Cricket: Thy Name is Corruption

It was 1984. I was only nine years old. We did not own a television set then. It was a rarity to see one possessing an idiot box. Many rich men could have owned the sets. However access to their houses had been denied as it was not a practice to allow people who were not part of their society, a high and super-rich acclimate that had peculiarities of their own. Not to digress further, i was not part of a rich family to know anyone who had televisions, had not had a rich classmate to take me to his house to see the God's wonder in visual extravaganza. Fortunately my father's friend bought a television set or rather summoned one from Sri Lanka as his relatives were well off then there. (This may probably be before the 1983 riots there).

The television spoke like an alien. It aired Hindi programmes and the only occasion in which it came out of the status of being possessed was on Sundays. On Sundays the Delhi Doordarshan preferred showing regional language feature films, probably a condescended acknowledgement of the existence of people who speak languages other than Hindi. So the occasions that attracted people who do not know Hindi to it were the times in which sports shows were telecast and for me the time in which cartoon programmes were aired too. As the friend of my father loved cricket, he was beaming with energy whenever there was a cricket telecast. What became a forcible attraction to begin with in the eventuality became a great hobby for me.

Cricket taught me many things. It taught me English, to start with. It taught me patience in life, having seen a lot of test matches featuring the great little master and probably be a matinee idol, as he spent the whole of the day on pitch; Gavaskar. Those veterans were serious cricketers who had an earnestness to play with commitment and courage. Cricket did not attract money then. Televisions were not ubiquitous and thus prevented them becoming advert Gods. Cricket taught me fighting spirit as the Indians were underdogs then and suffered a big beating from West Indians and Australians, the teams of them featured titans.

Twenty-six years later, I still watch cricket but not with the same virility as the game has succumbed to commercialisation. Pitches have been converted into the paradises of batsmen. Sinners have been chosen as bowlers as their role has been minimised to a mere thrower of ball. Bowling techniques have all been venerably sidelined for future 'how to play cricket' books. In India, cricket has been watched rather gluttoned only as a wild feast with much jingoism, acting surrogate to primordial urge to hunt and maul living creatures. A Christlike personality is expected to resurrect the game to its original shape and quality that provided much scope for individual growth (not of course materialistic), whereas the present game makes many individuals grow to become super-rich.

Beeja and Teeja

Last week, I went to the government run library of my town. I have been a member of this library for long. However, last year, in library they follow Finance Year for the renewal of subscription, i did not renew my subscription as the 'bibliophile' library workers found no time to arrange the newly arrived ones and put them in such a clutter that library was in an aweful mess. As i browsed through the books last week, the library was some what in a better look, though the bibliophiles often test the temerity of the new books by compelling them to be dog-eared and flayed in the edges as they are thrust into crowded shelves and wedged in to get claustrophobia, i came across a Penguin edition of a book titled "Life - Selected Stories" by Vijay Dan Dehta and fondly known as 'Bijji" among friends. He is a writer from Rajasthan, India. He writes in his mother tongue and has done a lot of research in the folk tales of Rajasthan, in fact the book is a collection of translated short stories of him by three different people. The collection features ten stories in all and with the spur of the moment thing, I took that book for reading. I have enjoyed reading Hans Christian Anderson and The Grimm Brothers' folk tales, though i possess little knowledge of folk tales from excluding the region in which i was born and brought up.

The first tale is titled 'New Life'. It is a fascinating story about two women who have been provided with the ambience to become lesbians. Once upon a time in the Thar country, there were two villages of considerable distance between them. In each of these villages lived two moneylenders, who were both miserly and tightwads and both got married on the same day and both vowed to marry their children to each other. Both these women delivered the babies on the same day with the same star sign. One of the moneylenders, who was known for his extremities in frugality announced every one that his wife had delivered a baby boy and then started bringing up the child as if it were a boy. The girl wore only the dresses of boys and considered herself a male. The mother of the baby-girl was much grieved at the avaricious husband's behaviour and broached the subject to him with valour as women were only considered the subjects of men. He quietened his wife by bringing in the origin of her birth. She hailed from the family of merchants for generations. As her father was interested only in business, he took no time to love his wife. The wife enamoured with sex, growing unabated each minute as it had no outlet, found a surrogate husband in a labourer and the wife of the moneylender was born of that union.

