A boy and his favorite game

One fine day, our boy's father, in one of his rare reminiscing moods, described the void that was created in the Indian cricketing scene when the then little-master retired from International cricket in the summer of '87. He then indulges himself by describing the back-to-the-wall 96 that the maestro scored against their next-door neighbours in his last innings, and then that famous anecdote of his..where the opposing team captain asks 2 of his young batsmen to field close to the maestro;s bat ,not to get him out, but to watch him bat...

Then he, our boy's father, reminisced more that this void was filled, as a 16 year-old curly haired teenager came into the team...

Our boy fell for the game, when he was 11, watching the Indian team take on the team from down under for the World Series and subsequently, the 92'World cup. There are two visuals that he remembers vividly from those days, these, he treasures and tries to preserve, by writing them down here. He has a reason to do so too, as he thinks that those are the first sights that plunged him into a Love-at-first-sight & life-long ( he was so sure about it..in those days) affair with the game.

Both the memories are from the previously mentioned tour of his team, down under.The first involved the afore-mentioned 16 year-old - whom the cricket gods had baptised at Sydney and then,as if reprimanding him for not playing Intnl cricket sooner, gave a 5-day-crash-course in growing-up at Perth - lifting a cool-as-ice man's delivery straight up into the air and the cool-as-ice man standing midpitch, drops a sitter through his shivering hands. But his team go onto lose that match.

In the second,a nostril-flaring-vegetarian-southie unleashes a monstrous skier off the last ball of the innings with 4 runs to win and the same cool-as-ice man drops another sitter near the ropes, but recovers immediately to..everybody knows the rest..

On both these occasions, the ball stayed in the air long enough for our 11 year-old to be fascinated by the thrill that he was experiencing, but more than that, the impression that for those few seconds, he was a part of a collective experience , not just with the few other people in the room but with those in the neighbouring house and then (as only a child's mind can extrapolate ) those in the neighbouring town and in the neighbouring state and such such, excited him..That one experience created an Indian cricket fan for life.

Then he started watching cricket religiously, studying it ,thus creating opinions and prejudices, favourites and nemeses,archetypes and stereotypes and geniuses and mortals. For the best part of his life, his team were the perpetual underdogs and so the possibility of experiencing the same thrill sustained his hunger to watch every match until the very end. Smartly disguising all his such feelings as fervent patriotism, he waited for that one experience again - that feeling of feeling all the hearts beating as one. As time passed on,the disguise was so complete that he himself forgot all about it and started beleiving in patriotism.

He had just gotten used to this steadiness of his love, when he had to suddenly adapt to the changes occuring in his favourite team. For, it was time for some of the seniors in the team to move on. There was one who had grown a ponytail , as if he had taken a vow not to cut his hair until he grabbed his 434th wicket, and he walked away with a lesser halo than before. Another one, with wrists like jelly ( ball coming wide outside offstump - a wrist turning clockwise - then ball going wide off mid-wicket), too moveed out with some serious money in his pockets and loads of egg-yolk on his face.

And to fill these voids, some others came in - A prince from the east, who elegantly drove himself through the Lords'covers into the team and a Dravidian who lodged himself into the team by placing first his bat and his pad and then his life infront of the stumps.

Through all this walking in and walking out, the teenager's eyes and ears were riveted on the game. But there was a change. The boy, immature as he was, had switched patriotism for religion and thus created his GOD. It was easy for him, for the entire nation thought so too..

Then came the golden-age of the late nineties..when the word "Desert Storm" ironically sent glee through our boy's heart and a spin-wizard's nightmares became his best quotes. His team was riding high, and his god was walking away with all the glory. It was a sort of a vindication for all the devotees,especially him and the thrill of all the blessings to come from a young god was the harbinger ( he was sure about this) of everything nice happening in the country - the market reforms, the IT boom,and a highly bullish stock market.

Then the boy saw the God stepping up to take his rightful throne - that of captaincy- blossom for a while, but the crown and the halo couldn't co-exist around that tiny curly head for long and it was unceremoniously taken off. Others took up the throne, but our protagonist used to think of them as different avatars of Indra, the Lord of the devas who runs for help to the real God ,whenever peril arose.

But His God sailed on, leaving previous records and landmarks in his wake, making devotees out of other Gods , making writers go over-board with their hyperboles, all the while carrying the entire nation along for the ride. Our boy was enjoying every bit of it.

Then the very market forces which the GOD had sent forth , raised its ugly head in the form of a ferrari,as red as the fruit of temptation in the God's garden, and doubts stealthly guided themselves into our youth's mind. But the illusion was still intact,so strong had been the impressions of childhood.

Then a momentary lapse of reason,according to our youth, happened from the part of God, one fine morning in Sydney. God decided, all by himself without any help whatsoever , that he was after all a mortal. And as if to prove himself, he acted out a 2-days-long weakness in Sydney and told everybody that it was a strength and thus, truly became a mortal.

And the remaining, is a very touching and moving story, having a myriad of emotions, tears and compromises, but a story involving a mortal nonetheless..

And we all know what happens to the stories of mortals..they come to an end.