Designs of the Heart

Taking her seat beside me, she began her soliloquy- ‘what a century that was! It was great fun watching the match yesterday!’

               The season is on and the game of cricket has once again turned a hot favorite after the much-publicized match fixing controversy. The commoners have turned into commentators, who in all their earnestness would not miss even a single opportunity to update others about the previous match.

               Thanks to the media and the ad world the cricketers have become known faces. This seeming acquaintance has helped me a great deal as I am one of the many victims (who is not interested in the game) both at the home front and at my workplace. A colleague of admirable qualities, I admit, insists on feeding me with all the minute nuances of the previous day’s game and that too in the first forty-five minutes of our working hours. At first I showed genuine interest, since I liked her as a person. Later pretence replaced the genuineness, as the game did not appeal to me at all. I do shamelessly admit with all reverence to the friendship I share with her, I learnt a lot about the game during these episodes.

               On one such occasion, she handed me a Marathi magazine asking me to read a different version of what appeared in the newspapers about the game. I willingly obliged though not very familiar with the language and the idiom. After an eternity, I finished my ordeal. My sincere effort to decipher the words and its meaning, unmindful of my limited knowledge of the lingua franca, turned topsy-turvy when my colleague asked me whether I could apprehend the contents of the article. It is then that I simply declared that I had no appetite for the game. Giving me a look of displeasure, she said that she had taken it for granted that a person like me would naturally be interested in cricket.

               Speaking of natural instinct, I remember my mother, though not an avid viewer of the game occasionally takes her seat opposite the electronic device and spits out venom at all those players who just stand and gape around without making any effort to take a run.

To say something good about the game would be that everyone is home for a change albeit glued to the Tele. The crowd doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the call for breakfast or lunch. They are busy counting the runs and weeping over lost wickets, the catches that were dropped and the extra energy that need not have been employed which would have avoided an overthrow. A person like me would term it as sheer waste of precious time. This realization does dawn upon others too but at the fag end of the day, when uncertainty looms large over the declaration of victory for the home team. Then follows the expert opinions justifying the performance of each one’s favourite player. All said and done, it’s just a game!!

While working in God’s vineyard can we afford to be mediocre in our efforts? If we are working as a batsman we cannot afford to lose any wicket and if we are sent out to the field we cannot afford to drop a catch. More than that let us always remember, taking single runs with every ball is not our forte as we are expected to take nothing less than fours and sixes with every brilliant stroke. During my younger days I had the good fortune of watching beautiful people, contributing their efforts in small little ways while working earnestly for mankind. When I got acquainted with their work, I expressed least interest and thought that I lacked the zeal exhibited by them. This surely was a lame excuse and escapism of an ordinary mortal. Though I was disinterested in the game, I learnt a lot about cricket through my colleague and in the same way, through continuous exposure a small obsession crept into me. I began to judiciously incorporate, whatever little that I could do for those I associate with.

 Another truth that I understood through the above episode was that like my mother who screamed at those cricketers who did not contribute towards the victory of the home team, I am sure, the Almighty would also be displeased if we just stray around aimlessly without working enthusiastically towards building a stronger community. Our work spans our whole lifetime, so every day should be like a one-day match and we should make the most of every ball that is tossed towards us. When our home team loses we obviously state the various drawbacks of our team and hope for a better performance in future competitions. In comparison will we also be given another chance? It is never too late to begin lest we feel that it was sheer waste of precious human life.