"Vigneeeeeeeeeeeeessh" yelled jean, from the balcony of his house opposite mine.
It was the signal for me to know that it was time to play cricket.
Everything else around me looked non-sense when I heard him go "Vigneeeeeeeeeeeeeessh"
I was memorizing and narrating to mom, the maths formulas starting with (a+b)^2 = a^2 +b^2 +2ab when he yelled for play that day.
"You are not going today unless you finish your homework of maths", amma sounded strict.
"I promise it is done after cricket before bed", I toned between pleading and harsh.
Karthick took the baton to call out for me from his younger brother, "Daai! Come out". Every time Karthick chose to call out, it signals desperation. I began to get more and more itchy.
I fiddled with my book in hand, looked up to the lights and fan, showed disinterest until amma finally said, "Okay. Go Play"
"Play Hard. Play Fair. Remember your time to be back and to finish your homework." She went on. Needless to say, I hardly heard anything after she uttered the two most beautiful words for a twelve year old - GO PLAY.
I ran to my balcony and looked at theirs, "Daai, Bloody hell, be here before I bring down the bat and ball", told jean verbally, what Karthick conveyed visibly with a stare.
I ran helter shelter, down my stairs to pick up my improper bat, strictly for runner's end use, and then cross the road to reach Karthick's house.
For a few hours of togetherness and fun we had to fulfill a host of assigned tasks. I had to eat an extra idly. Karthick had to buy vegetables for his mom when needed. Jean had to do few more of his Std five maths problems. Raja, the eldest of us all, had to balance his special classes for 10th Std with his time for cricket with us.
With the always inadequate time for cricket, we were hard-pressed to not lose time on assembling to Karthick's house and setting things for us to bowl the first ball. So we had a standard setup of stumps, crease and teams. The concrete pillars of L-138, Karthick's building, forming the unbreakable stumps; the paint markings, the non-erasable crease lines. We saw it as our cricket pitch and not as the flat's car parking lot. After all, cricket was everything we knew during those days and even now. It was a hay day when a few of his tenant's cars were out on the road. It meant we had few more places to score from.
To top our problems Karthick's dog, Blacky, would be edging to play with the ball we played with. To put him in his shed and try not to hit the ball near him was a game in itself.
"So it is Raja who is making us wait", I stressed to let not the brothers feel I was.
"It is him too", the little Jean said more to himself, throwing the ball up in the air.
Usually the ball we played with was a hard plastic one, which didn't endanger the outdoor glasses in the building, yet called for hard-skilled cricket. Each ball cost us three and a half rupees then and served us for just more than a week. The deal being Karthick, Raja and I had to contribute a rupee each and Jean since was a little one was excused with 50 paise. The irony of it all would be our phone call to remind each others to bring the rupee would cost each of us as much as well.
"So Raja is here. It is time we start hitting", Karthick shouted out to the heavens, as a quarter of our play time was gone.
Karthick and Raja were a team as always against Jean and I. We had been playing together since our toddle days. It was for long a battle between they the invincibles and we the underdogs. Of late we had begun to start winning on and off. It had become interesting as much as it was aggressive all the time. Strategies and Game plans had been in preparation since the last hour classes at school in my mind as anticipation grew close.
"In" guessed Jean as I asked him to call for the toss.
Karthick opened his fists to show that the stone was actually 'In'.
"We 'll bowl as always", I said as Jean ran to the bowling end to bowl.
Raja took the bat; Karthick had to wait.
After 15 minutes and 30 runs, Raja hit to the glass window which meant that he was out as per the rules of our cricket. Not to mention he just escaped from hitting the ball out of the gate for the second time earlier which again would have meant that he would have been out.
Karthick began brisk with a few boundaries. Then came the moment...
I bowled a ball which Karthick missed and hit the concrete pillar, our so called stumps. We had a black mark which level-indicated as the accepted height of the stumps.
"Out!!!", Jean high-fived with me.
"It hit above the stumps", Karthick argued so confident pointing to a place above the black paint mark as if he had seen the replay on a TV.
"You do this all the time", I threw the ball down in disgust.
"Raja you saw it; It is your take", Jean bet on Raja's honesty.
"I didn't see it from here", Raja played it safe.
All of us had seen this enough number of times and so we knew none of us were going to budge from our stand.
"I am not going to bowl a ball until Karthick agrees that he is out", I declared.
