My Slingshot Catapult.....it happened to be the most expensive one.
In those days, we had lots of outdoors. I grew up playing football....atypical ones. Just anything that was worth dribbling and kick-able would be a good football. Fruits, especially citruses, ball of plant wool, spider net or cobwebs, inflated animal bladders, tufts of dub-grass (dactylon) and just anything. The other being bird hunting. We would form a teamster of about six to nine boys and would chuck out strategies and grand war plans on bird hunting. The teacher would miss out classes and that would give us finest congeniality for hatching ambush. In the south, wild dove, bulbul, pegions, cookcoos, peasant and other birds were aplenty. We would go for dove because they form a huge cadre of about 20 and more birds. Through out my regimentation as slingshot shooter, I never hit a bird. The ammunition for my Slingshot would be of amazing variety; pebble, mud-balls, steel-balls, bearings, marbles or anything that would leave the sling with perfect aerodynamics. For me, steel-balls were the golden bullets.....would use for assassinating only high profile game like peasant and queen dove. I would prowl with perfect stealth accessing the distance and the angle of my trajectory. At about fifteen meters with perfect angle, I would pull my sling up to my ear and release the marble like a sniper. To my dissatisfaction, the missile would take on quick turn and my sling would bungee up buckling in its own length......the bullet would land at the back with a thud, the dove on the branch would not even notice the air. One day, I settled on making one of the finest Slingshot catapult of my life. I researched whole of the vicinity looking for the best slingshot handle, a branch of tree that is "Y" naturally, stout and resilient. I hack-sawed one best from citrus tree, with sheer mathematical intelligence. I then seasoned my weaponry with the edge of Khukuri and file away all the rough granules, made it smooth and beautiful. I tugged the bungee sling on the handle with rubber bands cutaways. This could be done with, football rubber, balloons, even condoms would do the securing of the arms. The only resource deficit at that moment of making was the strap. I tried to find and ransacked rooms and trunks with little luck. Later I realized that the providence was too smart because I had the biggest luck awaiting for me at the corner of the staircase, The lather shoes. Without further ado, I just picked up the luck, and went to my workshop and neatly cut away the leather of this Moccasino, picked up eyes on the strap and secured at my sling. It was beautiful with mechanical redemption. I exercised my regular hunting with bunch of wolves. That evening, my old man, Deewa (grandpa) was carpet searching for his beloved pairs of shoes. I remember his expression and countenance of despair in losing expensive Italian Moccasin, inverse lather shoes, gifted to him by one of his Natees who been to west for study. The left out of the shoes, sole and the reinforcing I put inside the firewood stacks.........it was like the taliban hidout in the mountain of Hindukush.....only this time, the secret would spill over like an elephant under the carpet, as the stack of firewood receded........when later the leftouts were finally discovered by Mama, the all out blame went to biggest rat in the house......I still remember my old man laughing his heart out with slightly emotional sweet pain conjecture.............
In those days, we had lots of outdoors. I grew up playing football....atypical ones. Just anything that was worth dribbling and kick-able would be a good football. Fruits, especially citruses, ball of plant wool, spider net or cobwebs, inflated animal bladders, tufts of dub-grass (dactylon) and just anything. The other being bird hunting. We would form a teamster of about six to nine boys and would chuck out strategies and grand war plans on bird hunting. The teacher would miss out classes and that would give us finest congeniality for hatching ambush. In the south, wild dove, bulbul, pegions, cookcoos, peasant and other birds were aplenty. We would go for dove because they form a huge cadre of about 20 and more birds. Through out my regimentation as slingshot shooter, I never hit a bird. The ammunition for my Slingshot would be of amazing variety; pebble, mud-balls, steel-balls, bearings, marbles or anything that would leave the sling with perfect aerodynamics. For me, steel-balls were the golden bullets.....would use for assassinating only high profile game like peasant and queen dove. I would prowl with perfect stealth accessing the distance and the angle of my trajectory. At about fifteen meters with perfect angle, I would pull my sling up to my ear and release the marble like a sniper. To my dissatisfaction, the missile would take on quick turn and my sling would bungee up buckling in its own length......the bullet would land at the back with a thud, the dove on the branch would not even notice the air. One day, I settled on making one of the finest Slingshot catapult of my life. I researched whole of the vicinity looking for the best slingshot handle, a branch of tree that is "Y" naturally, stout and resilient. I hack-sawed one best from citrus tree, with sheer mathematical intelligence. I then seasoned my weaponry with the edge of Khukuri and file away all the rough granules, made it smooth and beautiful. I tugged the bungee sling on the handle with rubber bands cutaways. This could be done with, football rubber, balloons, even condoms would do the securing of the arms. The only resource deficit at that moment of making was the strap. I tried to find and ransacked rooms and trunks with little luck. Later I realized that the providence was too smart because I had the biggest luck awaiting for me at the corner of the staircase, The lather shoes. Without further ado, I just picked up the luck, and went to my workshop and neatly cut away the leather of this Moccasino, picked up eyes on the strap and secured at my sling. It was beautiful with mechanical redemption. I exercised my regular hunting with bunch of wolves. That evening, my old man, Deewa (grandpa) was carpet searching for his beloved pairs of shoes. I remember his expression and countenance of despair in losing expensive Italian Moccasin, inverse lather shoes, gifted to him by one of his Natees who been to west for study. The left out of the shoes, sole and the reinforcing I put inside the firewood stacks.........it was like the taliban hidout in the mountain of Hindukush.....only this time, the secret would spill over like an elephant under the carpet, as the stack of firewood receded........when later the leftouts were finally discovered by Mama, the all out blame went to biggest rat in the house......I still remember my old man laughing his heart out with slightly emotional sweet pain conjecture.............
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