About the size of two bedrooms an utterly undulated piece of
barren land occupies right across my ground floor terrace. Like birds flock to
their torn nests by the turn of the evening, eight under weight cricketers,
surely below the age of twelve, appear one after other with the little one
carrying a drowsy looking bat under his armpit. The shapeless, lustreless
rubber ball will now change hands bringing thrill, no less than a seventies’
five-day match with daring Farook Engineer at stumps. There is no one standing
behind the wickets, I find. A rather doubtful set of three ugly looking,
crooked vertical lines on the moss filled broken wall, marks the fate of the
batsman. No one complains about that. No spectators, no actors, no cheer girls
is in view. Only a rarely summoned third umpire waits to-day’s thrilling half
hour.
There is so
much fun and excitement in this friendly game that it puts the bribe trodden
international cricket to shame. Even the honest that cheer the international
players and watch these pre-decided matches should hide their face in disgust. But
to my utter disbelief the friendly cricket game opposite my balcony too has
some fighting inherent. All of my little friends love to bat, none care to move their arm like a half drawn cartwheel throwing the ball. Bowling
seems to be tiring. To them bowling is a less attractive option than hitting
the ball hard and bringing it to tears. So sometime there is difficulty to get
the bit between one’s teeth and often expression of childhood anger evolve disappearing within minutes. These lilliputs fight, some sort of transient jostling I
should say which soon turn into human bondage. Such charming,
unadulterated expression of human behaviour you always would envy in your
adulthood.
My duty is
restricted to watching. But my honesty and rationality shine high in their
mind. One day after some extended display of anger for who should bat first I
was given the chance to decide their fate. I took it seriously, encouraging a fair
play. I drew numbers one to eight in a row with a prefixed dash and covered the
digits with the bat. The younger one was asked to choose a dash first and then
the others. After all the markers were chosen by eight of them, I uncovered the
digits by removing the bat. It was an easy task with impending clarity and little
punctilious behaviour from me at sixty.
The game
was high on note but confusions came faster than the runs. Markings made by the
ball on wall came one above the other, making decisions difficult. Display of
anger followed by cries became obvious. No one was ready to leave the bat and
take up a fielder’s job. Then one day larger controversies came, stopping the
game like a bolt in the blue. I had no other option but to interfere. I couldn’t
be a dumb spectator and watch these little champs display disgust like the
adults. And then I thought, why don’t I gift them a set of real wickets and a
piece of nice cricket bat? The ball came
next putting me to tears to see their joy.
 |
| CHARLES COLLYER AS A BOY WITH A CRICKET BAT by Francis Cotes (1726-1770) from Wikimedia Commons |
While
watching one such local game of cricket on a lazy Sunday afternoon I thought,
how immensely fool the human race is, spending hundreds of pounds for a pre
fixed, well rehearsed, pre decided match at an international arena. That half
nourished, ill trained juveniles with their never ending energy, I
contemplated, play and play and keep playing not loosing their honesty for even
a second. The light was dim by now and the kids have reluctantly called off the
match at least for today. I felt sorry for them. I said to myself,” Hats off my
children, hats off to your truthfulness, righteousness and honesty.”
