Chapter 3: Dream or Goal [2]
But the 11 points in Batting Technique were as fresh oiled gear in a machine which was rusty. Still it was a struggle, although the grinding was not so severe. The smoothness of the tint was there.
As the game at last dispersed at the setting of the evening sun in the hues of orange and purple, Abhinav threw a friendly arm around the shoulder of Raghav.
You were hot to-day, man, you were, he said. Play that in the school trials next month and you will make the team all right.
The words were a shock of cold water to Raghav. School trials. Naturally, there is an opportunity to him to demonstrate his talent and he would have forgotten all about it.
During his first life, he had tried and was cut to pieces, having in the first match neither the zeal of his talent nor the powerlessness of his arm.
It was among the primal disappointments of his youth.
This would be different the second time around. It had to be. It was his actual test, his own test to test his progress in a formal way. A month. He had one month.
He bid his farewells and went back to his small two bedroom house. The aroma of onions and garlic being fried welcomed him at the door.
He shed off his dusty sandals and was at once greeted by his mother, Nimala, with her pale face creased into the typical concern which was her habitual look when dealing with her children.
Look at you all dirty and sweaty, coming, she thought, all covered with sweat and dirt.
She gave him a cold glass of water made in a steel glass.
Wash hands properly before dinner. And drink this. You will get a cold running about in the heat.
Raghav quenched himself on the water. It made him feel like home, pure and intense, like a simple and deep flavour that he had not known so much that he missed.
"I'm fine, Mas."
(AN: Maa/Ma refer to Mother in India )
"So our star is back home "— a voice in the living room parodied. His sister, Priya, was seated on the floor and she had textbooks all around her.
When she was sixteen, she was in the midst of her board exams, she had forgotten how big the world is and was reduced to physics formulae and history dates.
"He spends his day hitting a ball with a stick and believes that he is fit to play in the World Cup in the Indian Team."
Priya had a tendency to tease him in his first life and this irritated him.
But the 42 year old Raghav merely smiled remembering how proud she was to be taken into a good university and how she had tried hard to be a successful software engineer.
He did not view her as a disruptive sister, but an ambitious young woman on her progressive life journey.
"Perhaps I am" he continued and even he was surprised by the amount of confidence in his own voice.
Looking up an eyebrow, Priya made no further comment.
Afterwards the four of them took their dinner on mats placed over the floor of their small living room. In the corner was a small, boxy television which was showing the news.
His father Umesh Roi was home because he was an accounts clerk in a government office and his face was equal parts the silent tiredness of a man who had to work many hours without getting much money.
He was a good man, he was, a man of permanence, in the early life of Raghav, but he was a practicalist, a man of education and of a regular occupation, above all.
He wanted Raghav to be the quiet of a desk and a pension, which was his dream.
"How was school, son?" Umesh asked his usual opening question.
All right, Papa. I was fine.
He knew this was his opening. The gully cricketing, the school experiments, everything was leading to this discussion.
He took a deep breath. Papa, next month the school cricket teams come on trial.
Umesh was nodding, and picked up some dal in his roti. "That's nice ... .Sports are good because they help you be healthy.
His pronunciation was as he would have said to a hobby such as stamp collecting. Significant to growth, and not to existence.
I would like to be chosen this time, Raghav insisted, but his voice was stronger than one which a 12-year-old ought to have.
"I want to take it seriously."
Priya smiled to herself on her plate.
"Seriously? You will skip tuition to have more practice?
Priya, have your food, children, said their mother reprovingly.
Umesh ceased to eat and stared at Raghav with a keen analytical eye.
It was the expression he said when hollowing his books. "What do you mean, 'seriously'?"
In this instance it was the moment he wished he was to ask whether it was really true, what he wished, thus this moment will be the juncture of his life.
I would like to attend an academy....A nice one... the one by the university premises. They possess net-sacks, leather balls, trainers...
