'Gully bwoys!'

With the sun finishing its daily routine at this end of the earth, indicated by the beautiful reddish orange hue at a distance, I closed my laptop for the last time that day, with a huge sigh of relief.  The long day had, sadly, forced a dramatic change in my accustomed schedule. I could no longer flaunt a cheeky smile every time there was a mention about coffee in the office. My hard-earned reputation of not missing any of my customary coffee breaks every hour, even if all hell broke lose, was never to be the same again.

With a heavy heart and a heavier bag, shoulders drooped and eyebrows drawn, I walked out of my office into the semi-lit Street number 18 in Attapur, Hyderabad, which was my temporary hideout for  the next two weeks. From the outside, this four storey building could hardly be recognized in between the several taller edifices that cramped it for space. 

'Whoosh…' something small but fast, buzzed in front of me. I instinctively leaned backwards avoiding an impact by a cat’s whisker. Though I could hardly notice the object, its speed left a whistling sound in my ears along with blurred vision for a second. I was taken aback. I moved my head from side to side, trying to shake off the aftereffects. Taking a moment to calm my nerves, I looked in the direction the object had come from. Straining my blurry eyes, I searched for a trail. 

“Are you fine?” asked a boy in his teens, shaking me off from my startled self. 

“Yeah, yeah…Hmmm” I mumbled. “What was that?” I asked or rather mouthed, as my voice got blocked in my larynx. My senses were still busy trying to map the trajectory of the object.

“That was a great shot, wasn’t it?” asked the boy with a thumbs up to the batsman who acknowledged it with a kiss to his bat. “My brother’s got a great helicopter shot” said the boy with his chest swelling in pride.

‘Cricket', a game that has risen up the ranks, from being a ‘colonizers sport' to a ‘religion’ in our country over the years. Along with the thirty three crore Gods believed to exist in this universe, we have additional ‘Cricketing Gods' in India, who are desperately prayed to, before the last over of every crunch match, by millions of devotees begging for a wicket or a sixer, depending upon the match situation. The devotion extents to the realm of offerings and blind beliefs as well. A very common practice is, a person refusing to budge from a place or a seating posture he was in, the last time India won the match. The brilliant and ingenious explanations are often of the lines, “What if I move and Kohli gets out caught behind the next ball? We can’t risk losing the match. The last time I was sitting here, Dhoni hit the winning six.” With the popularity of the sport breaking the social barrier, living legends and larger than life personalities emerged from the sport. With this, the business potential expanded as well. The biggest proof of this is marked by the World Cup final of 2011, that broke all records of viewership in the world at the time. With the advent of the ‘Indian Premier League', cricket in India has hit its purple patch, with players of different franchises attaining the Demi-God status along with the broadcasting rights overflowing the BCCI's treasury every year. Though the sport has been marred with several controversies and match fixing scandals over time, the popularity of the sport has hardly taken a hit, with many children learning to hold a bat way before he/she clenches a pen for the first time, in most parts of the country even today.

“Careful Kanna, your helicopter shot was just an inch away from landing me in a helicopter ambulance.” I said with a smile, patting the boy on his right shoulder, recalling the days I played cricket on the streets. 

It was great fun with rules changing from street to street. The boundaries depended on the colour and distance of the car parked on the sidewalk and ‘pitch catch out' was the constant rule. In some cases, the batsman's skill at placing the balls on the leg side or offside would be put to the test as one of the sides would be completed taken out of play, depending on the side where the most irritating old man lived. Once the ball entered his domain, it was as good as gone. Flexibility was the only option gully cricketers thrived on. The selection of teams was a process that would put IPL auctions to shame. Based on the knowledge of the rules of the area the match was being played in, the two captains zeroed in on the their possible team list. 

The first preference was for the oldest players of the gully, senior players who believed that they were Tendulkars and Sehwags, normally railroading the juniors of the opposite team with their built and age advantage. 

The next preference was always for a player who was an all-rounder. With qualities of gifted speech and power of persuation, this player could talk his way out of a definite run out or claim a catch which would even be hard to decide for a third umpire with his ample slow motion technology, thus, ruling it in the batsman’s favour. Well, this fast talker could turn any decision in your favour based on his sheer presence and polished, confident talk. 

The next important person in the team was the ‘fetcher', a person who could search for the ball and get it from the deepest of potholes and drains of the area. He was considered the fielding expert, with his extraordinary sense of ball positioning and retrieval abilities.

Only after these important positions in the teams were filled, came the portfolios of batting and bowling while fielding was considered a universal talent, to the extent that, some even tried a Jhonty Rhodes special in the ten feet wide gully. Other than these important selection headaches, there were several other accepted rules. Firstly, the odd man out would always be the youngest in the gully, who would play for both teams and more often than not would be bullied by both the teams. Secondly, the team with the person who owns the bat, won the toss automatically, with his decision always being to ‘bat first'. Further, the cricket enthusiastic old man on the second floor with huge glasses, through which he could hardly see ten metres, would be the third umpire in case of run outs and no balls. Above all, the golden rule, the person responsible for the shot that results in a missing ball or the ball sailing past the open window of the irritating old man's house, has to buy a new ball for the next game.

A smile escaped my lips as I thought about these beautiful moments of the sunshine, an expression of joy and a reminder of the good old days. With life catching up at the pace of supercomputers, it was all but great memories that knocked the doors of the present with realizations of how an event as small as a game of cricket with friends could bring overwhelming happiness in the otherwise busy and hectic life.

“Care for a match with us?” asked the boy, as he walked towards the pitch with the florescent green tennis ball, shinning in the faint street light, firmly gripped in his right hand.

“Old habits die hard”, I thought.

“I always bat first” I said, with the condescending gaze turning into laughter, as I walked past him to grab the bat.