October 5th 3:35pm - Chicken Fight in a Waterfall

When I was eight years old and had bigger breasts and a Homer Simpson belly, my friends and I would divert ourselves with chicken fights whenever we went to the beach or pool. We weren't eight-year-old psychofants and masochists conducting cock fights. Two people settled on the shoulders of two others and each team tried to topple the other. With my Godzilla thighs and sumo wrestler stomach, I was the base with a friend on my shoulders.
From McLeod Ganj a Brit, German, Dane, Aussie and I walked twenty minutes along the coiling road to the Bagsu waterfall. Variegated posters and jewelry and clothes stands swayed to jade forested ridges. We mounted steps with sloth speed and arrived at the waterfall as elated as Wile E. Coyote would have been if he'd ever ensnared the Road Runner.
The Brit poked his pointer finger in the water, rocket-launched his appendage back, screeching, "Fucking hell! It's glacial water!"
The water felt like it had one ice cube in it.
After twice scrambling up rocks with the grace of a cow walking up five stairs, I suggested chicken fights. The Dane agreed but the others refused. Too much physical activity on vacation. We persuaded two Indian men to combat us. The Dane was the infrastructure, I was the grappler. Within thirty seconds I had catapulted the Indians into the water. They were both a head shorter than me and weighed as much as my little sister.
The five of us were the only whites. In a male-dominated country with twenty-five Indian spectators, Naruna and Navaj were not baby-happy that a gori had wafted them into the water. They requisitioned a rematch.
Navaj's hands locked on my arms. My hands clamped onto his arms. I bucked him to the right. He pitched me to the left. I boosted him to the left. He wrapped his arm around the back of my neck for leverage. I ducked under his limb and strong-armed him with dwarf strength into the peacock-colored water.
The bystanders grunted. To display their displeasure, two Indian men resembling Cheech and Chong fired a gun into the sky.
I maintain it was a cap gun. The Brit persists that it was a real gun.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hahaha. Yes that water was super frozen (surely hyperthermia levels?) and it was a real gun - it was so loud - thanks for the memories! Brit x