UNCONQUERED FINAL FRONTIER - Short Story

July 2008, Suburb of North Chennai

Mani began his delivery stride and gradually gathered momentum. I was concentrating as hard as possible. Sweat for pouring from my forehead but I was least concerned about it. I was anticipating a bouncer; he was sure to exploit my limitation against short pitched stuff. Hence I decided to wait in the back foot, wanting to make full use of it. “We want sixer, we want sixer” came the chanting from the background. Mani though decided to astonish me with a full length slower delivery. I right away transferred my weight to the front foot and launched a fierce lofted cover drive, similar to the shot Sachin played in Sharjah against Aussies in the finals few months back. The ball sailed high in the air.

The moment, ball started to go so high in the air; it dawned across me that it was a dream. I never had the power to hit such a shot, so I was sure it must be a dream. However, I tried hard not to wake up from the sleep. It was such a good feeling, to be able to hit such a huge six at least in the dream. The ball soared high up in the air. However, at the last minute, Pooja dived from nowhere and caught the ball, and started making fun of me. Pooja is my cousin, living in Mumbai, and only in dreams, it is possible for her to take such a catch in the suburbs of Chennai.

Frustrated that I’m not able to score a six even in dreams, I woke up to the sounds of “Kandha Shashti Kavasam” (a devotional Tamil song praising Lord Muruga). If it had been a working day, I would have continued to lay in the bed, hoping to delay as much as possible, the inevitable task of getting up and going to school. But today, is a lucky day for us. Due to some reasons, the ruling party has called off a strike today, much to the bafflement of my father (What the hell is happening, how can the ruling party call for strike”) and to the delight of me.

Being a holiday, I didn’t want to squander too much time, rolling up in the bed. I jumped out of the bed, brushed my teeth within seconds, and rushed out taking my bat. My father would be out of prayer room in next five minutes, and I needed to be out of the house before that, else I would need to hear his depressing cum fuming monologue about the lack of responsibilities seen in today’s children. My grandma had said he used to play cricket for much longer time than me during his school days, so I have never paid any heed to his opinion.

I took the bat from the cupboard and rushed out, and as expected my mother’s voice came rampaging out of kitchen, “Have you ever woken up before 6’ o clock for studying.” I disregarded it as usual, and started moving out. It’s then I realized that I had forgotten to get the balls. We bought three balls the day before, since the shops might have been closed today, due to the strike. I forgot where I had kept them, and as usual I called my grandma to rescue. My ever loving grand ma searched and got them for me once again and I rushed out to join my friends, before my Dad could get hold of me.

The road looked uninhabited except for three of my friends, who were already practicing their cricketing skills. I joined them, and we began to practice and wait for our remaining six friends to join us, to start playing matches. Ramu was practicing batting, and I decided to try in my leg breaks a bit. Though I call it as leg breaks, I actually just bowl the ball slower in the air, hoping to get the batsman out due to the irritation in waiting for the ball, rather than my bowling skills. One by one, our friends came out of their houses to join us.

Today, our group was extended to eleven people, as Praveen brought his cousin, to play with us. He said that his cousin is also studying in eighth standard like us, but none of us believed it. He looked like the WWF wrestlers, and might be studying eighth, only if he had flunked each class thrice. Nevertheless, the task came to me to clarify the rules to him. Rules, in the sense, I am not talking about rules framed by ICC. Now, though we play cricket, we do have our own set of rules, depending on the availability/non availability of resources.

For example, we don’t have any stumps in the bowler’s end, and we use a small stone as the stump there. Since it is difficult to affect a direct hit on that small stone, we follow an ingenious method that was copied directly from Baseball. We allow “Current” – that has nothing to do with power supply – but it is a means by which the batsman can be run out just by catching the ball with our legs on the stump (stone in this case).

Now since this WWF guy doesn’t seemed to me the one who in interested in dealing in singles, I straight away started telling him about the boundary lines and about the unconquered Final frontier, and how any one hits the ball inside that house is declared out. Unconquered Final Frontier? Now its time to take you through a bit of history about the unconquered final frontier, as that day would be the last time I would be explaining that rule about the Final Frontier to any one.

Flash back time………….

Our Gang has been playing cricket here for the past two years, the time when most of our houses came into existence. Most of our parents were working in a reputed state Government organization, and they all brought flats here in this suburb of Chennai, because it was the only place they could afford with the minimal loan. We were lucky enough to get so many people of our age group together, and soon formed a gang and started playing India’s favorite sport. Initially we didn’t face any trouble.

