Reading Time: 8:02 minutes
Vacations: The interval of time when my folks didn’t expect interesting news involving me from school.
Cricket ate up most o’ my vacations. I wouldn’t say that I was the undisputed champion o’ the streets, mostly because I held the bat like a caveman. And the ball would soar real high if I hit it..... IF I hit it!
I heard the kid next door shoutin’ my name that morning.
‘What?’, I yelled.
‘You comin’ to play?’
‘I’m eating!’
‘Come on! Everyone’s here.’
‘Alright! Hold on I’m comin’’
‘Hey! What’re you eating?’
‘I just licked the plate. Forget it!’
The skinny kid was bendin’ down when I got out. (Don’t get any ideas now. That’s how we chose the sequence of who gets to bat and when. We held out fingers as the kid called out names.) As usual I was the last one to bat. Now, the one who gets to bat last, gets to bowl first. Somehow they always forgot to stress on that when I was around.
So off I went to field, right next to the kid who stood behind the wickets, ‘cause it was the best spot! The ball never came near me. And I didn’t break any flower-pots either! (Later on I found out that the former was the only reason I was made to stand there. I knew those kids didn’t care about the darn flower-pots!)
So there I was, standin’ peacefully next to the kid behind the stumps, when a big, red flower plopped on my head out of nowhere. I’d just picked it up, looked above and started examining it when I heard all o’ them cryin’ my name out aloud. Turn around, and I find that droopy-eyed, tall bowler burnin’ me with his stare. So was the short, skinny brat standin’ next to me! Didn’t take long for me to notice everyone was sharin’ the same thoughts as the bowler. Everyone, except the kid with the bat.
‘Oh he must be the nicest kid around.’, I thought.
He was grinnin’ at me like anything. (Apparently, Sachin Tendulkar over here had missed the ball which had rolled past me towards the boundary, while I was figuring out the initial position of the big, red flower by calculating the momentum and taking into account the kinetic energy, which was transferred to my medulla oblongata.)
I smiled back.
Funny...this increased the total amount of staring, a few more notches.
‘WHAT??!!’, I asked the skinny li’l brat. (Well, I would’ve asked the bowler if I was in the mood to turn into a toast...with the edges ripped off!) He turned away and mumbled something. Droopy over there decided to answer for him.
‘You let the ball go, you idiot!! You just cost me four runs!’
(Four runs! That’s what they’ve been givin’ me this VIP treatment for? Four measly runs!! This isn’t the world cup, Brian Lara!! Hey wait a minute. Did he just call me an idiot?! Why that...beslubbering, onion-eyed, tickle-brained, flap-mouthed loggerhead!!)
Lucky for him, he didn’t wait for an answer! I would’ve shown him who the boss was! Hah! (Him. Hands down.)
(Okay. So let’s move on to the next ball. Here comes droopy-eyes keeping his pace constant, steps on the line and lo! delivers with a full swing o’ the arm. The batsman keeps steady, narrows his eyes to focus on the ball, steps forward, pulls the bat towards him and catapults it straight at the ball! But wait. What’s this? The ball skips off the tip o’ the bat and goes roarin’ up towards the fat kid standin’ next to the big, red flower. The keeper shouts his name. Droopy yells with his hands on his head. A shriek of disappointment later.... He CATHES the ball! Atta boy!)
Wow! So I COULD catch the ball! Liars!
It was skinny’s turn now. In came he. I was made the wicket-keeper. Not bad! Getting promotions and all.
(In comes droopy again, with his pant-like-a-dog-and-grunt-like-a-pig-with-a-grudge delivery strategy. Skinny swings the bat which appears to be longer than him and leaps forward! I’d bet the bat could outweigh two o’ him put together. Wait a minute! The ball tips beneath the bat and goes straight to the wicket-keeper! Oh he fumbles with the ball...the ball hits the wickets and he’s OUT! What a terrific performance today Ritchie B! Wonder what he ate.)
The kids had new found respect for me. Not bad! This was gettin’ to be my lucky day! (Actually, the ball bounced off my knee and hit the wickets while the idiot was tryin’ to make a run. But they don’t have to know that!)
‘Hey! Why don’t you give bowling a try?’
‘Me? Sure!’
This was the kid with the new found airs. The kid who couldn’t keep his trap shut even if a million mosquitoes threatened to enter if he didn’t. The kid who had to screw himself with every possible nut in the world. This was the kid who chose to bowl for Droopy! This...was me.
