Passion Revisited

I have always loved cricket. I played a lot too, when I was younger. Now that I am twenty seven, and professionally engaged for most part of the week, I rarely get the time to play the game. Instead, I sometimes find time to watch a match or two.

Recently, a jazz team from America performed in our college. The students as well as teachers were very excited about the concert. It was surely going to be the experience of a lifetime, we said to each other. On the day of the programme, at the notified time, all the teachers and students went to the auditorium. Now, our college shares its campus with a school that is run by the same trust. So we have one big auditorium in the school building, where programmes of both the institutions are held from time to time. Just outside the auditorium is the play ground of the school. This ground is clearly visible from the window of our college’s staff room, and I often spend hours enjoying watching the kids of the school play cricket. How I wish at times to run out of our building and join them!

On the day of the jazz concert when I reached the auditorium, I found that the programme was yet to begin. Although my students requested me to take my seat, I chose to walk out and headed towards the play ground where around fifteen teenagers were playing cricket, under the watchful supervision of their sports instructor. The instructor was seated some furlongs away from the seat of action, and on seeing me walking towards him he rose from his chair and welcomed me to the field. Another chair was brought, and I sat beside him and we began chatting about various things. My mind kept slipping away from our conversation to the game on the field. After a few minutes he noticed this and asked me if I was interested in the game. I told him that I have never gone to any stadium to watch a game of cricket live because I have always thought that I would not be able to control myself and perhaps jump on to the field to play, and get arrested by the police. Hearing this, the instructor smiled and asked whether I would like to join the kids on the ground. I said I would love to, provided they are not told that I am a teacher at the college, because if they are, they would not be comfortable playing with me.

After about five years I played cricket intensely for two hours that day. It was a wonderful experience, playing with those energetic and enthusiastic young kids and matching up to their performances. I was surprised to discover that I had not lost my skills, despite such a long gap. Even the kids were surprised by my performance, and kept asking whether I was on any good team somewhere. Every time I bowled one of them out, the others would come running towards me and jump on me, hug me, or pat me. All this brought back my childhood days, when I played cricket every day, and enjoyed such admiration and adulation from my team mates.

I missed the jazz performance that day, but I gained something that would stay for a long time with me. As we grow up, life sucks us into its complicated and uncontrollable whirlpools, and our unadulterated and innocent childhood gets sealed in a coffin, and we forget all about the most beautiful part of our existence. When the kids were finally told that I am a professor at the college, they were very ashamed of their spontaneous actions on the field; perhaps they were a little frightened too, but I told them that I did not want them to know that I am a teacher because otherwise we would not have had so much fun together for those two hours. On that day I made friends with some wonderfully bright and sporting kids, and my favourite game again played a catalyst in the process.