The Stadium

After about three sitting-downs I finally completed my 1058 odd short story. :) Though its a bit late posting this,but what the heck...
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The Stadium
Vedantam Aditya

From high up in the stands, I could see the tiny semblances of white brown moving carefully toward the centre of the large circular field. A dull click later, the now worn out ball moved lumberingly towards the boundary. It was a hot summer afternoon and the place was studded with lazy scroungers, young couples and old cricketing veterans who never made it big. The faint claps all around Wankhede Stadium did nothing though, to assuage the struggle in my mind. I was sitting with my knees clasped together, my hands wrapped around them, my chin resting on the hard bones of my knees. Now suddenly tired, I shifted, and lay down on my back and watched a single cloud of no recognizable shape, slowly move and block out the sun. Somewhere, an old man yelled out encouragement to his son.

The stadium was more than a symbol of cricketing lore. It was more than a symbol of class when the great Clive Lloyd played in the 1975 tour of the windies, more than a symbol of gentleman ship when Gundappa Vishwanath coaxed the umpire into reversing a caught behind verdict against Bob Taylor, more than a symbol of raw aggression when Ravi Shastri hit six sixes in six balls en route to the fastest double century in first class cricket. To me, the stadium was a harem of memories.

It was where we used to sit on weekends, with hampers of cold liquids and a plethora of snacks neatly wrapped up in aluminum foil set aside paper napkins and bed sheets. I used to work my homework in the shade of the broad roofs of the place, while occasionally glancing up to see the score, eagerly waiting for my father’s batting. I was young, yet knew all the nuances of cricket. From the gully to the deep square leg, I could name them all, comment on evenness of the pitch or the lack of it, predicting whether the pitch that day would favour the spinners or the pacemen. Sometimes when the ball came flying our side, I would expertly take the catch albeit after some years of handling the ball.

I remember the day I broke two fingers while trying to catching the ball. I had never seen so much blood on my knickers. Dad retired early from the match so he could take me to the hospital. Apart from the anesthesia and the doctors’ looks, I vividly recollect lying in bed and asking him how he thought my catch was, for I had not let go of the ball in my bloody fingers. He reprimanded me for that, but I could see the dancing smile in his eyes, and my catch earned me a day out on the following weekend.

October 15th, 1987 I came here with her. The caretaker knew me, so it was no problem at all getting inside. I remember her looking divine, her jeans pulled up so that they didn’t get wet in the moist grass, her hair ties in a loose bun just waiting to cascade onto her back. Her scent was overpowering in a very nice kind of way. Sure, there was the smell of the grass, that of the cold wind against your face, not to mention the stadium itself, but it was as if I had unconsciously blocked all of the material facets of the night, and revelled in the feeling that she was right beside me, happy as a baby and guilty like a kid caught with chocolates, on being out so late in the night. She wore a pink sweater and I remember telling her that I cant resist women dressed in pink. She had laughed gracefully at that, and later she had kissed me on my cheek while we sat on the steps of the stadium, with the moon looking patronly from above, a benign smile on his face. Yes, in a city like Bombay it was my first kiss, four years after which, I married her.

That is not to say all the good things in my life have happened here. The stadium, my brother, has been a mocking witness to many of my embarrassing moments. My father being an exceptionally good state-level cricketer, who never made into the national team, naturally wanted me to do better than in him in that area. It dint occur to him, that the kid who took good catches was long but gone, and was replaced by a gangling lazy man, whose lung capacity was that of a two-year old's. My particularly bad phases saw me getting out consecutively without putting a natural number up in my score, while my good phases saw me entering double in digits in a triple digit number of balls. My most magnificent achievement, a 50 off 98 balls came off a particularly inferior opposition, who the veterans called a bunch of morons. Nevertheless, my old man, was blind to my faults, and consumed by a desire to see me at the top. It was here, that after losing yet another match, I told him I didn’t want to pursue a career in cricketing. I still remember the look of shock and then resignation on his face. But we talked, all night as a matter of fact. I talked to him about my career, about my interest in advertising, while he talked about his younger days here, and of his struggle to reach where he was now. It was one of the most satisfying nights of my life.

There are very few places in the world that offer you solace and comfort. Everywhere you see, there is competition, everyone trying to get over another, more so in a city like Bombay, there being the expectations of your parents included. Some prefer going to temples for peace, some prefer working, but for me sitting in a secluded corner of the stadium, was relaxation in itself. How many times had I not heard couples talk out their problems, crazy fans burn paper and plastic and noisy kids scampering around? The stadium for me was like a kaleidoscope of life, which afforded me to forget my own being for a while and look at others. It helped me evolve a perspective in life, which was what I needed the most. And In a way I look at it as a brother, who has always been there for me. This stadium, has and will always remain, a harem of memories.
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Amen to my writing skills.he he..