by John Harker
The last man arrived at the crease. It was my own brother, Winston Baxter, the spearhead of our bowling attack. Our team needed just two runs to win and, oh! By the way I had piled on ninety eight of my team’s total of one hundred and fifty five runs.
I saw him heading towards me at the half crease with that stammering grin on his cranky face. The smile always made me nervous. He was the best pace bowler the English cricket team had ever produced and I am glad that we played for the same side, as I can never imagine facing his deadly yorkers in my wildest nightmares. As deadly as the bowler he was, as pathetic a batsman he was, holding a record of averaging zero point twenty in his thirty nine first class innings.
Winston stopped near me and muttered helplessly, ‘Brother, what do I do?’
‘Just stand there. Do not slog. Save your wicket. It is just one ball, whatever you do, do not get out.’
‘Is it the last ball of this over?’ he asked.
‘Yes, indeed.’ I replied patting on his back with my gloved left hand.
‘Oh dear Lord! Thank you.’ He seemed relieved upon realizing the fact. He marched his way to the striker’s end.
I looked at him, nervous with sinking expectation. This was not about pride or ego for me, but as it was my first game as the skipper of the English side and I wanted to steer my side to victory, if not anything else.
He prepared his stance and the spin king of the local side threw a googly and the moment pitched on the surface it spun in the oppressing side and bounced to hit my brother on the right thigh. This was followed by a collaborative appeal by the bowler and keeper. My brother looked down hopelessly. I doubted if it would have hit the stumps with that bounce and the umpire from Hampshire shared a similar view. Not out was the verdict. My brother shall finally stay unbeaten in a game even if it had been just a ball that he faced.
We met midway, at the eleventh yard.
‘Make sure that you run fast. We need two runs, nothing short of that.’ I commanded my player.
‘And what if you do not find any scoring shot until the last ball.’
‘I will. Now, you must stop breaking the jaws of those Australian batsmen while bowling. It’s their curses that do not let you bat. One might break yours someday.’ I tried to inject some humor into his tense mind.
‘Take it away, brother.’ Winston wished and I was on my way to the crease.
I heard thundering somewhere far away in the city; it was growing darker with every spanning minute. The day could be called off any moment now. The Bangla captain had roped in his fastest bowler from the playing eleven and I always enjoyed blasting his rocket speed deliveries out of the park.
He roared in at a hundred miles, I raised my bat well over my knee ready to loft the ball straight over his head, in case he went for a usual yorker at the death. I had to be quicker than him and a presumptive forward drive would make the yorker seem like a full length delivery. I stood my ground and I was going for the loft. I locked my view on the ball and pierced through the air towards my ankle and advanced according to my plan. With my bottom hand, I drove the bat forth, connecting with the ball right before it hit my foot and lofted it over the bowler’s head.
‘Run!’ my brother screamed from the other end and started running towards my end.
I was confident of my shot and stood there looking at the ball that flew over the long mid-off and into the park; it went for a six. The local boys were disappointed after coming this close to victory. The umpire signaled a six. I threw my bat in the air joyfully. My brother lifted me up in his strong arms just as he used to do when I was a little white boy in school. My greatest support was with me like always.
The spectators were on their feet, giving a standing ovation to the winning English side’s skipper who scored a century in his first game as captain. The twenty-four year old skipper, who showed more maturity on the field, leading a sinking ship full of veterans right from the front, was enough to shun the critics. The legendary batsman, Len Hutton, himself walked down the park and congratulated me,
‘I am glad that English cricket is in right hands, after all.’ He blessed me and those words were simply priceless as they had come from my idol.
Before I knew it, my entire team joined in and carried me around the ground in jubilant celebration. That was the best day of my life, and something I remember very closely. English cricket had a new name to trust in its almanacs, Richard Baxter.
Chapter 17
That day, our dressing room was filled with dancing white people. It was not that we were unaware of the dying and suffering countrymen back home, in fact the fund raised by ticket sales would be going in aid of those children who had been affected by the war in Europe. I sat down on a bench and started untying the knots of my pad. Winston stood a few feet away from me with a fine young lady. They were holding each other’s hands and then they kissed each other.
Lucky guy! I thought. My brother had finally found someone who loved him. Her name was Cecily, twenty years young, tender and beautiful like a Swiss prim rose. They perfectly complemented each other.
‘How long do you plan to be content with the petty love life of your elder brother, son?’ a shrill voice spoke from behind.
I turned around and exclaimed, ‘Oh Mother! I thought that you would not make it.’
‘Oh dear, how could I miss my child’s debut game as captain,’ she said, still glaring at the couple who were sharing an extended moment of intimacy. She continued, ‘especially when we were sinking.’
I immediately got up and embraced her. She pulled herself away, ‘Oh dear Lord, what are you trying to do? Look at yourself; you are all dirty, smelling like a dead swine from Scrooge’s first Christmas.’ She accused me referring to Dickens’ classic.
‘Go tidy up, then we shall have tea in the garden.’ She paused to take a step towards me and hummed, ‘Dr. Briggs is here with his daughter, it is just a matter of a couple of pleasantries before the girl and her father would completely fall head over heels for the young centurion skipper.’
