Zen And The Art Of Desecrating Cricket Every diurnal course of my squalid perseity was utilized conceiving ways to conquer an omnipotent, invisible calumniator: BOREDOM. Let me count the ways.....8 hours a day were taken by classes. They started at 8 am and ended at 4 pm, sometimes 5 if the professors or tutors were feeling particularly irascible. (I noticed that happened a lot. I figured the female professors weren't getting any and the male professors didn't want any) Since I normally sawed logs after midnight, that left me with 8 hours with which to amuse myself. Boy, did I try. A couple of NRI seniors taught me how to cover the wood end of a match with a glob of toothpaste, light it, and flick it towards the ceiling, and watch the conflagration of the paste leave an indelible splotch. I didn't know toothpaste burned black. Another common practice was to sit in my room and stare out the bars. There was a mungo tillage beyond a thistly, dessicant chapparal where I could often observe young Tamilian boys playing the most popular sport in India, cricket. Interesting game, this. Cricket is a sport played with a bat and a ball and two sets of sticks called "wickets". Each set consists of three sticks about the circumference of a broom handle, called "stumps". Between each stump are placed two "bails", which are basically some sort of short stick, I guess. Each wicket is placed 1,890 centimeters apart on a field of red dirt. I would explain further but that's even more than the limited capaciousness of my erudition will allow. Now, cricket is a lot like baseball. For example, cricket has "bowlers" and baseball has "pitchers". Cricket has "batsmen" while baseball has "batters". And of course, cricket has "tea-break" while baseball has the "7th-inning stretch". So you see, cricket should be easy for an American to learn. It didn't look too operose. The bat was a big rectangle as opposed to a conical cylinder utilized in the American pastime. When the bowler did his thing, the ball bounced before being struck. Surely, that would make it easier to hit, right? Each team had nine members. Once all nine were "out" either by catching a fly-ball or the ball hitting the wicket after being bowled, the other team got to bat. There are two types of matches: one-day-internationals, and tests. I'll explain tests because the former is self-explanatory. Test matches lasted anywhere from three to seven DAYS! There are two "innings" in a test match. Each innings consists of one team trying to score as many runs as they can before they get "all out". Once both teams play an innings each, then the second innings start. Repeat. Rinse. Now I know that my attention span for a sporting event tops out at a few hours or so. How anyone could attend one of these tests as a kibitzer was beyond me. But, "When in Rome..." Every day after class, numerous male docents spent some quality pre-study time engaging in India's apparent "national pastime". Basically, it was just like a bunch of guys playing a pickup game of basketball only with a bat, ball, and wickets. I like that word. Wickets. Eventually, I figured I'd try my hand at the sport named after a friggin bug. It looked like fun, after all. But of course, I didn't do things simply just to do them. I had to add my own signature to this competition. The game was played in the central courtyard of one of the hexagons of the hostel. A tennis ball was used instead of a cricket ball because nobody wanted to get injured. That cricket ball was hard as stone! When the game started, I asked if I could play as well. Some of the seniors looked agog at my impetuous pomposity. Lucky for me, there was an NRI senior playing. He had a word with the local seniors and then motioned for me to take a seat. I was to bat next. As I awaited my at-bat, I observed how they were playing the game. Normally, cricket is played in a big stadium with an oval field. If the batsman hits a ball on the ground, he can run between the two wickets. Yeah, they run back and forth a lot in this sport. If the ball reaches the string forming the perimeter of the oval, it counted for 4 runs. If a batsmen hit a ball out of the field like a home run, it counted for 6. Our impromptu coliseum was surrounded by walls on six sides that were five stories high. So basically, if a ball was hit onto one of the upper floors, it counted for 4 runs. If it was hit out of the hostel, it cost you some chafed skin and numerous contusions caused by a rectangular bat. Sometimes, the ball would go underneath the ledge sticking out from the ground floor. That seemed to be good for two back-and-forth sprints. Finally, my opportunity arrived. The senior NRI handed me the bat and walked over to the steps and sat down. I took my place at the wicket(tee hee) and assumed my batter's stance. I awaited the hurl of the ball when I noticed that everyone was staring at me. The bowler was standing there, tossing the felt-covered orb to himself. Soon, I heard snickers. Even sooner, it turned into outright guffaws. I looked over at the NRI and pleaded to him with my eyes for an explanation. He was cognizant of my vicissitude and started to walk over. "Sir, what's wrong? Why's everyone laughing?" "First of all, what are you doing?" "I'm standing here waiting for the ball." "Yeah, in a BASEBALL BATTING STANCE! These guys have no idea what the hell you're doing, hence the laughter!" Ah. Now I saw the humor in the situation. I was standing there like Cal Ripken, feet wider than the shoulders, knees bent, hips flexed, coiled like a snake to strike at my prey. The cricket batsmen stance is quite different. Basically, you keep your legs straight, bend at the hip, and lean on your rectangular bat like you've just popped a couple of