sonu kumar
Posted On: 09-04-2019
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Three mistakes of my life

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Thirteen

First Goa, now Australia. What business do you do?' said Vidya, her eyes the
size of the new one-rupee coins.
'Fred kept his promise when Ish wrote to him again. We received tickets in the
mail,' I said. We had finished class and I wanted to tell her about my impending
absence.
'So who are the two people going?' she said.
'Not two, four. Ali and the three of us are going,' I said.
'Lucky bums,' she laughed.
'So, I will be away for ten days. But your books won't be. Vidya, all my students
do well. Don't let me down.' 'You also don't let me down,' she said. 'How?'
'Forget it. So where are you going in Australia?'
'Sydney. Fred is from there. Ali will practice in his academy for a week. When
your brother sets his mind on something, he goes real far.'
'Unlike me. I can't focus. I'm sure I will flunk my medical entrance. I will be
stuck in this hellhole home even in college. And then I will get married into
another hell-hole in some backward part of Gujarat.'
'Gujarat is not backward,' I retorted.
'Maybe I am too forward.'
We locked eyes again. In an entrance exam for insolence, Vidya would top easy.
I opened her guide books.
'Why are studies so boring? Why do you have to do something so uninteresting
to become something in life?'
'Vidya, philosophical questions, no. Mathematical questions, yes,' I said and
stood up to leave.
'Will you get me something from Australia?'
'Ask your brother, he will get you whatever you want.' I restacked the books.
No way would I spend more cash than I needed to.
'Anyway, we are on a tight budget,' I clarified. She nodded as if she understood.
'So, will you miss me?' I continued to look down.
'You have a budget for how much you can miss people, too?' she asked.
'Do your sums, Vidya. Focus,' I said and left.
★
'You guys tired or wanna hit practice?' were Fred's first words of welcome at
the airport.
'Where is my bed?' I wanted to ask.
We had taken an overnight train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, waited six more
hours to board a fourteen-hour flight to Sydney via Singapore. Thirty hours of
travel in cramped environments and I wanted to kill myself with sleep.
'Oh, so we made it in time for practice?' Ish looked out at the streets of Sydney.
At 7 a.m. in the morning, joggers clogged the pavements. Picture-postcard coffee
shops advertised delicious muffins.
I patted the khakras in my bag. We couldn't afford any cakes In this town.
'I go to the academy ground in the morning,' Fred said as he stepped on the
gas. 'I've put you up in a hostel. Take a nap first I'd say. Philip will pick you up
for the evening practice.'
Guys, this is Ali. He is a batsman,' Fred said to the other players who came for
practice. Apart from Philip, there was a beefy guy called Peter and a spectacled
spinner called Steve. I forgot the other names instantly.
Fred screamed, 'Five rounds everyone. Close to the boundary line, no short-
cuts.'
The first two hours of our Australian practice was the practice of death. Five
rounds of the academy grounds equaled twenty rounds of Nana Park and fifty
rounds of the bank's courtyard. After the run, we did innumerable sit-ups, push-
ups and crunches. Three personal trainers supervised five students each. The
first lime I groaned, one came running to me. The next time he said, 'Cut the
drama, mate.'
We came to the pitch after endurance training. I told them I was no player, but
I had to field anyway.
'Here, bowl,' Fred tossed the ball to Ali.
'He doesn't really bowl,' Ish said.
'I know, give it a burl,' Fred clapped his hands.
Philip took his fielding place at the boundary near me.
'What's burl?' I asked him.
'Aussie slang, mate,' Philip laughed, it means give it a try.'
Ish offered to be the wicket keeper, but Fred told him to stay at the slip
instead. Ali's bowling was no match for these state level players. Roger slammed
the ball towards the boundary several times. Once the ball came between Philip
and me, and we had a tough time catching it.
'Rattle your dags, mate,' another fielder shouted at me. No one had to translate
'hurry up' to me.
I threw the ball back. What was I doing in the middle of this Australian
ground?
As the day progressed, so did my Aussie vocabulary. 'Onya' was short for 'good
on you', which meant well done. An easy ball was a 'piece of piss', while a good
one 'packed a wallop'. The mosquitoes were 'mozzies', and soft drinks 'coldies'.
When I took a loo break, Philip broke into some more slang. 'You got to siphon
the python, is it?'
