Stance! - postponed

Saw a group of young guys in their teens playing cricket in a park. I stood there, with a usual, one hand in pocket and the other holding a cigarette, stance, right at the edge of the park. Almost ashamed to be seen for various reasons. One being, how un-fit I looked as compared to (no, not those guys) myself when I was a teen. Two, of smoking in front of those kids and three, because it was almost an year since I strained any muscle in my body.

The characters were all the same, as we used to have in our time. A have-it-all guy, who always turned up in the park in proper sports kit. Does a decent job as an all-rounder (an all rounder generally opens the batting in gully cricket) and can bowl economic overs.

A nerd looking guy who generally gets all the equipments and tries desperately to earn some respect because he is letting others use his equipment.

A guy who can never connect the bat with the ball and almost never gets the batting, and announces himself as the opening bowler by virtue of law of equal participation. Still with every innings change he fights with almost everyone else, that he deserves to bowl the first over.

One guy who has accepted that his outing at the field will be spent fielding at an obscure position (where only a miscue goes) and in catching practice when his team is batting.

An annoying character who goes about having a go at anything and everything, he knows it all and is an epitome of knowing-and -not-doing. These kinds generally take the keepers position where they can have a well round view of the game and can be heard by everyone. Even to the opposition team who generally hangs around behind the keeper.

A fiery bowler who goes about his bowling as a surgeon performing heart transplant. His moments of glory are countless. He gets the ball even if the 'deserving guy, who dint bat' is shouting at the top of his voice, takes wicket in his very first over and brings down the run-rate severely after an expensive over. Anyone can spot this guy easily, as in how many of those kids are actually performing surgeries out there.

Rest all, either fit into the above said categories or form a massive non-existents. Their presence goes un-noticed every time and they generally are picked up by the team captains to fill up slots.

Watching those kids and identifying the characters took me about half an hour and two more cigarettes.

And then one incident took away my shame and defined the characteristics of those young people in a better light.

One shot, flew over the boundary and into a sewage drain (which act as the ultimate ball gobblers, even if it is a 1ft by 1 ft opening, it will attract the ball in it). In my time, the fielder (one of the non-existent mass) on the boundary would go, dirty his hands a little, if smart, will pull out the ball making a glove out of a carry bag, bounce the ball 3-4 times and the play moved on.

Will complete this, some other day..

Ironman!

Life se Dhobi jaate dekha hai?
As in physically, the guy (must have been from one of the BIMARU states, identifiable accent) used to hangout on the street.
Our building has shops on the ground floor. Facing the street, which has openings of 3 other buildings. And this guy, used to own, one of the corner shops.

As any typical, middle class society, each shop has some spare area in front, which ends on the road, at a height of 1 feet. (So this area cannot be used as the road, and differed in texture too). When you see on the left, you can see partitions (cement blocks with slits every one feet, between pillars, shaped like moulds and not talking to each other), 4 ft across, throughout the length of the road; each partition 3 feet distant then the previous. (Trivia: what's the length of the road on the left of Dhobi?)

This guy, used to make his meals at the base of one of those partitions. Chicken and roti meals.

As a background, he is a hardworking guy, who used to cheat sometimes, in the count of clothes. Rest, ironing was fine, and devoid of any burnt accidents.

So around Covid, his business evaporated. His makeshift house and shop were his universe. His freedom was that free land, which was neither road nor individual property.

He used to be seen, in his lungi, shirtless, roaming the street. He roamed like he owned the street.
I can say, he did own the street. There isn't any other Dhobi, nearer to these buildings.

I went downstairs with garbage, and while coming back, I deftly light a cigarette, using only one hand, not the one which held the garbage (no mixing the touch of hands, they both can touch different surfaces, separately).

I usually smoke in that corner. Where that Dhobi always moved. And I always ignored him, and he, me.

That time, I din't feel like smoking. To see that iron channel, halfway to the no-man's land, holding (about to burst) an activa and some old furniture.

Life was missing, in that corner!