Trick or treat

I landed in the US on the 30th of October, 1993, a day before Halloween. I was 10 years old and I believe I spent my first day in the US with a dopey grin permanently plastered on my face. Everything was so different and to a kid from a middle class Tamil family, everything appeared so wonderful. The wooden floors that creaked slightly when I walked, the big beds and the fluffy comforters, the thin sheet of snow on the road- all of it amazed me. As if all this wasn't enough, I was told of another glorious event that was to happen the very next day- Halloween! When visiting some friends of my dad's, their two daughters took me to their room and talked in what seemed like a foreign language. They spoke of wonderful things- of costumes and candy, of beautiful princesses and ugly witches. Though I couldn't understand everything they said, I knew that Halloween would be a wonderful holiday and I was thrilled when they invited me to celebrate it with them. Halloween night came by and the two girls' carefully dressed me as a cat. They each put on their costumes and transformed into a fairy tale princess and a native American girl. They then handed me a basket and took me outside. I watched as they knocked on each door and yelled 'trick or treat'. I also noticed that when they yelled this phrase, the house owners responded by dropping generous amounts of candy into their baskets. So, I followed suit and we walked from house to house doing the same. I returned home with a basket overflowing with candy, some of which I shared with my poor sister. Having been left at home with a severe case of jet lag, she listened as I described Halloween and all its glory. I felt like the entire night had been magical and I thanked profoundly, the genius who had come up with such an incredible holiday.

Every year after that first Halloween, my sister and I waited eagerly for October 31st to come by. We planned our costumes weeks before, we bought and decorated baskets to carry candy in and got a group of friends together to go 'trick of treating'. We spent the night before Halloween unable to sleep because of what we aptly named the 'I-can't-waits'. We used this time to come up with clever strategies of how to visit the generous households more than once without being found out. No matter how cold or dark, we never failed to go trick or treating. After all the rounds, we came back home and spent hours going through the night's collection. I believe both of us learned much about the age-old barter system because of these nights. We spent many hours making offers and trading candy. My sister, being a fan of sour candy always took my sour gum balls and sweet tarts in exchange for coconut and nut filled chocolates. Though I never told her, I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was getting the better end of the deal. I enjoyed the candy for days afterwards, careful to save the best ones for last and making sure not to finish my stock before my sister finished hers.

This continued till I turned the ripe old age of 14- I had officially become too old to go trick or treating. But I refused to let my age come in the way of my fun, so I still put on some gruesome makeup, stuck my vampire teeth in, spread some fake blood around my mouth and walked out the door confidently. I didn't care if I was too old- I was going to rebel. Everything went fine till I knocked on one of my neighbor's doors. A lady walked out, took a look at me and asked casually ' Hey, aren't you too old to be trick or treating?' That was all that I needed- the floodgates opened and I ran home crying. With all my makeup smeared, my teeth hanging out and fake blood all over my face, I gave my mom 'a real Halloween fright' when I walked in the house. That was the last time I ever went trick or treating.

The way I see it, that day marked the end of an era. Yes, I still celebrate Halloween- even for this one, I went to a haunted house and paid good money to get scared out of my wits and to scream my guts out... but its not the same! I hear kids in the US say all the time that they want to be 'grown up' and that they want to be treated like adults. I don't understand why. If you ask me, I would give anything just to be that little kid in the cat costume, running around from house to house, yelling happily- 'trick or treatttttttttttt'!