The air in the room grew heavy. Cricket academies are also expensive. Fees, money, for equipment, money, for travel. Money which they need not have spared. This very question had been quietly and yet decisively suppressed in his primeval life in Raghav.
'Focus on your studies, son. Cricket will not put your bills on board in days to come.
His father started off, patient, but with a hard bend of reality, Raghav.
"Those places are expensive. And your studies are more significant. You have your exams coming up. The most important thing to have is a good education. Sports are… for fun.".
"But Papa, Sachin Tendulkar…" Raghav began the archetypal debate of all cricket crazy boys in India.
And there is only one Sachin Tendulkar, his father interrupted him, with not unkindness, but absoluteness.
"There are millions of boys who dream, and then they wake up and have to find a job, in order that everyone would want to be like him. I would like you to secure a future, beta. Not a lottery ticket."
( AN: Beta refer to Son in India)
These lines were an ideal echo of the past, and they hurt just as much now as they had hurt then. This was not the same boy as Raghav was.
He did not cry and make a storm. The 42 years old man within him realized the fear of his father, his practicality of life due to the struggle in finance.
A childish argument could not bring him victory. He had to show them. He also needed to demonstrate that his commitment was not a passing fantasy.
He ate his dinner alone and his mind was running as he also believed that his father was right.
He could not simply demand that they would invest in his dream and first he had to invest with it with the only currency he had and that was with effort.
Then, later at night, as he lay in his little bed, and heard his family retire to rest, the sound of them going to sleep pervading the thin walls, he shut his eyes and said to himself,
'System'.
In the darkness the old blue screen came to life.
[Host: Raghav Roi]
[Age: 12]
[Stamina: 15/ ]
[Strength: 12 ]
[Batting Technique: 11]
[Bowling Skill: 5]
[Fielding: 8]
[Cricket IQ: 25 ]
[System Points (SP): 5]
The figures were still ridiculously small. He was aware that there was no better way of improving than entering an academy.
The door was closed, however, at the moment. He had to find another way.
He was forced to establish a root that even the common sense of his father could not oppose. He needed to get stronger. Faster. Fitter.
The system chimed as though it was reading his thoughts, a well-pleasing sound in his mind.
[Hosts have proven to have a great desire in order to establish a base of future development. A new long term mission has been produced.]
[New Mission Assigned: Foundation of a Champion.
[Purpose: The temple of a real sportsman is the body. The following fitness routine should be performed every day of the seven days:].
[Run 1 kilometer continuously.
[Complete 20 push-ups.]
[Complete 30 sit-ups.]
[Note: the routine will have to be done on a daily basis. The inability to finish the routine on a particular day will restart at Day 1.
[Reward: +2 Stamina Points, +1 Strength Point, 15 System points (SP).
Raghav opened his eyes and read the mission details. This could not be a mere exercise such as playing a few balls in the gully with my friends. This was a grind. A real, grueling commitment.
His present strength was a pathetic 15. He did not know whether he could manage a kilometer running without taking a break to do Twenty push-ups? Before his arms failed him he was likely to be able to handle five.
This is all that he hoped that the system would live him in his dream life. It was not providing him with talent gratis.
It was providing him with a way out, a promise that his suffering, his toil and bloodshed would not go to waste. It would be measured, calculated and rewarded.
He could hear the words of his father in his ears. 'Focus on your studies.' The world had been advising him to follow the safe trail, the one he had already covered to its frustrating end.
but another way was the blue screen before his face. A more difficult way, a stiffer ascent, yet one which would be bringing him to the pinnacle of his ambitions.
He examined the mission once again,Seven days. It felt like an eternity. But it was also a start. It was his own investment. It was proof.
In his dark bed that night Raghav Roi said a vow to himself, and to the unhearing, radiant mechanism which was his sole confidante.
He would do the job; However sore his muscles might be screaming and however many his lungs might be on fire, he would not miss the job.
There would be no beginning of the path to becoming the greatest cricketer in the world in a fancy academy.
It would begin to-morrow at dawn on the dusty path of the local field, with one pain-filled stride.