I didn’t really fit in with the regular crowd. There were over 40 like me, squealing and howling on our first day at school, asking for amma. I, bewildered, being the only bengali in a sea of wailing malayali toddlers, wondering what amma was, and confused as to whether I should be asking for it too looked outside the grilled windows, at the bunch of grownups peering in. I had a distinctive feeling of what the bunch of monkeys in the cage must feel like while the visitors to the Thiruvananthapuram zoo peered in through the grills, making funny noises, as though trying to be monkeys themselves. Hah. As if they didn’t know they used to be monkeys millions of years ago. Or so some chap called Darwin decided they were. The visitors here were anxious, no doubt, worried about their children’s first day at school.
On looking around, I noticed a handful of specimens whose eyes were dry, and who were not bawling for amma and appa and things like that. Probably their ammas and appas weren’t at the window. No amma and appa for me either; my elder brother had taken me to my new class and run off to his own. Brothers in the same school and all that, you know. Such were the beginning moments of my first day in school.
It would be several confusing days, months and a couple of years before I would officiate as umpire in my first ever cricket match in school. Much happened between my first day in school and the day I stood in front of a tree, all sagely and wise adjudging wides, no balls, stumpings and runouts. That, because I was too shy to enter the space between the two casuarinas as a player!
I was 8. That would be in the year 1991.The Christmas examinations were upon us. I of course had no clue about the seriousness of things. The junior school exams consisted of one exam a day; a two hour paper in the morning, after which lunch followed and most parents would turn up to pick up their children, so that they could go home and start revising for the next day’s examination. The remaining children used to live farther away from school, and would take the 3.30 bus back home, until which time they would indulge in all kinds of time pass, including cricket! Now what kind of full blooded cricket could a handful of screaming 8 year olds engage in while they waited for the bus?
Simple: a page from a notebook would be wrapped up into a tight ball (Some of us had the unique knack of making excellent paper balls), the cardboard used for writing the exams on would polymorph itself into a cricket bat, the two casuarinas would serve as the two sets of stumps. The rest of the school would be the cricket ground. It was on one such occasion, when mom was a little late picking me up that I stepped gracefully on to this field as the supreme decision maker. Amid the tossing of the paper ball, heaving of cardboards and squealing of the kids around, I stood sedately, raising my arms this way and that way accordingly, as I had seen Dicky Bird do on TV many a time. I was thoroughly enjoying myself when the mater descended upon the scene and scooped me away to the auto, despite the feeble protests of the junta around who evidently thought I was as fair and just an umpire as ever entered a cricket field.
Such was my introduction to cricket, as we knew it in school. Countless experiences would follow in the 9 years that followed: learning to bat, bowl, field, drop catches, experiences of joy, triumph, complete despair and other feelings I have not the words to describe.
My first ever cricket match took a while coming though, after a full year had passed and I was well into the 4th standard. That was when I had burst into the scene, the young fast bowling novice who took the cricketing lives of 80 fourth graders by storm, an era when most of this sample space would quake in their chuddies at the sight of Purvarth starting his run up to lethal deliveries!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Extraordinary cricketing tales
A series of blog posts will follow soon, outlining the life of one Purvarth Maddhyanyakumar, mostly his cricketing life in his 12 years at school. Almost all of these tales will be inspired from real life incidents. Names of course, will be changed to maintain anonymity and dignity of people around him :) haha.
Watch the space.
Watch the space.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The simple complexity of them old times
Simple complexity ask you? Think of urban life in general today. I go where I want to, I speak with whoever I want to, wherever he or she is, I spend a pittance to send a short note to someone in some corner of the world within seconds, I watch what I want to.. the usual cliched reminiscing.
But things are so simple now. Can I sit at home in my undies and find out whether I will get a back row ticket for the latest blockbuster in town showing at a cinema 15 km away? Sure! Could I have done this in 1999? Are you mad?! It wasn't so simple then. I had to walk to the bus stop, wait for a rickety old KSRTC, squeeze out at East Fort 45 minutes later, run into Sree Padmanabha, stand in the midst of a sea of people smelling of coconut oil and Lux soap combined and if I was lucky, I could buy a 32 rupee balcony ticket for the latest Aamir Khan starrer. Call it nostalgia, but somehow all that was much more fun than booking a ticket online, getting ready at my own pace, and leaving home 15 minutes before showtime and shoot off through the 6 lane highway leading from here to the multiplex, run into the theater just as the show starts. Just-In-Time efficiency. Wow.