Karthick coolly took a stroll around the crease as if to imply 'If I don't get to play, so do you my friend!'.
The stalemate continued and continued. Karthick waited and waited. Jean fumed and fumed as Raja and I pondered and pondered on lost play time.
Finally Karthick burst out, "If you guys aren't gonna trust me, I am not gonna play with you any more".
It was curtains for play that day as Karthick ran up his stairs. Raja whisked away fed up, on his cycle.
Jean the unworried little kid asked me, "Come let us atleast play catches" to which I threw the ball at him for one last time and said "Poda Daai...."
The next evening arrived; I heard it again,"Vigneeeeeeeeeeeessh".
This time I knew it was from Karthick, in his same desperate tone.
I dodged amma to reach the balcony to find out. Karthick stood and gave his customary stare.
I knew it meant "Daai, Bloody hell, be here before I bring down the bat and ball" as usual.
I ran helter shelter, down my stairs to pick up my improper bat, strictly for runner's end use, and then cross the road to reach Karthick's house.
We didn't look apologetic. Least so did we remember that we didn't get down well enough last evening.
We as usual waited for Raja to pedal his cycle and took jean by his neck to bring him down from his evening nap.
Raja arrived; the three one rupee coins and Jean's 50 paise were all pooled in to buy us the ball, the toss was done. Karthick again batted. karthick again disagreed.
Somethings don't change. Somethings don't have to.
We were at an age, then, when we didn't know what egos were, what 'I' meant. It wasn't the cricket that united us. It was 'we' that did. It is 'we' that is. It is 'we' that will forever.
How different it is as adults. Adulthood is where small fights take ages to sort out even if they do; where 'self' kills love; where 'I' betrays peace; where 'egos' lead all of us to being a hypocrite.
Just listening to a conversation between two kids tells us two things. One, how simple life actually is. Two, how difficult we have made it to be.
I wish I get to be child again more than I wish for anything else. Those were the ever-memorable days when we didn't know the letter 'I'.
I now know that wish is always granted by God if the thought to be so prevails,
Vignesh Nagappan.A
To Karthick, Raja and Rajamani(Jean),
I am not sure if we are devotees of cricket as much as we are devotees of each other. Guess if not for each other, the cricket we played together is of no value.
It was the signal for me to know that it was time to play cricket.
Everything else around me looked non-sense when I heard him go "Vigneeeeeeeeeeeeeessh"
I was memorizing and narrating to mom, the maths formulas starting with (a+b)^2 = a^2 +b^2 +2ab when he yelled for play that day.
"You are not going today unless you finish your homework of maths", amma sounded strict.
"I promise it is done after cricket before bed", I toned between pleading and harsh.
Karthick took the baton to call out for me from his younger brother, "Daai! Come out". Every time Karthick chose to call out, it signals desperation. I began to get more and more itchy.
I fiddled with my book in hand, looked up to the lights and fan, showed disinterest until amma finally said, "Okay. Go Play"
"Play Hard. Play Fair. Remember your time to be back and to finish your homework." She went on. Needless to say, I hardly heard anything after she uttered the two most beautiful words for a twelve year old - GO PLAY.
I ran to my balcony and looked at theirs, "Daai, Bloody hell, be here before I bring down the bat and ball", told jean verbally, what Karthick conveyed visibly with a stare.
I ran helter shelter, down my stairs to pick up my improper bat, strictly for runner's end use, and then cross the road to reach Karthick's house.
For a few hours of togetherness and fun we had to fulfill a host of assigned tasks. I had to eat an extra idly. Karthick had to buy vegetables for his mom when needed. Jean had to do few more of his Std five maths problems. Raja, the eldest of us all, had to balance his special classes for 10th Std with his time for cricket with us.
With the always inadequate time for cricket, we were hard-pressed to not lose time on assembling to Karthick's house and setting things for us to bowl the first ball. So we had a standard setup of stumps, crease and teams. The concrete pillars of L-138, Karthick's building, forming the unbreakable stumps; the paint markings, the non-erasable crease lines. We saw it as our cricket pitch and not as the flat's car parking lot. After all, cricket was everything we knew during those days and even now. It was a hay day when a few of his tenant's cars were out on the road. It meant we had few more places to score from.
To top our problems Karthick's dog, Blacky, would be edging to play with the ball we played with. To put him in his shed and try not to hit the ball near him was a game in itself.