discs in your vertebral column. Fine. I adjusted my position. With the merriment having died down somewhat, it was time to play ball! The bowler sized me up and smirked. It was obvious to him that I did not realize what I had gotten myself into. He assumed his position and started pitter-pattering his feet like Fred Flinstone when he bowls and chucked the ball. I took a huge swing and totally whiffed. Luckily, the ball bounced high enough that it didn't strike the bails off of the stumps. After a smattering of chuckles, bowler and batsmen were at the ready. Mano a mano. Once again, the ball was hurled. This time, I just wanted to make contact. I stuck the plank out and smacked a grounder that careened towards the crawlspace beneath the groundfloor. I saw my chance and took a dash for the opposite wicket. Before the ball could disappear into the rat-infested darkness, an opponent gathered it up and threw it towards the wicket. I saw how far away I was and made a judgement call. Since the ground was basically made of dirt, I made a decision that was the last I would ever make in the heat of battle of a cricket one-dayer...I SLID HEADFIRST into the wicket. My prodigious cranium rammed right into the three stumps, dislodging their piggybacking bails. I jumped up, dusted myself off and yelled, "Safe!" In a matter of moments, I was surrounded by the local seniors. They had started yelling and screaming about what I just did. They called me a bloody American. They said that their sport had no place for such shenanigans. And finally, they said "Get the fuck off the field!" I was just having a bit of fun. Apparently, I had desecrated their holiest of diversions and had to pay the price. The screams for my head were becoming more aural. Several seniors were staring guinsu knives through me. I figured it was probably a good time to hit the dusty trail. As I started walking away, I heard someone call my name. I turned around and it was the NRI senior. "Hey, my name is Anil." "Hi, sir." "Don't call me "sir". Just Anil." "Ok, Anil." "That was interesting what you just did back there." "I was just having a bit of fun." "Yeah well be careful. These guys hate Americans. Don't do anything to piss them off." "Yeah, I know. I didn't realize locals didn't have a sense of humor." "Probably not American humor. They thought you were mocking them." "No! I wasn't mocking them! I was just trying to add a little of my own flava to the proceedings." "Yeah well, from now on, just stick to basketball." As we continued our colloquy, I found out that Anil was from California and was part of '91 batch. He was pretty tall and blessed with long limbs. If he had an extra set, he would be a human octopus. Therefore, I dubbed him Anil The Long-Limbed. He told me to start coming to the basketball court after class and we could get a game going. He also told me if I ever needed anything to come to his room. He seemed like a really cool guy and one of the few cool NRI seniors I had met so far. The NRI seniors from '93 batch were quite aloof when it came to Abi, me, Mike, and Ajit. They seemed to think that they were better than us and had a very "holier-than-thou" attitude. The main offenders were Binu and Anil The Faker. Binu was from Chicago and looked like Nathan Morris from Boyz II Men. He often experimented with the motif of his facial hair, often coming up with impeccable designs that had such straight, sharp edges. He seemed like he wanted to be in GQ magazine. Anil The Faker was from Queens. He was an attractive fellow who had a peculiar gait. He walked with his backpack on one arm, the opposite arm tucked in his pants pockets, his back arched with excessive lumbar lordosis and thereby an accentuated posterior, and stuck his chest out. I'm just gonna come out and say it. Homeboy walked like a rooster. I didn't really intereact with the '93 NRIs much. They were off studying and besides, I had Mike and Ajit in the hostel to keep me company. Mike was a trip. He cracked a lot of jokes and told me lots of stories of his adventures in Tampa. We often spent lots of time in his bedroom just talking about things like sports, movies, music, and American pop culture. Come ON! O.J. DID IT, PEOPLE! Ajit was an interesting case-study as well. The guy's room was impeccably spic-and-span. A place for everything and everything in its place. His uniforms were arranged by color: white, whiter, and whitest. No one was allowed to wear their chappals (fobspeak for slippers) in his room. Whenever he saw one of the omnifarious insects, he surreptitiously culled one of his chappals and stalked the critter. Once he was locked on, he lightly tapped the insect with the chappal to stun it. Most of the time, it dropped in his hand. Then, he opened the door and threw it out. One of his most interesting quirks, tho, was that he was a Tom Cruise FREAK! He knew every movie that Mr. Cruise was ever in, and practically every line. He told me once about a time when he went to a bar in chicago and started talking to a couple of girls. He then used the line from "Top Gun" about crashing and burning or some shit like that. He ACTUALLY USED THE ENTIRE DIALOGUE! He had so many stories from his college days that I spent hours riveted by his chronicles. I was never going to know what college #life in America was like. Since Ajit graduated from college, his accounts were like a panacea to my forlorn yearnings for a normal college #life. Day after day brought constant reminders of how ABNORMAL #life could be. I mean, over here, the women wore pants and the men wore skirts! People walked oxen instead of dogs! Women had bushier beards than the men! But one of the first and most important lessons I learned in India was that misery indeed loved company.