‘Oh Mother, I have already told you a hundred thousand times that I do not wish to get hitched so young. Why do you keep bringing these narrow minded suitors for me? Are you planning to enter the matchmaking business?’ I expressed my emotions.
‘Well, she is a fine young lady and shall make a perfect and wonderful mother.’ She tried to justify herself.
I hated arguing with my mother especially when she wore that black hat of hers that gave her the appearance of a witch from Stanford.
‘I need my own time to find the lady with whom I shall spend my entire life. It has to happen on its own, when it is time. Marriage should be the result of love between the couple getting married and not brute force from their parents.’ I tried to explain my philosophy of love at first sight to an ageing orthodox.
‘So that you may end up with some down-market tramp like Cecily?’ she said shooting a glance at the young woman who was holding my brother’s arms in the distance.
‘She is a fine young lady, she loves my brother.’
‘She is the daughter of a sailor, not a captain, for God’s sake. We belong to an aristocratic family; we cannot share our status with such peasantry folks.’
‘Rubbish! I do not comply with your narrow minded views. It is my life and I shall… I beg your pardon; I will lead my life the way I want.’ I stated strongly.
‘I won’t let you do anything stupid.’ My mother ordered.
That Hitler who waged a war in Europe had a sister in my mother and I loathed her. She was the bitter seed of lime in our sweet juice. One should not bite the seed if found, simply spit it out. I had programmed my mind that way. It was time to spit out the bitter seed.
‘Mother, if you shall excuse me.’ I threw away the pads and walked past my mother. I smiled at my brother, Cecily and few other cheerful faces on my way out.
There was always one parent among the two, who took an oath at the time of marriage to stand on the heads of their
children when they are born. They start by over indulging and spoon-feeding them throughout childhood before gradually becoming these nightmarish puppets that shall judge you day after day and drive you insane with insecure expectations and quantified ego. In most of our English houses, that one parent is the father. However, in my case, that one dictating Hitler had been my mother.
Oh whatever, the sun was going to come down in a couple of minutes and I was padding down the streets of Calcutta. The crowd is a bittersweet commotion here and one can see all sorts of folk moving up, down, in and around on all sides. White and brown, Brahmins and Shudras, Muslims and Catholics, revolutionaries and Gandhians, Congressmen and beggars, journalists and above all, the most beautiful women in the world.
My skin might be a dozen shades of white higher than the fairest Bangla boy. My mother tongue might have twenty-six alphabets in its modern scripture but that does not take away the pride of being an integral part of this city.
The city of Calcutta.
Whenever I had a quarrel or an over instated judgment hanging around my neck or had my morale down, I would simply walk down the street across the race course to the little vendor who sold dairy sweets. Amongst them was my favorite, mishti doi; sweetened yoghurt, condensed and served in clay pot tumblers, and sweet enough to bring peace between the bitterest rivals. Sometimes I hoped suggesting our dear old Queen to sit down and have some blissful mishti doi instead of tea with the real Hitler to put an end to the catastrophic world war that seemed to reach no end at all.
Delicious, I wish I could just swim in a pool of doi.
Chapter 18
As I cornered myself in the alley behind the racecourse, dipping my fingers into the sweetmeat like a native aboriginal, I heard some loud swears from the other end of the alley. It kept growing and somehow it was not letting me enjoy my pot of doi. The yelling of male voices kept growing louder as if there was a procession of angry old men coming my way. The frustration forced me to turn and take note of the scene and as predicted, there were three aged men shouting at the top of their pharynx at a gathering of middle class Bangla folk. They were mere spectators and they clogged up in a circle as if surrounding the subject.
I walked over to Buron da, the vendor who sold those delicious sweet yoghurts. Aroused by curiosity I asked the obvious, ‘What is going on there, dada?’
Now, being a typical Bangal folk, Buron dada started by setting the betel leaf (that he had been chewing for ages) in the left-most corner of his mouth, which preceded the waving of the pitch of his throat. He had a round face, thick brown skin and a moustache rooted timidly in an upsurged area between his couched nose and bubbly lips; the ones that were tattered and dry for all the betel he had chewed till date. Finally, he spoke in his natively accented English, ‘Thish bumon curshed,’ he said and gulped a spit of betel juice and continued, ‘marry hoshband and hoshband dead. Now, she die, jomp in phire.’
I had always heard of this treacherous Indian ritual where the widowed wife would give up her life by jumping into the funeral pyre of her deceased husband, something so preposterous customized by male chauvinists of the past who inclined the ritual with some cynical story of an exaggerated mythology. They believed that such a ritual would result in the rebirth of the husband and wife in another life. I personally believe that superstitions have to be condemned and reincarnation must be restricted to the stories of mythology only. They should not be taken literally.
‘Are they going to burn the widow with her husband’s dead body?’ I asked.
‘Hei.’ Came an affirmative from Buronda.
‘Well, it is ridiculous! What age are we living in? I will not let this happen.’ I exclaimed. After slicing a coin into the vendor’s rugged hand I left for the scene of the crime that was about to be committed.
