For us the arrival of summer typically meant the deliverance from grueling, long school hours and occasional beatings from teachers for misconduct, and from our parents’ constant nagging to be at the top of our class. It was in the evenings, when the sun was well on its course to set and the temperature had trickled down to a more bearable 38 degrees, the neighborhood children would leave the shelter of their homes and come out to play.
Banding together into teams we would place our makeshift wickets, made from cracked plastic bins, in the center of the street, chalk out the creases and with much gusto swing our arms around to mimic the cricket stars of our time. Each one of us attempted to go for the big hits – the fours and sixes – as the space was too limited to score by running between the wickets and it wasn’t exciting to score like that anyway. We just wanted to see the ball soar high into the air and cross the imaginary line that we had demarcated among ourselves.
It was, however, not the easiest sport to play with the conditions granted to us. For one, living in a neighborhood in the heart of Pindi meant we were walled in narrow streets by two, and – some illegal – three story buildings. The road was wide enough to allow two small Suzuki FXs to pass by, rubbing their side-view mirrors in the process. There was never a shortage of obstacles either. Electricity poles repeated every couple of houses, a web of cables hung overhead to blot out the sky, and then the usual parked cars; all worked to obstruct the ball’s meandering trajectory. And then there was the delicate dance we had to, from time to time, perform as pedestrians, bicyclists and cars, would pass through.
And soar the ball did. Sometimes.
Usually our hits would be mistimed or plain bad slogs, landing in someone’s cramped front verandah that had also been cordoned off by high walls topped with metal spikes or , or at times crashing through someone’s window. We would be scolded off the street for disturbing the peace by some angry elder. During such regular breaks, while the one who had hit the ball into the house would go to buy a new ball from the nearby kiosk, the rest of us would pull out sodas from the ice bucket and quench our thirsts. Although in our initial cricketing days we would shamefacedly walk off the pitch (the street) and into the pavilion (our homes) when we were scolded, over time we grew stubborn, standing our ground which obviously did not earn us favorable glances.
One time I hit the ball into a house where a new family had moved in. It was just my luck that the ball landed smack on a tea tray, while the man of the house was enjoying his evening outside with his newspaper and evening tea. If it were not for his daughter, I probably would have ended up going to the hospital for a brain scan for a concussion. He had been heading my way, his white kameez stained with the milky brownness of tea, a fiery glare in his eyes.
She had begged him to calm down, attempting to restrain him, while I stood cemented to the spot, as if the asphalt had melted and glued me down. He yelled his lungs out, and the entire neighborhood peered out their windows to see the commotion. I remember receiving a lot of cusses and specks of saliva from him, but I was afraid to wipe them off my face, in case it would look disrespectful. As she was tugging him away our eyes had met.
That night I was unable to sleep for I could see nothing but those tantalizing eyes. I suppose that is also one of the reasons why I was adamant on playing cricket every day. The rest thought I was just being stubborn, and I let them believe that rather, God forbid, admit that I liked that girl from 104-B. That was the name I gave her.
At times I would bump into her as she would be going with their maid, who was also around our age, towards the market to fetch groceries.