It started to get dark.
'Pack-up time,' announced Fred though Ali hadn't batted yet.
Fred raised his eyebrows at a glum Ish in the locker room.
I am fine,' said Ish. Omi and Ali were taking a walk outside the dub.
'Fair dinkum?'
Ish looked up from his wooden stool.
'He is asking if you are telling the truth,' I showed off my newfound linguistic
skills.
'When is practice tomorrow, Fred, in English if you can,' Ish said.
'You a whinger?' Fred said. 'Whinge means...,' I said as Ish interrupted me.
I know what whinge means, can someone please explain the point of calling a
batsman from thousands of miles away and not making him bat?'
Fred smiled, 'Oh, you wanted your little discovery to bat. What for? So he can
hit a few sixes. You want the kid to be a show-off from day one?'
That's not what I...''Mate, I see a lot of talent. Every AIS scholarship kid has tickets on himself. If I
don't break their pride, they will stay hoons for the rest of their life. Sportsmen
aren't movie stars, mate. Even though your country treats them like that.'
'But Fred...'
'You Indians have good talent, but the training - trust me on that mate.'
'We are only here for a week,' Ish sounded helpless. 'I'll make the week
productive. But today's lesson was important. If he isn't humble, he won't last
long,' Fred said, then looked at his watch. 'Promised the missus some time. I'm
off like a bride's nightie.'
‘Cheers!’ everyone cried. We clanged our dark brown bottles of XXXX beer, also
known as 'fourex' stubbies. 'Hi!' our server Hazel, too hot to be a waitress, hugged
Fred. 'Oooh...,' Fred's students egged him on after she left. 'No way, mate. The
missus won't tolerate me making eyes at anyone else,' Fred said. 'But you guys
are single. You must have pretty girls all over you in India.' Everyone looked at us.
'We don't have girlfriends,' Omi said.
'Why not? Indian women are hot,' said Michael, rolling his
'Too busy with work,' I said.
'Busy? Never heard a bloke too busy to root, mate,' Roger said.
Everyone laughed. Root meant, well, whatever. 'Check those honeys out,'
Michael said as four girls walked
in.
"The one in brown, she's ain't bad,' Michael said. 'NCR 5.'
'NCR 10,' Roger said.
'And the blue one?' Philip said.
'She's NCR 0. Bring it on, man,' Roger said. Everyone laughed.
'What's NCR?' I asked as there was a whiff of maths in the
air.
'NCR is Number of Cans Required. The amount of beer yoi need to drink to
want to have sex with a girl,' Fred said.
'Michael dated an ugly bitch once. He admits it, NCR 40 Roger said. Everyone
roared with laughter.
'Here you go, hungry boys,' Hazel said in a flirtatious tone she passed the
plates.
The Australians mainly ate meat dishes. We had stuck to a pizza as it was the
only recognisable choice.
'You got to do more protein,' Michael said, his biceps flexing, as he ate.
Omi said, I drink two litres of milk everyday.'
Ish sat next to Fred. I could not hear their conversation However, I saw Ish's
frequent nods. I left the Aussie rooting stories and moved to Ish.
'If you're the bowler and you've got the ball in your hand, you're controlling the
game. You've got to make sure the batsman know who's the boss,' Fred was
saying. 'Same for Ali. He doesn't just need to hit shots, he needs to show the
other team who is the boss.' 'Right,' Ish said.
My players will eventually figure out new ways to bowl to Ali. A determined
mind can counter a gift. A champion has both.' Ish nodded.
Hi Govind!' Fred had spotted me. 'Don't want rooting tips? We are just doing
boring coach talk.'Ish's chest swelled with pride as Fred had called him equal in role.
I remembered something. 'You mentioned a scholarship yesterday. What's
that? In fact, how does the whole sports thing work in Australia.'
'You want to know why Australia always wins?'
it doesn't always win,' Ish said.
'Not always, thank goodness. We love to dominate opponents, hut also love a
fight. When there's a challenge, it brings out the
best.'
'Yeah, even if not every time, Australia does win a lot. Every Olympics, there is
pile of medals for Australia. In cricket, the domination continues. How come,
Fred?' 1 said.
