In our building, we loved to play cricket. A twenty by twenty feet clearing was our stadium! Rahul was eight like the rest of us. Bat, pads, gloves, wickets down to the cap, he had the complete kit! Since the equipment was his, the rules were his. He always got to bat first.
He would tap the ‘pitch’, check the flow of the wind, look all around the stadium -only his mother would be watching- and then take guard.
He would usually get out on the first ball!
What would follow next was a daily occurrence.
Rahul, would sit on the ‘pitch’ and start crying.
“Please let me hit a six!” he would plead.
If we refused, he would walk away and take all his gear with him.
We always agreed to these terms and let him hit a six.
His mother would applaud, and our game continued.
Quite nice. A fine start to my morning. Thank you.
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Thanks 🙂
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I was awful at cricket. My dad wanted me to be good. He was at least proud that I tried. A memory that hasn’t disappeared is me somehow diving through the air to catch a ball that could have killed somebody if it hit them in the face; that memory would have disappeared if my dad had not been watching at that very moment. I was proud at how proud I imagined he would be. Not proud of myself necessarily, but proud of being his son who desperately wanted to live up to his expectations. After he died I realised they were never *his* expectations; they were the expectations I assumed he had, because he was such an impressive man and I assumed he wanted me to be as impressive. I was always nervous around him because of that. But he was always impressed with me. And the time I spent nervous was time wasted and is now unreachable.
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Reblogged this on Love and Love Alone.
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