Things grew out of bounds, as the father decided to marry off his 'son' with the intention to get a lot of dowry to his friend's daughter. A cousin of the 'son' had watched the girl grow and known about 'her' physique. She attempted to instill sense into the girl by explaining the sexes to her. The girl stood impervious and even scolded the cousin jealous of the dowry that 'her' marriage would bring. However, with some disbelief, she approached her mother, who stood incapacitated by her husband's threats and assured her 'son' of her intentions of jealous on the part of the cousin being true. The marriage was performed lavishly and went with no glitch to disturb the dreams of the avaricious father. At 'first night', the bride, decorated profusely, was taken to the bed-room ceremoniously. The girls after letting her in, peeped through a chink to have their vicariousness satisfied but found themselves with no entertainment as the groom went to sleep immediately. For a week, nothing happened. Bored by the naiveness of the groom, the bride initiated herself on the seventh night, bringing in the sultry weather to her rescue, to request the groom to remove his clothes. The groom, held his lower garment a symbol of manliness, did not hesitate in removing the upper garment and did bring down the bride in concussion.

After getting back her consciousness, the bride heard everything from her companion and they both decided to accept their fate by living together. The next morning they stunned the village by exposing the daughter of the moneylender and left once and for all the house. On the night of discovery, they christened each other Beeja (the name of the groom) and Teeja. Their departure was marked with a tumultuous rain and they both stripped and pierced into the bodies of each other in that rain. They happened to pass by an abandoned well, as it housed many ghosts and made the villagers afraid of the place. The head of the ghosts invited them and narrated their story to them. It, moved by their pure love to each, decided to construct a lovely palace, an unearthly one as it could never be inimitable by humans. Their fame spread to the very village from which they came off. One day the mother in law of Teeja came to see them both with the coercion to make them separate and marry a lovely groom each, with the cousin of Beeja. The two, though entertained them, declined the offer. The cousin's barren womb was blessed by the ghost to procreate.

The boon given to the cousin made great stir in the hearts of them as they wanted the ghost to turn one of them into a man. The ghost condescended with a tag boon attached, that would revert the change into its original self. They made love as women on the last night and the next day Beeja became a man. New life brought much energy and virility and he made love with Teeja as a man. With the change came the arrogance and superiority of the race of men, as Beeja became violent and bossy. Both realised the change in behaviour and reverted the change and continued to live as two women making love forever. The story ends there with a lot to ponder over. It does not advocate lesbianism as it portrays the sexual relationship between two women comfortable for them to make love with ease conversely with men, that was arrogant and partisan. The writer tries to instill, probably, the feeling of women on men and their intentions and wishes as they expect the opposite sex to cooperate and cope with. This posting is open for a lot of comments and i hope much fruition happens in the process.

Decipher the Name

One of the most difficult things, as far as the writer of this article is concerned, in keeping things to memory is remembering names. Very often one is put to a gruesome experience of recognising an individual and remembering the person's name. As a teacher, I have been subject to such grill as and when i come across an erstwhile student who appears all of a sudden and challenges to get him/her identified. With much struggle i am able to recognise the individual and associate him or her with the discipline of their study. Even then i am still at bay in delivering their names. Some of the students even try to put me to test and with much gauche i utter a part of their name rightly guessed.

It is not completely the incapacity of the brain in retrieving the information that causes such loss of functioning. It is very often because of the changes to one's physique that the brain falters at comparing the stored picture with the one that is now at present in front of it. Some boys and girls put on much weight after leaving the institution even in a short period of time and those who get themselves married off by their parents undergo a complete transformation, probably due to the uncanny blessing of getting married, physical as well as mental.

