Kichadum

I swear a lot. I try not to swear at home at all, it usually works well in front of my parents, but my siblings are used to my swear-infested tirades. usually its not at them, its just that as a regular swearbag, I swear at situations more than anything else.

Now, my mom is actually dead set again quite a few things in life, one of them being swearing. To her, even the word 'shit' is a swear word. To me, its more like a comma.

Now with my brothers growing up into their teens, and being regular hormone driven, wannabe gangsters, the situation becomes slightly alarming. They don't swear, which is a good thing, cuz I would have to lay the law down, as I have to sometimes. Usually that means having to change my own ways, and one of my ways that I am most happy with is swearing. So, its good that they don't swear. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

But my brothers are dumb. I mean, they do dumb shit. And as an elder, it is my responsibility to tell them that what they just did/said/thought/narrated/laughed at etc. is dumb. I feel that my sister and I have taken this role on admirably, and that we never fail to point out that fallacy of their ways, ie. the fact that they are dumb. But my brothers transcend one level of dumb, andactually claim a place indesputably known as "dumb as shit", an oft-used term in our house to proclaim the status of their burgeoning psyches. They've been dumb as shit for about two years now.They agree.

But the phrase has become so common in our house, that everytime it is uttered, for a good reason or not,our mom winces when she hears it. The wincing is usually followed by a tirade/talk session/silent treatment session from her. Its getting to be a drag, really.
So, my siblings and I have come up with a new term. Kichadum. Kichadd is a Hindi/Urdu word, It means mud.We have basically subsituted mud for shit here, it does the job well I think, what with similiar texture and colour etc. Kichad Dumb, meaning dumb as mud. Not very insulting, quite quaint really.But the four of us know what we are saying, its just that we don't have to say it out loud which in the end, saves all of us a bunch of grief.

Said really fast, Kichad Dumb almost sounds like a Malyali (South Indian language) word. Therefore,in the spirit of fostering multiculturalism within our house, we have decided to shorten our favourite phrase and just utter Kichadum with a heavy South Indian accent everytime my brother douses himself with Axe rather than taking a shower, or perhaps walks around with a light sabre all day pretending he's a Jedi.

My personal favourite moments are the ones when the younger one, poses a multiplication problem tothe older one, like for example 13x3 = ? .. and the other just stares at him, acting cool but in reality his mind is racing around to solve the problem. About 55 seconds laster he'll perk up and say, "Man that'sso easy! What you thought I didn't know? I just don't like how you keep doing this ish. But if you really want to know what 13x3 is, then I'll tell you.. 36." That is Kichadum.

I pass this knowledge on to you today. Use it well.

And don't call me a bad brother, when you feel your brain cells dying due to the quarks of people that shareyour blood, then you can speak.