TV. How the experience has changed! When my elder brother was a kid, he never saw TV at home until he was 6, a year after I was born! Until then it was 'each other' and of course good old 'Aakashvaani' which entertained the household. The 1983 cricket world cup experience for many those who experienced would include a city bus ride to a friend's house to watch the match on live telecast (neat!) from England. The match would get over at 11pm IST, after which they would somehow return home (imagine what public transport must've been like back then) to an eager family dying to hear how India fared. India had won that one. How it must have been. Boggles the mind.
Then came the big black and white box. Keltron's path-breaking device! Bass heavy sound, green screen when off, black and white images when on! One knob each for Power and Volume, Tone - bass or treble(latest!), brightness and contrast! It would be a while before the image distortions because of voltage fluctuation generated more interest in us young viewers than some crappy serial about the tragedies of some unfortunate family!
Things would be different if a classic Bengali movie was scheduled to come on. Or a cricket match. Or a Byomkesh Bakshi serial. If the picture was scratchy or unclear, someone would be on the roof in a trice, heaving around the TV antenna in all possible directions, sometimes innovating with the elevation to get the 'right signal'.
"Is it clear?!!"
"NOOO! Keep turning!!!"
"NOW?"
"NOO! Keep turning!! NO WAIT WAIT!! Ugggh! TURN IT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS!"
"NOW??"
"TURN IT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS!!"
"I ALREADY DID!! WE NEED A LONGER POLE FOR THIS ANTENNA!"
If you smiled at this little exchange, then we are from the same era. De taali.
Letters. No form of written communication will ever be as personal as this. Sure it took 5 days to get the message across, but the same joy I felt as a kid receiving letters from my cousin from Delhi, from my brother who went to college in Allahabad, or from the girl I had a crush on, which would send me prancing silently from the letter box to my room in no time, letters my parents would receive from their brothers, sisters and relatives, yellow postcards which seemed completely inked out in (to me) unreadable Bengali which I would immediately take to dad or mom; I will never feel from an email. I've experienced this feeling for two decades before I truly caught up with the internet world. From the handwritten word, email took over, and it looks like gtalk will take it from there. Sure, it's more convenient and quick and awesome and all that. But the simple joy of writing a letter, sealing it up, searching the house for a postage stamp, walking half a mile to post it, and waiting for a fortnight for a reply, written personally by your loved one, will probably not be experienced from that new mail in your inbox. A letter on the other hand would feel like he or she was right there, talking to you.
The telephone. Oh boy. If you can remember a time when only one house in your neighbourhood had a telephone, and that would be used by every house in the neighbourhood to receive important calls? Then again, we are from the same era. De taali! STD though, still hasn't changed for some old timers. There will be those who will still yell into the phone while on an STD/ISD call. The trunk-call experience still lives in some form! If you saw someone doing that, you'd know they were from THAT era :)
Money transfers. I can't really comment on how things have changed here, never having received a money order in my life, but I could only imagine the emotions. An old couple in a village sees the postman approaching with a money order from their son in the city. Cliched? Sure. But no comparisons of personal natures from me here, having been on many an occasion bailed out of tight situation by a swift transfer of the dough from the watchful brother at the other end of the country!
But then, hasn't every other thing I've mentioned here changed for the better in some way or the other? I guess it's what you've experienced as a child that sticks on as the innocent and feel-good way of life. My folks will probably always prefer writing letters more than trying to send emails. I will probably always prefer emailing, or whatever other form of communication my work requires me to do.
Who knows, my children may some day write about how email used to be so cool and awesome, even though less quick than sending a thought from one mind to another. Who knows what they'll invent?