Let me tell you somethin’ about him. Droopy is the kinda guy who could smash windows at the 12th floor of an apartment. Now, imagine that kinda smashin’ goin’ on in your tummy. That’s what happened to Tubby when he got mad. No one saw the ball. All we saw was Tubby holdin’ his stomach and groanin’ like a pig havin’ diarrhoea before he passed out.
I could remember everything like it happened just yesterday. Damn it! I’m never eating Chyavanprash again!
I shut my eyes tight and threw the ball. The guys started yellin’. That’s it. I was done. That was the closest I could get to bein’ heroic. I could see all grinny faces when I opened up. I had become the laughin’ stock... once more. Wait a second! The wickets were lyin’ strewn. Could it be...?
Well, what do you know! I bowled him out! First time in the history of cricket, Droopy, was duck out! Hah! Loser!
‘Good goin’ man!’, cried Tubby. I could see it in his eyes. I was his hero.
‘Heh, no sweat.’, said I, just when Droopy passed by me.
Could the timing BE any better?
‘You just got lucky today you brat.’, he said, as he thrust the bat at me.
No points for guessin’ who Mr. Sunny Deol was here. But you gotta listen to the macho response I gave him. I’d bet he would’ve peed in his pants had I said it any louder:
‘Gulp’
So after losin’ the last ounce of self-respect I had, (an ounce was all there was, actually) I stood at the crease like a chipmunk waitin’ to get trampled by a dinosaur.
Time to face the music.
I never really liked the music they played at funerals. But it’s not like I have a choice here or something.
First ball. Four runs! Whoa! Maybe I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was! I just needed one more run to win. Tubby was getting overwhelmed. I looked at him and said,
‘Piece o’ cake.’
Droopy stole a look at me and spit on the ball. Uh oh! That could only mean one thing... World War III! Okay, big-mouth. You just bought yourself a hole in your paunch. Kids’re gonna name you Idlee Nagasaki henceforth.
I tightened my grip on the bat.(Well, that was the only thing I could hold on to at the moment.) It’s now or never. It was either the ball or me. Only one of us could get hit. So I leaned backward, heaved the bat with all my might and in one powerful swing...THWACK!
Commotion began. I couldn’t pull my bat back. It felt stuck. I couldn’t spot the ball either. Must’ve gone real far. Funny. Tubby was doin’ his groaning-like-a-pig-having-diarrhoea thing again.
(See this was the real deal: My mighty powerful swing, ended up in Tubby’s mouth. (I thought I had a big mouth.) His teeth all shaken up.)
I didn’t understand. Why did he catch the bat? That too with his mouth? Doesn’t he know the rules? And why the hell did he have ketchup on his face?
Everyone watched Tubby in ‘aah’. His Mom came rushing down. They took him in a car somewhere. I couldn’t find out where because I was busy being surrounded by towering neighbours who had appeared out of nowhere. These people would make sure the other kids read about me in history books when Mom & Dad got back from work. I had had it.
Next day saw Tubby with a swollen mouth. (Of course, you had to watch closely to tell the difference.) He was munching away on an ice-cream when he came across.
‘Want some?’, he asked.
‘Sure!’
Noticed the intensity? Apparently, ice-creams were the only thing he was allowed to eat for the next couple o’ days. Goin’ by his shape, I’m sure the ice-creams made up for everything he went through. And goin’ by my shape, I was just glad someone actually offered me an ice-cream.
I don’t remember apologizing to him. And I’m sure he didn’t expect any. We went on to become the best of friends. Always grinning at the sight of ice-creams, always pushin’ each other off the slides, always gettin’ yelled at by our folks, always sucking at playin’ cricket, always wonderin’ why girls are so stupid, always arguing over Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, always bunking the Sanskrit class, stealing one-rupee coins to buy pepsi-colas, fighting over WWF wrestling, tearing up our report cards, going underground during the Parents-Teachers meet, freaking out the watch-man when he was asleep, throwing pebbles at the girls when they played, getting stared at by their mothers in return, always swearing to become like Batman when we grew up, (Actually the idiot wanted to become Superman, but I put some sense into him.) pulling the air out of bicycle tyres, befriending the Kulfiwala’s son so that he’d get us free Kulfis, getting chased by the one darn mad dog in the streets...
The point is, we didn’t have any boundaries, (Except that we were threatened in crystal words not to go beyond the third street or we would have our legs chopped off.) we never bothered about our ego. Well back then, we didn’t Have an ego. But now... here I go, treating the people I care the most as bad as I can, and giving the best o’ my smiles to the people whom I don’t give a damn.