But then the year before, five new houses, came near our colony. None of those people were fellow employees of our parents. None of them had a child, who could play cricket with us. This created a difficulty, as they didn’t like us playing cricket. They complained, shouted and abused at us. We, who don’t even worry about the shouting of our parents and teachers, as usual turned a deaf ear.

They complained to our parents, but since our colony association head, is an ardent cricket fan, he took our side. “Don’t come with these stupid issues” he said and slammed the door of his house on them. This meant we could continue playing cricket, but only problem was that, we ought to make sure; we don’t hit the ball into their houses. Then, no one could help us, and we had no other option than to buy a new ball.

So, we immediately declared those five houses as Danger Zones, and any body who hits the ball inside those houses, will not only be declared out, but he also needs to replace the ball. Now, playing cricket is not some thing that our parents enjoy, but they just put up with it. But they become intolerable, if we keep harassing them with demand of new balls, when ever we hit the balls to the Danger Zone. So we had to think and come up with some pioneering solutions to trim down, if not get rid of the danger zone.

However, our imperfect brain couldn’t come up with any solutions, and we continued with our tradition of Danger Zones. Then came the timely break. There was a small petty shop nearby our colony, where we always buy our two rupee Rasna Packets and One rupee water packets, at the end of our cricket matches. An Old man was the owner of the shop, and he was very fond of us. Who would not be fond of the people, who keep buying stuff from their shop? His son now took over the shop, and as luck would have it, the old man took the job of a gardener cum watchman in one of our Danger Zone House. The house soon went out of Danger Zone, as he took the ball from the house and gave for us, whenever their owners were not aware. We reciprocated his kindness by buying more Rasna packets.

Then a guy in another Danger Zone house got married and the bride become a close friend of my mother, as both of them were from same remote place in Tamilnadu. She always got the ball for me, as long as her mother in law was not in sight. Within weeks, she had also forced her husband to fetch balls for us. So that left mere three more houses, that were the danger zones. One of them in the house was childless couple and they adopted a young girl later that month. We didn’t realize that it will bring such a drastic change in their attitude, that they would start giving back our balls. When ever we were free, we started going to their home, and started playing childish games with their girl, making her joyful, and thereby maintaining friendly relationship with them.

Out of the remaining two houses, one of them moved to posh area in Chennai, after their son got a lucrative job in Chennai. The new tenants to the house didn’t seem to mind about the ball being constantly hit into their house. That left us with only one house, where we couldn’t get any luck. The House still remained in the Danger Zone, and the final frontier was not yet conquered.

Flash back Ends ……….

Having told our rules to the WWF wrestler, we decided to start our game. With odd number of players in the gang, it meant, we had to have one player as “Common”. For those who have never played street cricket, it means that player would get to bat for both the teams, but can’t bowl for either of them. A timid guy in our group, Rahul, who won’t argue with what ever we say, got the role of Common; after all he can’t grumble also, as he can’t bowl a proper delivery even if his life depended on it. So it is a win-win situation for him and others. The remaining ten players were split into two groups of five each, with myself leading one side and Mani the other.

It was time for toss. As we were lucky enough to have a one rupee coin that day, we had a normal toss. Else we would have to be satisfied with many other ingenious method of deciding which team has to bat first. I can’t explain all those methods here, for fear of copyright violation, but one such method was to use a small piece of stone, apply saliva on one side and toss it up in the air. The captain has to call either Mazlai (rain) or veyil (Hot).

We won the toss, and as most of the street cricket captains, follow the rule of “Bat first nine out of ten games. In the tenth game, think for a minute, and then bat first”, we opted to bat first. Now being the batting team captain, I have to make two decisive decisions. No, it is nothing to do with, who should be the openers. That would be automatically decided by the fighting team mates themselves. As long as they ask me to bat at number 3, I am fine with any others playing at any other position.

The choice, I had to make was regarding, who will be the wicket keeper and who will be the umpire. The batting team has to provide players for both these roles. We need to provide a wicket keeper, who has the talent of dropping a dolly so realistically and also can pull off a blinder when the team needs to get out the batsman who is batting slowly and also doesn’t agree to get retired hurt.

And then the umpire must be daring enough to ward off abuses from the opponent and give wide to any delivery that the batsman fails to hit. He should also think of some absurd reasons to say not out when the team’s main batsman gets out for low score. He can even say the stumps were dislodged not because the ball hit the stump, but rather because of earth quake in Indonesia, and the rest four will fight like hell to defend him. Cricket is a not a gentlemen game here; it is a game played between passionate future cricket stars (as we liked to think of our self.)