'Plenty of reasons, mate. But it wasn't always like this.' Fred sipped his
sparkling water, in fact, in the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal, Australia didn't
win a single medal.' 'But you guys did well last year,' Ish said. 'Yes, in Sydney
2000. Australia won 56 medals, only after USA, Russia and China. All these
countries have ten times as many people.' He paused. 'Aussies saw the Montreal
fiasco as a national shame. So the government set up the Australian Institute of
Sports or the AIS and initiated the world's best scholarship programme.' Fred
finished his glass of water and continued:
'And today the AIS has hundreds of staff - coaches, doctors and physios. They
get two hundred million dollars of funding| and have excellent facilities. And at
the heart of it all, they offer seven hundred scholarships a year.' Fred pushed the
spaghetti plate towards me.
I listened as I struggled with the ribbon-like pasta. I calculated how seven
hundred scholarships for twenty million people would equate to for India. That
was the equivalent of thirty-five thousad sports scholarships a year for India to
match the ratio.
'What's the scholarship? Money?' Ish wanted to know.
'Not just money, mate. It is full on. Expert coaching accommodation, travel to
tournaments, sports science, medicine -you name it. And the best part is to be
part of that communit where everyone has a singular commitment to their sport. I
can't describe that feeling,' Fred said, as his eyes lit up.
'I know the feeling,' Ish said. Even though Ish's eyes aren't blue. they shone as
bright.
The waiters cleared our plates as we finished our food.
'Any famous players from this scholarship programme?'
'Heaps. Michael Bevan, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Glenn
McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne...'
'What are you talking about? These are all cricketing legends Ish said.
'Legends - that's a good word,' Fred laughed. 'Hope I get there someday.'
'You have a scholarship, too?' I said. Fred nodded.
'You are already a legend, Fred,' Ish said. 'Nah, I'm starting out. And let me tell
you boys, the whole legend bit is far-fetched. You take a bit of talent and mould it
properly, and good stuff happens. In that sense, Australia can create legends.'
'And we can't,' Ish asked.
'Well you could, though right now you rely on talent more than training. You
have a big population, a tiny number of them are born excellent. Like Tendulkar,
or maybe like Ali.''Yeah, but,' Ish boxed his left palm with his right, 'imagine what would happen
if we could have this kind of training in India.'
'Cricket would be finished. India would dominate and teams like us would be
nowhere. At least for now we can call ourselves "legend".' Fred hooked his fingers
around the last word.
Ali did bat the following days. Every bowler went through the shock of being
slammed for sixes. However, Ali kept the showbiz low and played a steady game.
He crossed fifty runs in a couple of innings. On Friday morning Ali hit the ball for
a defensive shot. The ball didn't go far. Ali decided to stay at the crease.
'Run, it is a single,' Ish urged from the boundary line.
'Run Ali,' Ish said again. Ali looked surprised at the instruction hut ran.
'Faster,' Ish screamed, 'don't sleep.'
Ali ran faster as the fielder returned the ball to the bowler.
'Jump,' Ish said. Ali dived. He made the crease but fell with his full body weight
coming down on his left ankle. As everyone rushed towards him, he lay on the
ground clenching his teeth and holding back tears.
'Oh, get up. No time for drama,' Ish said.
'Easy, mate,' Fred said to Ish and signalled for a physio. Within minutes, a
paramedic arrived and placed an ice pack on Ali's swollen ankle.
'Lucky it is not a fracture or dislocation. Looks like a ligament got some wear,
mate,' the physio said, applying painkillers and wrapping a crepe bandage. Ali
leaned on the physio as he tried to hobble. 'Give the game a rest for two days.
You'll be fine.'
'Don't worry, he'll play in a few hours,' Ish said with a sheepish expression.
Guilt bubbled up his eyes.
'Everyone,' Fred clapped his hands, 'let's sit down.'
We sat down on the pitch around Fred in a circle.
'You are big boys and tough players. You want to give it your all. But I can't
emphasise it enough - respect your body's limits
'I do,' Ish said, feeling compelled to speak, 'but there was a single there. And
that is what we Indians miss. We don't want to dive. We don't want to take risks.'
'The game is not about being macho. You can't get caught up in the moment so
much that you forget.'
'Forget what?' I said.
'Forget that you got one fragile body. Lose it, and you are gone, You must
safeguard it. And Ish, you must protect your student.'