But things are so simple now. Can I sit at home in my undies and find out whether I will get a back row ticket for the latest blockbuster in town showing at a cinema 15 km away? Sure! Could I have done this in 1999? Are you mad?! It wasn't so simple then. I had to walk to the bus stop, wait for a rickety old KSRTC, squeeze out at East Fort 45 minutes later, run into Sree Padmanabha, stand in the midst of a sea of people smelling of coconut oil and Lux soap combined and if I was lucky, I could buy a 32 rupee balcony ticket for the latest Aamir Khan starrer. Call it nostalgia, but somehow all that was much more fun than booking a ticket online, getting ready at my own pace, and leaving home 15 minutes before showtime and shoot off through the 6 lane highway leading from here to the multiplex, run into the theater just as the show starts. Just-In-Time efficiency. Wow.
TV. How the experience has changed! When my elder brother was a kid, he never saw TV at home until he was 6, a year after I was born! Until then it was 'each other' and of course good old 'Aakashvaani' which entertained the household. The 1983 cricket world cup experience for many those who experienced would include a city bus ride to a friend's house to watch the match on live telecast (neat!) from England. The match would get over at 11pm IST, after which they would somehow return home (imagine what public transport must've been like back then) to an eager family dying to hear how India fared. India had won that one. How it must have been. Boggles the mind.
Then came the big black and white box. Keltron's path-breaking device! Bass heavy sound, green screen when off, black and white images when on! One knob each for Power and Volume, Tone - bass or treble(latest!), brightness and contrast! It would be a while before the image distortions because of voltage fluctuation generated more interest in us young viewers than some crappy serial about the tragedies of some unfortunate family!
Things would be different if a classic Bengali movie was scheduled to come on. Or a cricket match. Or a Byomkesh Bakshi serial. If the picture was scratchy or unclear, someone would be on the roof in a trice, heaving around the TV antenna in all possible directions, sometimes innovating with the elevation to get the 'right signal'.
"Is it clear?!!"
"NOOO! Keep turning!!!"
"NOW?"
"NOO! Keep turning!! NO WAIT WAIT!! Ugggh! TURN IT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS!"
"NOW??"
"TURN IT BACK TO WHERE IT WAS!!"
"I ALREADY DID!! WE NEED A LONGER POLE FOR THIS ANTENNA!"
If you smiled at this little exchange, then we are from the same era. De taali.
Letters. No form of written communication will ever be as personal as this. Sure it took 5 days to get the message across, but the same joy I felt as a kid receiving letters from my cousin from Delhi, from my brother who went to college in Allahabad, or from the girl I had a crush on, which would send me prancing silently from the letter box to my room in no time, letters my parents would receive from their brothers, sisters and relatives, yellow postcards which seemed completely inked out in (to me) unreadable Bengali which I would immediately take to dad or mom; I will never feel from an email. I've experienced this feeling for two decades before I truly caught up with the internet world. From the handwritten word, email took over, and it looks like gtalk will take it from there. Sure, it's more convenient and quick and awesome and all that. But the simple joy of writing a letter, sealing it up, searching the house for a postage stamp, walking half a mile to post it, and waiting for a fortnight for a reply, written personally by your loved one, will probably not be experienced from that new mail in your inbox. A letter on the other hand would feel like he or she was right there, talking to you.
The telephone. Oh boy. If you can remember a time when only one house in your neighbourhood had a telephone, and that would be used by every house in the neighbourhood to receive important calls? Then again, we are from the same era. De taali! STD though, still hasn't changed for some old timers. There will be those who will still yell into the phone while on an STD/ISD call. The trunk-call experience still lives in some form! If you saw someone doing that, you'd know they were from THAT era :)
Money transfers. I can't really comment on how things have changed here, never having received a money order in my life, but I could only imagine the emotions. An old couple in a village sees the postman approaching with a money order from their son in the city. Cliched? Sure. But no comparisons of personal natures from me here, having been on many an occasion bailed out of tight situation by a swift transfer of the dough from the watchful brother at the other end of the country!
But then, hasn't every other thing I've mentioned here changed for the better in some way or the other? I guess it's what you've experienced as a child that sticks on as the innocent and feel-good way of life. My folks will probably always prefer writing letters more than trying to send emails. I will probably always prefer emailing, or whatever other form of communication my work requires me to do.
Who knows, my children may some day write about how email used to be so cool and awesome, even though less quick than sending a thought from one mind to another. Who knows what they'll invent?
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