In the very second ball, Mani uprooted the stumps of one of our opener, and the next ball I edged a ball to wicket keeper, who took a diving catch, only for our umpire to turn a blind eye. Even our parents inside the house would have heard that nick, but umpire insisted he didn’t, in spite of abuses from the opponents of him being deaf. In midst of this commotion, I stared at our wicket keeper, who broke the sacred vow of never diving when keeping for the opposition team.

Rest of my teams batsman, didn’t play well, we shall skip those overs in between and move to the last over of our innings of this six over game. WWF Wrestler defended the first two balls of the last over, leading to annoyed glare from me standing at the non strikers end. Might be it infuriated him so much, that the next ball, he hit a huge shot, that just landed few feet away from the forbidden house and got us six more runs. However the next delivery, we were not so lucky and he hit it straight into the terrace of the Forbidden house. The first ball was lost.

We some how managed to scrap and win the first match, and batted first again, thanks to yet another street cricketing rule of “Winning Team Bats First”. The very first delivery of the match was again hit into the forbidden house by our very own WWF Wrestler. We didn’t shout at him, only because of the fear, that he might thrash us. Any way, we were all satisfied by just glaring at him. Second ball lost, and we had only one more ball. We warned the WWF Wrestler to be careful next time, but all the caution turned futile as the third ball was also lost, before he got a chance to face another delivery.

This time the culprit was Mani. I decided to bowl the third over of their innings, not because I had greater variety, but there was no one else who could bowl six balls without wides or no balls. I bowled the first ball, and it was so slow, that Mani had played the shot thrice before the ball arrived, but failed to make any decent contact. The next delivery frustrated him again, but this time, he was also down the track, and the wicket keeper had an easy stumping chance, which he fumbled deliberately. Mani was frustrated at giving two dot balls against me, and I also provoked him, by making fun of his batting talent. Next delivery was launched high into the air by him.

Odds should be so low against third six attempted going to the same house, but today was a day to defy all odds. The ball traced the same path as its two predecessors and rolled inside the main gate of the house. All three balls lost within an hour of play starting. With no shops open, we know, our day is going to be wasted. We were all very much upset and started wondering what to do. After some needless conversation, one by one every one started leaving. Finally only I, Mani and Rahul were left. Mani and I were wanted some how break the final frontier and get the balls. We started to think of a plan.

We knew at this point of time, all the three members of the family would be in house. First there is an old grand father, whose only hobby in life is to read Hindu from first line to last line every morning and then spend the rest of the day, writing various letters to editor. His letters on various topics has been printed in Hindu, ranging from “Why more budgets should be allocated to Military” to “Nuances of living with kids in the neighborhood”. We indeed felt honored that we were the subject of discussion in The Hindu.

The next person is his daughter in Law, who does make up to show that she is still in her thirties. She also tries to act as though she is the Mother Teresa of Tamilnadu, and indulges in many social services activates superficially. Next is her daughter, who is studying in a reputed engineering college, and whose only purpose in life is to read text books. And then there is her father, who spends most of his time in some tours and currently not in house. When all these three souls are in home, we could never think of entering the danger zone.

So we decided to wait and act. We knew, the mother and daughter would be going to a near by temple at 4’0 clock and the old man would most probably be sleeping. So we could peep into the house then and get the balls. If every thing goes well, we could still manage to play for 2 hours before the darkness comes. So we decided to meet at 4. Rahul, tried to escape from the plan, but we forced him to come to terms with us. He is too timid to say anything against Mani and agreed reluctantly just to come up to the main gate of the house.

4’o clock. We reached near the entrance of the house and waited for the mother and daughter to get out of the house. After they left, we climbed the main gate and got into the house. Rahul was supposed to keep watch standing outside and warn us if any one comes. After bit of struggle, we, Mani and I, climbed the gate and jumped inside the house. We tried to make as little noise as possible. As luck would have it, the first ball was lying just near the verandah and we pocketed it.

“We shall leave” – I said; but Mani was adamant on getting the other two balls as well. The second one, we knew was in upstairs. The staircase was inside the house. Mani said we shall try opening the main door and see if the door opens. The last positive thing, that happened that day, was we got to open the door. The moment we opened the door, we heard loud “Thief, Thief” sound from the main gate, and only then we realized that the mother and daughter in law had come back to the home.

Later we came to know from Rahul, that he had run away out of fear on seeing them return back. We just stood there, our legs trembling. Mani tired to explain some thing, but suddenly his vocal chord seemed to have deserted him, and only air came out of his mouth. What followed next is one of the worst moments in our life, and I am going to stop here, as I don’t want to spoil your working mood, by sharing my bad memories.

It is enough for you to know that, not only did Steve Waugh and Co failed to conquer the Final Frontier; but we also had failed to conquer our Own Final Frontier…..