Cricket Craze...

 Lightning tore across the cloudy sky while thunder rolled… it probably rolled a six.

Down below, in the little village of Chota Manas, now resembling a watery swamp after the incessant rain, the last remaining villagers gathered in the upper story of Chandak’s house.

Having the keen intelligence unique to mankind, they were not wasting their time. The trapped men and women were discussing their current predicament. Things were looking very bleak indeed.

“I tell you they always shut down the station when there’s a storm over Mumbai!” Little Radha wailed. “The signal will be back in no time. Trust me.”

“No. This isn’t because of a Mumbai storm. Maybe the relay station in Adampur has been flooded.” The cracked elderly voice of Sanchit Pandey declared. “In that case we won’t be able to see any more of the match.”

There is nothing wrong if the reader wants to take a break at this point and reread the last few lines. But, yes. An average Indian’s craze for even an Indo-Pak ‘friendly’ cricket match does occasionally tend to cast more than a slight doubt as to how we got from trying to eat rocks to becoming the dominant species on the planet. And this… well this was a derby in the world cup final... a match worth dying for (as long as the supporter’s nation wins, enabling him to brag about it in the afterlife). This sentiment was reflected in Sanchit’s next comment.

“Oh! What shame! A little drizzle and we can’t watch the match?” He moaned as a distant window pane was blown in by the wind. “If we beat them, and I can’t witness the moment of glory… I’ll, I’ll… throw myself into the river!”

“Lucky for you, the river has decided to flow through the village today then.” Chandak murmured gloomily from his corner.

He had been left with no choice but to let half the village in to watch the match. Closing his doors to flood fleeing villagers was fine… but refusing admission to cricket fans was unthinkable. Even worse than marrying outside the caste! (To use Sanchit’s words… what shame!) He could not risk ruining his carefully built reputation, of being rich miller who hoarded his earnings and slept on town made (town made!) mattresses, but didn’t look down on the poorer lot much, by not sharing his TV at his nation’s moment of pride.

He hadn’t even been able to escape with the sensible folk when the water had started to rise… since then people would come to know that he valued his life more than the world cup. Chandak shuddered as the fear of being exposed passed through him. Thank God, public stoning wasn’t practiced much these days.

Typically, the villagers had scrutinized the furnishings with care before spitting on the rug and using the fridge to store slippers. All the while commenting on how money should be divided with greater fairness. It had conveniently escaped their memory that they were enjoying the hospitality of the money’s owner and were sitting within his earshot while using his roof to keep dry. Chandak had let it slide.

He watched as Rohit, the technical whiz-kid of the village when he wasn’t busy repairing bicycle spokes, slapped the TV to try and get some signal back.

“Maybe…” he said slowly, face screwed up with the effort of thinking. “Maybe… the fans destroyed the satellites because Tendulkar got bowled…?” He turned around triumphantly having diagnosed the problem.

Pin-drop silence followed Rohit’s proclamation as the villagers thought over the plausible logic. Tendulkar’s possible dismissal took away half the charm of the match and indeed might be reason enough for people to riot… true enough. But what if this was just a wild guess? Well… in that case.

“How dare you utter such foul stuff?” Sanchit screamed, practically frothing at the mouth in shock and indignation. “I’ll tear out your tongue if what you said comes to pass. Heera, Madan… throw him out of the window!”

The momentary spectacle, of a wingless wannabe engineer plummeting through the air past descending raindrops, provided an interesting tableau for a brief few seconds before attentions had to be returned to the problem at hand.

“Wasn’t there an old radio in Sonam’s hut?” Sanchit enquired, dredging up the fact from the sewers of his memory.

“Perhaps there is...” Heera answered sucking his knuckles. Rohit had put up a short fight before becoming airborne. “But Sonam left this morning. His door must be barred.”

“Hah! Damn those filthy traitors!” Sanchit spat. “We’ll see how they ever come back to the village. But let’s all go there and bash his door down. We’ll still be able to hear the match.”

Seventy villagers emerged from the shack and stepped into the waist high water in single file… like a conjuror producing a size ten rabbit (a very damp one) from a size five hat.

At least they had the sense not to stay back in wait for some kind of confirmation regarding the radio’s availability or functionality. Once people got near the device, they wouldn’t budge for a call to paradise.

Chandak went, in order to show solidarity… not because of peer pressure or fear for his skin (he claimed).

The following day’s papers (and also the ones on the remaining days of the week) were filled with ecstatic articles about India’s epic/historic/dramatic/hard fought/miraculous/momentous (choose your favorite adjective) win.

Six days later a small footnote in a local newspaper (below a colorful article about a celebrity’s celebratory party with the victorious team) contained the following piece:

“Flood claims seventy

“Chota Manas, 10^th March. A group of men were killed in the flash flood on the day of India’s momentous world cup victory.

“The group had presumably taken shelter in a hut in an attempt to stay together for protection. The tiled roof caved in injuring many before the water level rose and drowned them all.

“There had been a two storey house close by, where they all could have survived. But perhaps fear and panic prevented them from making the right decisions.

“It’s tragic that they could not live to celebrate their nation’s glorious triumph. Reuters.”