To The Other Side ...

“Howzzzzzzaaaatttt?!?”

Okay, here I was trying to code my brains off on a date with Hugh Jackman in Hogwarts…..and I start playing cricket with kids? No, something was not right. I try to bury myself in my pillows and cushions, but I cannot sleep anymore. The kids are loud, beyond loud. So, I wake up and within minutes I am busy preparing lunch with my flatmates. Well, breakfast time was long gone. Again the yelling, screeching starts, “ Auntyyyyyyyy… Auntyyyyyyyyeeeeeeee….”

“Who is this God-forsaken woman who isn’t listening to them, why can’t she just answer them and get them to calm down???”  I go out, all determined to talk to the deaf woman. Turns out, the loud-speakers, I mean, the kids were calling us. Their ball was in our balcony, and WE WERE THE DEAF AUNTIES. One of the cons of shifting to a ground floor flat with a balcony is that you have listen to these kids scream all day long, while their parents happily sleep through the weekend. So here I am, with flour on my hands and face, trying to digest the fact that I might have gone to the other side. I might have become the neurotic woman who gets irritated with all the noise of cricket on a Sunday morning instead of the one making it.

“Did you just call me aunty ?”

“Ok. Dadiji?” said the loudest kid of the lot.

“Ok, so you don’t want the ball. Fine I’ll just lock it in my cupboard.”

“Fine, fine. Didi can we please have it?”

I handed it over.

“Thanks, dadiji.”

Kind of expected. Anyhow, I stay irritated and continue with Mission Flour. Once I am done, I decide to go out and buy some stuff. Grocery, rent slips, the works. Wow, I reallly am becoming an aunty I think. As soon as I step out, loudest kid of the lot starts with his screeching. “Dadiji is here.” I really wouldn’t have liked him 10 years back, right now, I just say, “Right. I’ll be back, you bowl and I’ll bat, we’ll talk then.”

“Please don’t insult cricket.”

Ok this kid is not just getting on, but jumping on my nerves.

“We’ll see, try to learn how to bowl till then, all I’ve seen are either wides or balls that end up in our balcony.”

The other kids seem to like me, so they cheer me on. Turns out loudest kid of the lot isn’t too popular with his friends.

I come back with a pepsi for all the kids. Ask them their names, Loudest kid of the lot is as cheeky as ever, and replies, “My name is Khan. Saif Ali Khan.” On noticing the pepsi, he tells me his name finally and we start playing. First ball four runs. Second, six. Third ball, I get hit on the face with a bouncer, and yell, “Oh ****!” Unfortunately, all kids are very amused by my lack of control on my mouth and the guy I thought was someone’s elder brother turns out to be the father of two of the kids, he just smiles back and I am beyond embarrassed. Anyhow, putting that major slip of tongue aside, I play surprisingly well by my standards and end up scoring 18 runs. One six and three fours, and then I get out because I lose the ball, hit it over the boundary wall and it gets stuck in a tree. That is so unfair. It would have sent Navjot Singh Siddhu and Geoffrey Boycott on a hyper-fast-roobbish-commentary fit.  Anyhow, loudest kid of the lot just takes the Pepsi I bought for all of them and goes back home, while I am invited by the rest of the lot to play in the evening. 

While going back, this tiny kid, who kept calling himself Darth Vader, comes up to me all shy and cute, “Didi, you will play with us, right?” And I realise, that there is a very fine line between didi and aunty once you start working and cooking on your own. Luckily, it just took a little bit of cricket to bring me back to the side I wanted to be on.