old stories of Figure. Gowda and Figure shared a bike parking space and this had led to many verbal duels between them.
But one day as we watched, it got violent. It was back to the good old days. Me and Kusugal did not want to interfere in their fight. We just egged Gowda on. Figure was twice as big as Gowda and was experimenting all his karate shots on poor Gowda. Figure was looking mockingly at us, he wanted us to interfere so that he gets a chance to beat us. We were not so dumb.
By now, information had gotten to both their mom’s about the fight. They rushed in and started pulling their sons back. Figure calmed down. He got up and was about to leave when suddenly from behind his back Gowda pounced on him and stuck his huge finger nail into Figure’s Neck. It was a standard cat fight move and Gowda’s fetish of growing nails had saved his honour 
. Figure fell to the ground, he was bleeding. His mom went ballistic on Gowda but he did not care, he was happy that he had the last laugh.
We were jubilant. Karate Kid had lost. It was 2-0 now .
Check out another of the ‘Gowda Saga’ here Check Mate !
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Poor Gowda is always dragged in all your sagas !
Great adventures & not to forget the stuns and their victims!:)
if this is a story, then its ok… but if a real life incident, then i really wish you to be in the mercy of Figure once…
Sooper Vatsa.. “Gowda” in full form
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