"So it is Raja who is making us wait", I stressed to let not the brothers feel I was.
"It is him too", the little Jean said more to himself, throwing the ball up in the air.
Usually the ball we played with was a hard plastic one, which didn't endanger the outdoor glasses in the building, yet called for hard-skilled cricket. Each ball cost us three and a half rupees then and served us for just more than a week. The deal being Karthick, Raja and I had to contribute a rupee each and Jean since was a little one was excused with 50 paise. The irony of it all would be our phone call to remind each others to bring the rupee would cost each of us as much as well.
"So Raja is here. It is time we start hitting", Karthick shouted out to the heavens, as a quarter of our play time was gone.
Karthick and Raja were a team as always against Jean and I. We had been playing together since our toddle days. It was for long a battle between they the invincibles and we the underdogs. Of late we had begun to start winning on and off. It had become interesting as much as it was aggressive all the time. Strategies and Game plans had been in preparation since the last hour classes at school in my mind as anticipation grew close.
"In" guessed Jean as I asked him to call for the toss.
Karthick opened his fists to show that the stone was actually 'In'.
"We 'll bowl as always", I said as Jean ran to the bowling end to bowl.
Raja took the bat; Karthick had to wait.
After 15 minutes and 30 runs, Raja hit to the glass window which meant that he was out as per the rules of our cricket. Not to mention he just escaped from hitting the ball out of the gate for the second time earlier which again would have meant that he would have been out.
Karthick began brisk with a few boundaries. Then came the moment...
I bowled a ball which Karthick missed and hit the concrete pillar, our so called stumps. We had a black mark which level-indicated as the accepted height of the stumps.
"Out!!!", Jean high-fived with me.
"It hit above the stumps", Karthick argued so confident pointing to a place above the black paint mark as if he had seen the replay on a TV.
"You do this all the time", I threw the ball down in disgust.
"Raja you saw it; It is your take", Jean bet on Raja's honesty.
"I didn't see it from here", Raja played it safe.
All of us had seen this enough number of times and so we knew none of us were going to budge from our stand.
"I am not going to bowl a ball until Karthick agrees that he is out", I declared.
Karthick coolly took a stroll around the crease as if to imply 'If I don't get to play, so do you my friend!'.
The stalemate continued and continued. Karthick waited and waited. Jean fumed and fumed as Raja and I pondered and pondered on lost play time.
Finally Karthick burst out, "If you guys aren't gonna trust me, I am not gonna play with you any more".
It was curtains for play that day as Karthick ran up his stairs. Raja whisked away fed up, on his cycle.
Jean the unworried little kid asked me, "Come let us atleast play catches" to which I threw the ball at him for one last time and said "Poda Daai...."
The next evening arrived; I heard it again,"Vigneeeeeeeeeeeessh".
This time I knew it was from Karthick, in his same desperate tone.
I dodged amma to reach the balcony to find out. Karthick stood and gave his customary stare.
I knew it meant "Daai, Bloody hell, be here before I bring down the bat and ball" as usual.
I ran helter shelter, down my stairs to pick up my improper bat, strictly for runner's end use, and then cross the road to reach Karthick's house.
We didn't look apologetic. Least so did we remember that we didn't get down well enough last evening.
We as usual waited for Raja to pedal his cycle and took jean by his neck to bring him down from his evening nap.
Raja arrived; the three one rupee coins and Jean's 50 paise were all pooled in to buy us the ball, the toss was done. Karthick again batted. karthick again disagreed.
Somethings don't change. Somethings don't have to.
We were at an age, then, when we didn't know what egos were, what 'I' meant. It wasn't the cricket that united us. It was 'we' that did. It is 'we' that is. It is 'we' that will forever.
How different it is as adults. Adulthood is where small fights take ages to sort out even if they do; where 'self' kills love; where 'I' betrays peace; where 'egos' lead all of us to being a hypocrite.
Just listening to a conversation between two kids tells us two things. One, how simple life actually is. Two, how difficult we have made it to be.
I wish I get to be child again more than I wish for anything else. Those were the ever-memorable days when we didn't know the letter 'I'.
I now know that wish is always granted by God if the thought to be so prevails,
Vignesh Nagappan.A
To Karthick, Raja and Rajamani(Jean),
I am not sure if we are devotees of cricket as much as we are devotees of each other. Guess if not for each other, the cricket we played together is of no value.
