ASHES

My face has never had a harami sort of look. Not an obvious one atleast. Neither do I have a cunning smile or a mischevious one. The first impression people get about me is that I am a nice person, devoid of any kind of cleverness or pranks. Well I don’t really know if they are right (smile). But my face is the best representation of my innerself. It does not hide anything and sends across all possible things inside as much as it can.

Having been bred in a middle class high traditional value background, I have been served the idea of honesty and morality at lunch and dinner. My mother once or actually 2-3 times burnt my hand with a hot chimta when I lied. Knowing how much she loves me it is impossible to understand what pushed her to dish out such severe atrocity on me, her son. My punishments used to range from being slapped without the permission to cry to being asked to stand on the terrace in the hot sun without any footwear. Hunters were out of fashion by that time and my mother seldom used an external source to hurt me. How pain helped me grow individually is really the irony of life.

I have been afraid of lying since I was a child. Though as a child I wanted to lie but couldn’t. But as I grew up I hated lying, mainly because I was very poor at it. I have always tried to be honest, as honest as I can ofcourse, but I avoid hiding things as much as I can. I have truly internalised that habit in whatever I have done – sports, studies, relations with people and also in my professional experience.

And when it comes specifically to playing cricket I hated cheating and I hated cheaters. I used to be on the receiving end all the time when I was 10-11 playing with kids in the colony park. I used to win mostly and the other guys used to intentionally hide the ball in some bushes when it got dark pretending that they didn’t find it. I always knew that they would turn up later in the evening to find the ball, but I played along. I was surprised to see what people could do to win, even surprised to see what they were trying to win.

I would say that I maintained an image of being a person with high moral standards in college. Not in the sense of being right or wrong, but that I stuck to what I believed and I never made any secret of it. Being a true, dependable and honest sort of a guy was not by choice, this was because of how I was prepared. But if you leave some grass on the pitch you can’t complain that it doesn’t turn. This morality and honesty had its downsides. But I always knew that they were not worth giving up on my belief. In my adult life so far, I have been accused, even looked down upon for being honest, “technically correct” if I may, because it never helps the scoring rate (pun intended). So much so that I thought it would be a nice idea to put honesty as a weakness in my resume. I am not kidding I actually thought that. But people told me that won’t take me anywhere either.

The fact of the matter is that truth and deceit are just two qualities and no one can claim to have 100% of either. Everyone judges on which side of this line between truth and deceit one wants to stand according to the need of the hour. But when it comes to cricket I will always be on one side of that line. Others may not see what I am trying to win. Beating others is fun and exciting, but beating yourself is a different high all together. When you compete with yourself its like one of those C++ commands – i=i+1, you can grow constantly and do not have to rely on the standards set by others.

As a batsman I have had much lesser opportunities than as a bowler, and being a tail ender I have faced very comprehensive dismissals. But the one or two close calls I have had I have always walked, I hope. I remember walking an lbw decision, oh I was plumb! As a bowler I have mostly been the umpire’s favourite, because even though I used to hit the batsman’s pads more often than anyone else with my in swing, I only appealed when I was pretty sure I had my man.

I think having a decided rule for yourself to follow makes the life easier, and isn’t that what we are all trying to do. It’s a difficult road, but that’s how it looks from the outside. When you are doing something you think is right, it comes naturally to you and you don’t have to struggle, not a lot anyhow.

Labels: self understood