The Eighteenth Parallel by ASHOKA MITRAN Read Free Book Online

he had great style, but his batting was poor. Krishnaswamy's brothers, Balu and Goku, were both splendid bowlers, especially Goku. Three balls in every over he bowled came straight to the middle stump.
    During my first few days in this group it was invariably Goku who bowled to me. Most often his very first ball would come straight for my wicket. Within the few seconds it took for the flying ball to reach me, I was fairly certain that it wouldn't fail to hit its target. Yet I would make an effort with my untrained limbs and body to stop it, conscious of a crippling sense of inadequacy, anger, sorrow, despair and anxiety. And then I would wait for the crash which was sure to follow in the next split second when the leather-covered sphere of five and a half ounces struck the metal-capped pieces of wood, and I was seldom disappointed. The loud cheers that followed the fall of other players were not heard when I was bowled, only remarks like 'Bad luck' or 'Better luck next time'. All because I was close to Ranga, and Ranga was the equal of and in certain respects better than Krishnaswamy. My cricket, however bad it was, drew very guarded comments because of my exalted position. But being considered Ranga's equal had its problems as well. It deprived me of the coaching which is the privilege of a young novice. For me the daily drill was: go in to bat – face Goku's ball – get bowled out – hand the bat to the next player and leave. That was all. Ranga's friendship for me, however, was not contingent on my expertise or lack of it in cricket.
    Meanwhile, Morris' eldest sister became thinner and thinner. Terence ran away from home and then returned. A big explosion in Bombay harbour claimed a large toll of lives. Many buildings were damaged. A Parsi family in Lancer Barracks claimed that during this explosion, a block of gold descended through the roof of one of their relatives' houses in Bombay. A collection was started by
Kalki
magazine in Madras for a memorial for the poet Bharati at his birthplace Ettayapuram. The contributors' list was published for months on end in this magazine. Two lines recorded the efforts of my father and two others in our city in this cause. Madras and Tiruchi stations began to be received in the evenings on our secondhand GEC radio set, fragmented by crackling static which got worse every day.
    In the Regimental Bazaar, a vegetable shop, a grocery and three flower stalls were destroyed. All these stood opposite a small mosque. The police fired three rounds in which a boy was hit below the knee.
    Krishnaswamy got an apprentice's job somewhere in the north.He quit his studies and within a week had quit the place as well. Ranga and I became the leaders of our two cricket teams. We had three Telugu boys playing with us now. We harried them outrageously and spoke to them only in Tamil, though whenever they talked about the fear that pervaded Hyderabad and Secunderabad those days, we listened intently.
    Goku continued to get me out with his fourth or fifth ball. It was then that a few Muslims began to practise hockey on our playground. They kept directing their white ball towards us. One day Kamesh, a boy in our group, picked it up and threw it away. At this the whole hockey group converged upon us with raised sticks. They hit Padmanabhan on the head, drew blood and fled from the place. We hoped that as he was a high official, Padmanabhan's father would do something about it, but he didn't. We kept away for the next two days. But when it transpired that the hockey group hadn't turned up for play either, we resumed play. We didn't want to abandon the place when we had spent money preparing a good pitch there. Ranga's bowling was spectacular at the time.
    After Krishnaswamy left, our group played a match with a rival team with Ranga as captain and me as vice-captain. The other side was all out for 81 in the match. We played next. Our score was 77 according to their score book, but 102 according to ours. It