I remember watching a cricket match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka
somewhere around 1997 at a friend's place. We lived in Baripada, a town
in Odisha, India.
All these while I have strictly maintained that I don't follow cricket and that I have nothing to do with the sport, though out of lack of things to talk about, I have tried and failed miserably at sparring a contest between the silent factions. But this incident just brings back a horde of memories, and so much more that the actual incident which I want to write about might get sidelined. We will see.
I remember in 1996 Sri Lanka winning the cricket world cup. Those were the times when every New Year was a tremendous affair. It meant something, like a whole new year. When we were kids, seeing Happy New Year written on the walls with smudgy pencil marks meant something.
Back then I used to play cricket. I was not great. But I remember I could occasionally spin a ball that would go between the bat and the legs to take out the stumps. But later when we moved to Dhenkanal, I wanted to bowl fast. I was about 12-13 then. I was never into batting. I remember the one time in recess when a group of girls from my class were walking past, and I wanted to hit the ball hard. But I missed and I remember watching a florescent fluffy round thing going past my blade's edge in a moment of deafening embarrassment and hitting one of the three frail sticks reclined on a tree trunk. Well about half a year later, I broke the ulna on my right hand in a comic episode of trying to dive and save a boundary. That was it, the end of cricket for me.
So back to the game we were watching between Pakisthan and Sri Lanka though I am still in a mood to digress. Because memories are like this interconnected web of things, where if one rare thing lights up, it keeps lighting up many such quaint things. I remember this now, how in those innocent days, a chubby boy could be tormented by pointing at a fat girl and calling her his sister. But if you called him as her brother, it didn't work. On contrary the chubby boy would feel a sense of pride or fond belongingness. It was weird. By the way, I was neither the tormentor nor the tormented.
So we are on a sofa eating something and the match is on. And we are five or six 7-10 year old boys. India back then was a disappointing team. It was the Australians who were amazing. And there were new teams like Sri Lanka or South Africa which had come out of no where. Somehow a fight broke out over whom to support in the current match: Pakistan or Sri Lanka?
After a fierce shower of trivia on the floor about the bowlers and batsmen, which one faithfully memorized from the trump cards one got with the chewing gum the Big Fun, the matter finally came down to this: 'So you want to support the the bad country that is full of people who hate us?'.
Back in those days, I suspect we didn't use terms like 'terrorism' and I certainly didn't have the slightest clue about the irreconcilable rift between India and Pakistan. I somehow used to imagine that Pakistan is like a family member who quarrelled and left the household and that they will eventually come back like everyone else.
The Pakistan supporters were left speechless with this sudden provocation of patriotic sentiments. They had no answer. And then one of them spoke, carefully uttering one word at a time, as if he wasn't sure if he really had anything at all to say: 'So you want to support the country that abducted Sita Maa?'
It still cracks me up when I remember that episode. Even when we were children we knew how to hate people we didn't know enough about. In our seven year old logic, it was impossible to decide if abducting Sita Maa was worse or if killing people in Kashmir was worse. I am not trying to make a point. It is just one funny incident I happened to remember.
All these while I have strictly maintained that I don't follow cricket and that I have nothing to do with the sport, though out of lack of things to talk about, I have tried and failed miserably at sparring a contest between the silent factions. But this incident just brings back a horde of memories, and so much more that the actual incident which I want to write about might get sidelined. We will see.
I remember in 1996 Sri Lanka winning the cricket world cup. Those were the times when every New Year was a tremendous affair. It meant something, like a whole new year. When we were kids, seeing Happy New Year written on the walls with smudgy pencil marks meant something.
Back then I used to play cricket. I was not great. But I remember I could occasionally spin a ball that would go between the bat and the legs to take out the stumps. But later when we moved to Dhenkanal, I wanted to bowl fast. I was about 12-13 then. I was never into batting. I remember the one time in recess when a group of girls from my class were walking past, and I wanted to hit the ball hard. But I missed and I remember watching a florescent fluffy round thing going past my blade's edge in a moment of deafening embarrassment and hitting one of the three frail sticks reclined on a tree trunk. Well about half a year later, I broke the ulna on my right hand in a comic episode of trying to dive and save a boundary. That was it, the end of cricket for me.
So back to the game we were watching between Pakisthan and Sri Lanka though I am still in a mood to digress. Because memories are like this interconnected web of things, where if one rare thing lights up, it keeps lighting up many such quaint things. I remember this now, how in those innocent days, a chubby boy could be tormented by pointing at a fat girl and calling her his sister. But if you called him as her brother, it didn't work. On contrary the chubby boy would feel a sense of pride or fond belongingness. It was weird. By the way, I was neither the tormentor nor the tormented.
So we are on a sofa eating something and the match is on. And we are five or six 7-10 year old boys. India back then was a disappointing team. It was the Australians who were amazing. And there were new teams like Sri Lanka or South Africa which had come out of no where. Somehow a fight broke out over whom to support in the current match: Pakistan or Sri Lanka?
After a fierce shower of trivia on the floor about the bowlers and batsmen, which one faithfully memorized from the trump cards one got with the chewing gum the Big Fun, the matter finally came down to this: 'So you want to support the the bad country that is full of people who hate us?'.
Back in those days, I suspect we didn't use terms like 'terrorism' and I certainly didn't have the slightest clue about the irreconcilable rift between India and Pakistan. I somehow used to imagine that Pakistan is like a family member who quarrelled and left the household and that they will eventually come back like everyone else.
The Pakistan supporters were left speechless with this sudden provocation of patriotic sentiments. They had no answer. And then one of them spoke, carefully uttering one word at a time, as if he wasn't sure if he really had anything at all to say: 'So you want to support the country that abducted Sita Maa?'
It still cracks me up when I remember that episode. Even when we were children we knew how to hate people we didn't know enough about. In our seven year old logic, it was impossible to decide if abducting Sita Maa was worse or if killing people in Kashmir was worse. I am not trying to make a point. It is just one funny incident I happened to remember.
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