Ish hung his head low.
'I had just started my career when my nasty back almost finished it,' Fred said.
'I'd have been selling suits at a store for the rest of my life, as that is the only job I
could get.'
He added, '1 made the same mistakes, wanting to kill myself for the game I
played that day. But if you want a career, think long term. Yes, passion is
important. But the head has to be clear during the match.'
Ish apologised to Fred later in the locker room. 'I'd never let Ali get hurt.'
'The kid is good. I have a little surprise for him. You leave Sunday evening,
right?'
'Yes, in two days,' Ish said.'Can't believe the week went by so fast.'
'Sunday breakfast is on me. I want you guys to meet someone important.'
★Bondi beach is so beautiful that it needs a coffee table book of its own. First,
the sky. The Australian sky is a different colour from India. It actually looks the
same as the sky blue colour in paint shops and is so crisp that your eyes hurt.
There is no pollution. The sea is visible for miles. At the shore, the Pacific Ocean
meets the powdery sand to create perfect waves. They are strong enough to surf
on, yet soft enough to make you relax.
But that summer, the nicest part about the beach was its people - those who
were not men. That is, those who were women. Gorgeous and topless. And if
you've never seen a topless woman in your life before, places like this did things
to you.
'There must be a hundred women here," Ish whistled. And each one a
knockout!'
It was true. It was like all the beautiful women in the world emailed each other
and decided to meet at Bondi.
'You want an umbrella?' I said as we parked ourselves at a scenic spot. Six
topless women played Frisbee there.
'Wow, you can actually see their ni ... wow,' Omi pointed out helpfully.
'There are a hundred women here. So we have two hundred breasts to look at,'
I said and was teased for bringing maths everywhere.
Having grown up in a place where sleeveless blouses cause scandals, tops-off is
what an MBA type would call a 'paradigm
shift'.
'I could not play with them. I'd never look at the Frisbee Ish said.
'Check that blonde one, wow, she is massive,' I said. Oh well when in
Disneyland, play.
'This is what heaven must look like. My eyes are tired from not blinking,' Omi
said.
It is funny but the bare-breasts became routine in a few minutes. I guess you
get used to good things fast. I'd much prefer to see one topless woman every day
for hundred days, rather than a hundred at once. I sat down on the sand. Ish and
Omi soon went for a swim in the sea and to see if wet and topless women looked
even hotter wet. Yes, we are a sick bunch.
I noticed a brunette in an umbrella next to me. She wore a shirt on top of her
bikini and had her back to me. Her long black hair fell over her thin back. She
applied something in her half, probably oil or lotion or any such thing that girls
feel is essential to their existence.
Something hurt inside me. I felt like someone pounded my chest. The brunette
rubbed her hair exactly like Vidya. I saw Omi and Ish splashing in the water at a
distance. They laughed as the pushed each other down.
Random thoughts circulated in my head, like oiled fingers in hair. Wouldn't it
be nice if Vidya was here? Isn't this what she longed for most? Freedom above all
else? Didn't she have the Bondi spirit, even though I'd have killed her if she
walked around in a bikini. Wait a minute, I'd kill her or her brother Ish would kill
her? Why should I care? But I did say I would kill her? And why am I thinking of
her when there are so many beautiful topless women to distract me right now?
And why do I think of her every night before I go to bed? And why does my mind
not stop asking stupid questions?
If you began to miss a girl thousands of miles away even with naked breasts
around you, something is seriously wrong. I opened my notebook that I carriedeverywhere. I wanted to make a budget for the next three months. I found a long
strand of hair. It didn't belong to Ish or Omi or me. Only one person that I knew
had long hair. The notebook I had opened to forget her made me miss her even
more.
Omi came running to me. Water dripped from him and fell on my legs. I closed
my book.
'The water is amazing. C'mon inside,' he said, catching his breath.
'No, I have work. I have to make a call,' I said. 'Call who?'
'Suppliers,' I said without making eye contact. 'From here? Isn't it expensive?'
'Short call, need some coins,' I said as I collected the change.
'You are working on Bondi? Whatever, I am diving in again,' Omi said and ran
back to the sea.
I collected my belongings and walked back to the beach shopping area. I found
a public phone.
I dialed her number.

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