Cricket, my brother and the Colonel

What better topic for my first post than cricket? Politics divides our country, while cricket unites it. Wow, did I actually say that? Cricket definitely united my brother and me.

I remember as a young boy dying to hold a bat, the only one in the neighborhood belonged to Cedric, my anglo-Indian friend. He was the self appointed captain, coach and team manager, all because he had the ultimate weapon, the bat. He batted first, fiercely contested every decision against him and decided when it was time to end a game. I must admit that I got better treatment than the rest, since I was his ‘best friend’. But my ego was hurt when I realized that his bat was dearer to him than my friendship. I had asked him to lend me his bat when he went to a party to his Uncle Freddy’s house (he had confided that this time he was definitely going to dance with the pretty Debra and tell her ‘I Love You’). It was only one evening and I promised to guard the bat well. Despite his happiness about the night ahead with Debra he refused. I was very upset about how unfair life was, Cedric had the bat and he could go for a party and dance with girls. No dinners and parties for a middle class mallu boy, “we are not like that”. The only outings that we made were to my uncle’s house in Mathikere where we had to be well behaved. “Don’t gorge on the food” Ammachi would repeat at regular intervals through the journey, quite a challenge with the kind of food my aunt made. And dancing with a girl??? She would throw a fit if I even did a jig alone. “What’s wrong with you, it’s the influence of that boy”.

And who came up with best strategy to address this fervent need for a bat? It still amazes me that it came from my brother who never showed any care for my feelings up until that moment. It seemed too simple to work. He said, “Ask Amachi for a bat, simple”. I did and, not surprisingly, she said no. “Listen son, malayali children are born to study and make careers for themselves. What kind of a future is there in cricket? Can you feed yourself by playing a sport? Get real”. (Amachi either doesn’t not read the papers anymore or she is purposely silent about mallu boy Sreesanth needing a finance manager within a year of international cricket.) I tried different tactics, refused to eat food, sulked through the day (people say that I have mastered that art) and wept as well. Nothing worked. Again my brother came up with the idea; something that mom could not refuse outright. I told her that I will top all my exams that year if she promised to get me a bat. I knew at that moment I had hit a soft spot. I still wonder why. I had always topped my class and that year was going to be a breeze since J and R my biggest rivals had been moved to B and C sections.

For the next year, my brother showed concern in his own way. Never once showing any signs of weakening his superior older brother status. He would ask gruffly about my test scores and sound almost like my dad as he said, concentrate on maths, algebra and physics, those are the only subjects that you can score ‘cent per cent ‘. He was my time keeper and would ask me to get back to my books while he played on in the evenings. He took my side during arguments with mom a few times as well.

Well I did top my class that year and I gave my mom the report card, it had the standard lines from Mrs. S, our principal, in green ink, ‘well done, keep it up’. Mom and brother went one evening to Rakhra Sports on Commercial Street (how many times I had slowed as I passed it and looked at the bats, pads and gloves in the window). I waited at the gate for their return, (I wonder why Cedric was not among my friends who were waiting with me). And then an autorickshaw stops and I see it. White body with a black handle in a plastic cover, it had ‘Challenger’ written on it. I posed with it, perfected my stance, smelt it several times. My brother said, “I was the one who told Amachi to buy the non oil one with parchment”. I couldn’t wait for the night to end. Here it was my symbol of power. I could decide who was in my team, how long I batted and, to some extent, who won.

It was a double whammy when my brother said something that made me delirious at the very next game? He called me aside and said, “You bat like the Colonel”. For the illiterate, the Colonel is the nickname for Dileep Vengsarkar.

Was it the bat?