The crowd was getting aggressive with every step I took towards it like an unguided messiah of some American movie. However, I did not have a picture of the subject until now. All I knew was that she was one unfortunate Bangla girl, a newly married wife who might have hardly stepped out of her confinements of virginity. I had this vague idea that that the girl was too young to commit the forced social suicide.
I was only a dozen meters away from the gathering when suddenly the crowd parted to reveal the sight that took my eyes by an air of the sweetest visual incense. Incense was my weakness, all right.
There she stood- the subject was young, slender, a worn-off face that had ounces of youth yet to be explored by a suitable suitor. A young girl, hardly eighteen, clad in a white saree, devoid of jewels and other items of frolic show-off that portrayed a woman as a showpiece on the window shelf of an antique shop. She looked down at the tarred road as if her fate was going down the drain and she was bidding a final goodbye. Her skin was mildly fair and smooth as silk. I guess she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life, and surprisingly I was yet to see her eyes. I believe that the sublimity of a woman’s eyes defined her beauty. I was desperately pleading against my conscience to be a little more patient before it jumped out of its confinement and pounced on the girl.
I was losing myself in her beauty and then somebody pulled me out, ‘English Babu, what do you want?’ The old man questioned in that same quivering voice that was yelling moments ago.
I realized that I was standing right in the middle of the gathering in front of the girl and everyone was surprised and bugged by the foreign parasite that was dressed in the dirtiest of whites. Obviously, my mother had not let me change or clean up after the game, thanks to her frustrating orders.
‘Excuse me, I am talking to you.’ The old man repeated, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘That is exactly what I wish to know. What are you doing here?’ I asked boldly.
My question did not go well with the audience.
‘It is none of your business English Babu, this is our family matter. Kindly leave before we phorce you.’ Another man commanded in an aggravated tone, the labials hitting against each other every time they said ‘f’.
‘Well I must remind you that your so called family matter is being dealt on a public road and I am part of the authority that rules this colonial region. How dare you command me to leave?’ I threatened with a raised brow at the man. I turned back to the old man and continued, ‘Who are you, Mister?’
‘I am this girl’s father in law. Her husband, that is my son, passed away.’ He revealed.
‘So, you are going to burn this innocent young girl because your son died an unexpected death?’
‘This is our custom; a woman has no right to live once her husband passes away before having a child.’ An old clergyman counseled.
‘First of all, what are you still doing here, should not you be in your grave, oldie? Secondly, it is not her fault, why should she pay for her husband’s death? Did she happen to kill her husband or something?’ I kept looking at her every time I asked a question, just to get a glimpse of her eyes but to no success.
‘She is damned. They were not even married phor a year; she brought bad luck upon my son.’
‘I thought you Indians consulted wonder men called astrologers before fixing souls together. Did not you do all that mumbo-jumbo they tell you to perform?’ The question was a little paradoxical but then it struck me like a stone tinning on my knuckles, ‘Of course! The poor girl’s parents must have promised you lump sums of money and pots of gold in dowry. How could you say no to the lure of wealth? I believe you must have called this curse a Laxmi at that time.’
The old man was embarrassed to admit this bitter truth; he lowered his head and gazed at the road below in shame while some of the folk slipped into their houses. I knew I had won half the battle and all I cared at the moment was for the girl’s life. I was waiting to get a glimpse of her eyes.
‘Listen, this young girl has a right to live and none of you chauvinistic bollock-heads have the right to take it away from her. I am sure she can be accepted by her in-laws as a daughter.’
; My suggestion followed silence of a momentary minute and then the old man spoke, ‘No, we cannot take the cursed girl back in our family.’
‘I am sure that the girl can go back to her parents then.’ I looked around for someone to take that spot, ‘Are her parents here amongst you?’
Silence was once again the answer from the crowd. The old man broke the silence, ‘The girl lost her mother at birth, and she was raised by her father and elder sister. Both of them died in a terrible accident right after her marriage last year.’
This revelation had touched down all the chords of sympathy in my heart for the girl, and for a moment I felt like taking her away from there into a rational matrimony with me. I looked at her with quenching eyes. She was still looking down, bidding goodbye to her fate. She should have known that her silence had become her greatest enemy. The enemy of every woman in a similar plight. The misery to be born in this old world country.
‘This girl is a source of misfortune for every one close to her. Cursed!’ The old man accused her once again, this time punching the words into her soul. Then came a voice that forced me to towards the source.
The girl said in a hushed tone, sulking ‘I am cursed, do you know why…’ The girl had spoken. Her voice was as sweet as the delicate drop of honey that hung at the corner of the comb right before the sun set its rays shining through the viscous liquid. I was mesmerized by the voice and then she lifted her face finally, looked at me, and spoke with the courage of a tested warrior, ‘…because I am a woman.’
The words came out like bullets from a rusty pistol but more than that it were her eyes that shot through my tangible self. Dark brown eyes, those that flaunted themselves like fish in the endless ocean. I envied her dead husband for all the little time he had had to dive into the depths of those beautiful eyes. I stood there, forgetting everything else, looking into her eyes. There were rage in her eyes, and that quenched the thirst of my soul. She bore into the silence of my heart and I witnessed the sight of the eighth wonder of my world.
