Tuesday, April 26, 2011

It is sports time!

I love it when my brother comes home. This is the IPL season, so for now, cricket's the name of the game. It's that time when one-man & one-woman teams (depending of how many of us cousins,  which ones are playing) vie for the title (to be decided on the spot!). There was a recent triangular series between the one-man teams of MI,DC &KKR. Unfortunately, that series ended early owing to the disappearance of the ball into a flower pot on one of the top floors of the neighbouring flat!

Talking of cricket brings back memories of my trysts with cricket. Legend has it that my brother scored a record 48 runs in a single ball while playing as a kid. Having hit the ball into a thorny bush, he continued in his role as a batsman, running between the wickets. Whether it was the finding and final extraction of the ball from the bush, or shortness of breath which led him to stop just short of a half-century remains unclear to me. (Since then, everyone seems to have adopted standard cricketing rules - the fact that the ground is actually the middle of the street or the parking lot of an apartment seems to be accounted for in the rule that the wicket is lost in case of broken windows & complaining neighbours, & the match is considered (temporarily)abandoned in the case of ball lost into the balconies of unsympathetic neighbours). (Unfortunately for me, and for the rest of the world, the cricketing prodigy that was my brother now plays cricket with the standard rules, and watches the same!)

And now, while the rest of the world (read my family & immediate circle of friends) is lost in the cricket craze, I'm trying to stay awake to catch up with football matches (though I end up sleeping despite my best intentions and efforts, and the match reception is terrible the day I finally manage to be up at match-time).

It's only of late that I'm getting back to my fano'footie-hood. I used to be quite regular and uptodate with football, cricket, F1 & even WWE! Then came a period where less access (& the need to access) the TV remote putting me out of touch with the developments in the sporting world. So many new faces (& bodies :P) had come on the world stage during my hiatus. It now feels good to be back to being a spectator (at least) of sports.(believe me!;))

When the talk is about sports, it makes sense to include indoor ones as well. The carroms matches played at home amidst camaraderie and laughter are something I absolutely adore. Sometimes, I wonder when I grew out of trying to jinx the striker at the others' turns, and trying to negotiate a partnership when there were only two of us playing.

Chess is another game that I 'excelled in' as a kid - it wasn't my fault that my King was bestowed with superhuman powers & the preying instinct of a lion (he's royalty, after all!!!). My King (I chose white usually, and hence my turn came first!) usually did not let the ranks of mere soldiers (both his & the opponent's) stop him. He'd just fly across the board and go for the enemy King's throat and knock him down. But as noone was willing to play my version of the game where I always chose white and my King slew the enemy, the games of chess in my life came to a stop.

The next match is already being played, and it's time for me to end this post.

"That's all for now, folks"

Looking forward to my brother's next visit home...

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