'Uncle, khelega,' smiled 6-year old Siyu with a bat and ball in hand. 'Haan,' me responded. Siyu handed me the rubber ball as she marked the crease, settled down to bat with the bumper of a car for stumps on a cemented half-feet of space. Me under armed a spin to the ball and she hooked it over 5 cars, scrambled past six cars for runs; me bent under a Mahindra SUV for the rubber sphere, not a kookabura. Within minutes, Chiyu, Niyu, Biyu, Hiyu and Kiyu joined up, teams were formed and a Test started among parked cars. That space in the housing society was a green park; now a cemented parking slot, with cars and SUVs stacked back to back, one on another; a rusty, tin board in a forgotten corner says: For children. Fathers and mothers pat, wipe, kiss and chat up their cars while yelling out their kids, spend more hours in cars than outside. That's living in Mumbai, New York style. Today, the Test match eased into its own rhythm with toss, Cokes and protests to me, doubling as the lone umpire. Parents were living their hangovers in bed. Dance and drinks had done them in, they forgot their cars; dreamt of cars. Their children were happy ..... or that was what me thought when a wrangle, green shooted, Chiyu refusing to field claiming the scoreboard to be tampered...a routine affair with adults. Maybe, Chiyu was at the TV for India-South Africa Test matches in Nagpur, Delhi and wherever. In India, India alone wins; in South Africa, England wins. The Test match stood suspended with no reference to dodgy ICC. The kids broke into another game setting me free to sofa rest weary legs ...it was not so years ago stamping the Maidan grass in Calcutta; Maidan youthed me; Maidan is in me; and as Maidan is sports, for me sports is everything; everything else can wait, waits; me faith; or rather, much better put by that elegant sports writer Rohit Brijnath in Mint today: ' Why I still have faith in sport'. Rohit Brijnath is the verser of sports and philosopher of sports, of all sports; he writes: ' ....And then there is Charlotte Brown. We speak of extraordinary athletes trusting their skills, but she stretches that idea of faith so far that it is bewildering. This year she, 17, hurtled down a runway, planted a vaulting pole and ascended 3.50m into the air to win bronze at the Texas state high-school championships. Which is unexceptional till one considers that Brown cant see the runway, cant see the pole-vaulting box, cant see the bar, cant tell where she is. 'If I am going to challenge myself,' said the blind teenager,'why only challenge myself a little bit. I want to make it hard.' Yes, that's blind faith in sports. Yes, Rohit Brijnath. Am not a sports writer (tried, got rejected); but watch all sports; when nothing is live on sports channels or in living, watch DD Sports with its last century clippings of Indian athletics. Yes, sports is me faith, Maidan me prayer book.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Brijnath and sports
'Uncle, khelega,' smiled 6-year old Siyu with a bat and ball in hand. 'Haan,' me responded. Siyu handed me the rubber ball as she marked the crease, settled down to bat with the bumper of a car for stumps on a cemented half-feet of space. Me under armed a spin to the ball and she hooked it over 5 cars, scrambled past six cars for runs; me bent under a Mahindra SUV for the rubber sphere, not a kookabura. Within minutes, Chiyu, Niyu, Biyu, Hiyu and Kiyu joined up, teams were formed and a Test started among parked cars. That space in the housing society was a green park; now a cemented parking slot, with cars and SUVs stacked back to back, one on another; a rusty, tin board in a forgotten corner says: For children. Fathers and mothers pat, wipe, kiss and chat up their cars while yelling out their kids, spend more hours in cars than outside. That's living in Mumbai, New York style. Today, the Test match eased into its own rhythm with toss, Cokes and protests to me, doubling as the lone umpire. Parents were living their hangovers in bed. Dance and drinks had done them in, they forgot their cars; dreamt of cars. Their children were happy ..... or that was what me thought when a wrangle, green shooted, Chiyu refusing to field claiming the scoreboard to be tampered...a routine affair with adults. Maybe, Chiyu was at the TV for India-South Africa Test matches in Nagpur, Delhi and wherever. In India, India alone wins; in South Africa, England wins. The Test match stood suspended with no reference to dodgy ICC. The kids broke into another game setting me free to sofa rest weary legs ...it was not so years ago stamping the Maidan grass in Calcutta; Maidan youthed me; Maidan is in me; and as Maidan is sports, for me sports is everything; everything else can wait, waits; me faith; or rather, much better put by that elegant sports writer Rohit Brijnath in Mint today: ' Why I still have faith in sport'. Rohit Brijnath is the verser of sports and philosopher of sports, of all sports; he writes: ' ....And then there is Charlotte Brown. We speak of extraordinary athletes trusting their skills, but she stretches that idea of faith so far that it is bewildering. This year she, 17, hurtled down a runway, planted a vaulting pole and ascended 3.50m into the air to win bronze at the Texas state high-school championships. Which is unexceptional till one considers that Brown cant see the runway, cant see the pole-vaulting box, cant see the bar, cant tell where she is. 'If I am going to challenge myself,' said the blind teenager,'why only challenge myself a little bit. I want to make it hard.' Yes, that's blind faith in sports. Yes, Rohit Brijnath. Am not a sports writer (tried, got rejected); but watch all sports; when nothing is live on sports channels or in living, watch DD Sports with its last century clippings of Indian athletics. Yes, sports is me faith, Maidan me prayer book.
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