Being a teacher of literature, i find myself at bay in mathematics. A person good at mathematics is able to remember the names of people vouches many a research. As compensation to the people who have penchant for humanities, the brains of them are gifted with remembering the facial index of people. Although the face is essential for identification to both those who master at mathematics, logic and who are good at humanities, the former are able to connect the face with the code of name whereas the latter only are taken to the mental image of the same index got registered on their brain.

An Uninteresting Story

It will not be very interesting for many to read this column of mine. I have not been invoked by muses to disgorge anything worthy for a week or so, though I thought of many things as i spent the whole week reading assorted books. As I read them, I was often assailed by momentary spur to post comments on them on my blog. Once I had finished them I felt uninspired to come out aught. However, a thing of great odd and ends happened yesterday when i was travelling on a bus back home from work. It is my usual itinerary to and from Sivagangai and my work place, where i meet a lot of personalities and am fed with myriad themes to ponder over.

As i got into the bus, i found a gypsy girl of less than ten years old sitting abreast in the seat of the conductor, with the driver. In the parts where i live, the seat meant for conductors is usually left for the passengers' use with a non-chalant attitude. A traveller from away may even be awestruck to find the passenger arguing with the conductor for the acquisition of the seat. Not to digress further. I did not get any interest in the girl as such personalities are common everywhere. More over, it was very hot, as it was thirty minutes past three in the afternoon. I did try to bring in some interest to my vision by looking through the window on people who still managed to come out of their houses in the hot weather and were moving helter-skelter, probably due to the hot strips of rays, perspiring profusely and gasping and chasing out to small strands of shades.

My eyes had been invited to see the girl as she, from thin air, produced some eatable stuff in her plate. It looked to me like two pieces of fried fish initially, but a closer examination gave that they were two 'bajjis'. She was eating them with fine relish. The driver kick-started a conversation with the girl and was putting questions to her. Her dialect and rending voice drew me to her and my curiosity grew out of bounds to talk to her. She told the driver that she was a regular in catching the three-thirty bus after her vivacious stint at the central bus bay for four hours. She lives in a colony meant for 'Narikuruvas' some twelve kilometres East of the city of Madurai, through which the bus is plying.

Her usual work here is that she catches the ten o'clock bus to reach the central bus bay, with only fifty rupees. She buys pencils for that money. Then she ventures out into selling them by catching hold of ordinary public and tourists, who frequent the place as the city happens to be an historic one, with a profit of only rupees one for each pencil. She manages to make twenty to thirty per day, it depends on the bus she uses to ply from her place, as some of the buses charge exorbitant fare. She further divulged that she was from Andhra and had come on vacation. Her regular work here, in her 'Chithi's' (Mother's younger sister) is to get provisions for the house in the morning, preparing food for breakfast and packing her own breakfast and departing for her stint.


From her small 'knapsack', she produced a water bottle, to wash her hand as she was eating. All these things provoked me to personally venture to know more about her. She managed herself wonderfully well all alone in a strange place not even knowing to read and write Tamil. Though she mis-pronounced a stop, given as reply to the driver's probe to know her intelligence and recce, she was quite a shrewd girl. Her parents are employed in 'Guntur' - a town in Andhra Pradesh, India, as collectors of 'Honey' or that was what i made out from her reply. She would go back and join them. She is studying in a school in Andhra. She said that her parents had four more kids to look after. She has proven herself a master in exploiting trade-skill as she was letting out some of her selling strategies. Here is a girl who is very much alone and has decided with all humility and happiness to shoulder the burden of the family and goes about it with such ease that it will put all pampered children, sons and daughters to great shame. I got off the bus at my bus stop, to catch a bus to my native town, having learnt much philosophy from her rather than my exposition to many a book.