Unspent time

Summers to a young child typically means mangoes and vacations. Obviously school results and heat waves do not feature here since I am talking of all things pleasant. Summer vacations form the core of the childhood memories. Playing cricket in scorching heat, video games in afternoon, reading loads of comics and the list just doesn’t end here. One activity, which I still miss some time, is hurling stones at tamarind and mango trees just to taste some of those sweet and sour fruits of hard work. And I am always in search of someone who would accompany me in these acts.

During my last semester I discovered that one of my friends also didn’t give up such quirky ideas, quirky since logically we had passed the appropriate age. I was surprised to discover it so late since he was my good friend then also and still is.

Since our hostel was near to the Profs residential area, which had a lot of mango trees, we both, in the obscurity of the night, at about 2-3 in the morning used to walk till there. Then I used to sit on his shoulder and used to pick some of these keris(unripe mangoes) from the tree. We used to walk back and then savor the fruit of our expedition with a bit of salt. With every walk we also discovered the trees which had the easy accessibility and which had sweeter mangoes than the rest. This continued for many days and eventually stopped.

Why am I writing about the quirkiness after 2 years? Firstly, it is very rare in life that you get to live your childhood days once again. Secondly and importantly, it is rarest that you spend these moments with a friend, who you would have loved to have in childhood. I felt, in hindsight that I was just making up for the time which we could not spend together as children by just doing one of the silly activities during oddest time of the day.

Before Semi-Finals

I have been supporting Mumbai Indians for 2.25 seasons now. My wait has paid some rich dividends in the form of an exclusive display by my team. And so I take this opportunity to vindicate my team of the semi-final loss, if they suffer one. Personally I have full sympathy with all the DD fans because DD, which was the best team last year, didn’t win the IPL. In fact the one which struggled to get into top 4 did it ultimately. My criterion of best is based, not on the basis of semi-final and final but on the basis of consistency. With 18 points already and 2 matches to play, there is no doubt that MI has been the most consistent team this year. So I say that I have serious objection with the present format of the IPL, in which consistency has been sidelined to make place for a single match heroics. You got to reward consistency and that reward should be nothing less than a winner’s cup. I know this is opportunistic but then it simply proves that I am a FAN.