Kranthi's Redemption ;-) ( haha :-) )

Which class was I studying in then ? hmm....3rd or 4th ???Am not sure..i think, i was in 4th class then. I am going to narrate an incident which could be termed as first-of-its-kind-experience for me at that time. Those days ....in general, if i did any mistake i used to worry a hell lot . Because such acts used to disturb the regular pattern of my life :-). Here goes the story.....

One evening ..after coming back from school.... as usually...I went to the college grounds which is just behind our house. Our regular hang out & play ground. As i told you before , some of my most beautiful memories of life were there in that ground.Love it. Call me sometime.. will discuss our childhood memories ;-) . Okay coming back to the point.... that day i was alone.. we were not playing any cricket ... I was just roaming around in the ground. Sometime later... a guy met me... older atleast by 4 years than I was, ,... very dark ...had a round head..pudgy structure. He had a small blue rubber ball with him.Yeah i remember the color of the ball too..how could i forget ?? . He himself came to me and asked whether I was interested to play a game.

The way of playing that game is : we have to fix three small sticks on the ground. Two teams. One team,say catchers, stand on one side of the sticks and the other team,say pitchers, on the other side. One from the pitchers side tries to hit the sticks with the ball . Whether the ball makes the sticks fall or not, if the ball is caught by the catchers he is out. Or if the ball hits the sticks ..making them fall..and if the catchers side cannot catch the ball..the pitchers have to try to fix the sticks coming close to them. In the mean time..before they fix the sticks if the catchers team hit any of the pitchers team with the ball..the catchers get a point. And if the pitchers can fix the sticks avoiding the attack they get a point eventually. Dont get confused. BTW... Anybody heard about this game ? Weird, huh? :-)

Okay.He invited some others and it was begun. Actually, i hate such kind of games..because one has every possibility to get seriosuly hit by the ball,especially the prone areas being the back and legs which hurts a lot.They would never show mercy while hitting others .Actually for most of them that was the most enjoying part where as for me "catching" and "hitting sticks" was fun part. I hated to get hurt physically :-) . That day.. Dont know why.. i was playing with unknown people though i was famous for my reticent nature(lot more than now) . May be beacuse..I was not playing cricket that day .

Okay..after some tiime.... it was time .I had to hit the sticks. I took the ball...tried to hit the sticks with full energy, full vigour, full force. Did it hit the sticks?? NO..it didnt.it didnt hit the sticks. As i pitched it with much force , those catchers cudnot catch it or stop it . It just bounced over them and gone far.. and they went after it. I wud get another chance to pitch. I was waiting for the ball. The catchers team hadnot come back yet .They were searchng for the ball .That area was full of bushes,rocks and trees with thorns. . Even I went there and began assisting them. The process of searching didnt end for a long time. All the players who were playing searched for a while and slipped away .I was searching alone. Only two were there. Me and the BOG (ball-owning-guy). That BOG stopped searching long back and was looking at me . His eyes were threatening me. I couldnt bear those looks as I was a mimosa those days. Sometime later,the light was fading away too,I went to him

and said " Sorry..I could not find. ball was lost ".

He said seriously " I want my ball. I want my ball. Thats it "

I said "sorry ..i couldnt find it"

He came back with " What ?? No.. i want it... or give me money..I want money..."

I was petrified with this new dialogue. I was damn new to these kind of menacing situations.

I mumbled " How much do u want"

The BOG quoted some price . I was flabbergasted.

I was destined to pay 1 rupee. One rupee.Hey Hello... that was not at all small thing to me at that time. At home i was never given pocket money.No such habbit. And besides that I never took money from relatives when they would try to give as a token of love :-) . So..i was thinking " waht to do now??? How would I get that money? one ruppee...my god..where can i find? " My heart was pounding & my mind was panicking, both synchronously :-( . That evening i came home when the day was metamorphosing to night. I sat silently for a long time at the back of our house in despair unable to come up with a solution.

Some days later. That was the time I was getting amnesic to that gruesome memory.Good for me :-)

And One evening .. out of nowhere ... sudenly he popped up before me in the ground and asked me " what about my money?" . I escaped somehow saying " yeah.i will give..." and ran home with heart in my mouth.

On one sunday... i encountered him again. but that time he didnt ask anything. I was the happiest kid on the planet that day. I felt like everything was fine and the world seemed rosy :-) . But that didnt last for more time :-( . In the next meeting,he warned me seriously .I was so worried. What would my mother think if i let her know.I couldnot explain all this to her.I wanted to share this with someone and who else would that be if not Radhakrishna alias Radha,my friend.He was a tough guy.Not like me. I told him about this. He said something which made me feel like I was in some kind of heaven. "Arrey Kranthi..dont u worry ...i will give money to u..u give it to him...dont worry". I never expected that he wud bail me out. But yes... he said that. You can easily imagine how happy i would have felt . RADHA-----My hero :-) .

After many days.... I saw him. The dark guy. The round head. I saw the B-O-G coming on a cycle. He stood there at the college back entrance. This time I was kinda happy seeing him.Because,that was the day i was going to get rid of him for ever. I ran to Radha and told him that he was coming. Radha was ready with THE PRICELESS ONE RUPEE in his hand. We both went to him . I initiated the talk with full confidence saying " hey..take your rupee.." he didnt say a word..but i couldnt help noticing a sly smile on his face. we turned back and ran home.I was so happy that day. The horrendous story ended finally and i began thinking like " kranthi happilly lived ever after" . :-)

ERROR ERROR ERROR...

It didnt end there. Grave error. I realised the mistake only after few more days. To be specific i realised that when i met him the next time. That day.. i was in the ground playing cricket . i saw him coming to me. He was dark.He had the same round head. but..but he was not of the size i saw him on the day of settlement i.e, when i gave his money. But this size matches with the size of his in our previous encounters. Something went terribly wrong.

He came to me and said seriously in an authoritative tone " Oye..what happened to my money?"

Heart ached.Eyes wept .

I replied anguishing and languishing " But...but i gave you. right?"

He was furious " U gave me? u gave me?? what the hell..? i want my money. one last chance. I want my money"

Yes.U guessed it right. I gave it to a wrong guy. But believe me .. both were like carbon copies. Except the size-difference. I exacerbated the situation to that extent where i didnt have any hope left.

It was one helluva awful crestfallen moment for me. Damn !!! That was the moment which witnessed the culmination of my authentic stupidity :'-( . "waht to do now...where shall i go... i cant ask radha again". Pounding &Panicking already began their work.I was so worried. I hated my situation then. How could i be so dumb. I HATED ME . The only resort to me was to go to the only goddess available around :-) : my mom.

That evening i went home. My mom was sitting there at steps . I went to her ..sat silently for a while and told the whole story right from the begining. And when i told about the money too, she said " oh..no big deal..will give u...tell me when u happen to meet him next time " WOW..So relieved.. . Though my mother is always so cool and considerate to me, I dont know waht prevented me from telling her that story long back . I just didnt. ,may be, beacuse i was worried for the fact that I threw away some other guy's owned possession.

Later... i never saw the BOG for a long time. Kinda forgot him and everything. And.... One evening I was going somewhere walking with my uncle and I saw.I saw the dark guy.He had the same round head.It was him. We saw each other and exchanged a smile. And that smile was genuine. In that ephemeral smile, I felt like we recalled everything happened between us right from the day I threw away his ball :-).I found redemption in that smile :-) .Finally... I was like..hmm...say... LIBERATED :-).

adios

Kranthi :-)