The blue crystalline sky's cheek turned red as her
partner, the Sun, parted off with a flying kiss, as dusk fell upon us. I and Shash
had been waiting all along the day to soak ourselves in the cool breeze of the
moon by the side of a calm sea after having withstood the soaring heat of the
hot summer. Little did we know that "Before the storm there lies a deathly
calmness". Though the sky was star studded and hustled in joy but there
was an underneath turbulence in the mind's eye warning us of the eventual
danger. At distance we could see the light houses with their eye-piercing
lights going off and on as to warn us of the eventuality instead of guiding the
ships. We ignored all those "Warning Signs" and cold played(The
famous Rock band) it.
As usual it was Shash who broke the silence and
started mellowing a song "Woo Shaam Kuch Ajeeb Thi, Yee Sham Bhi Ajeeb
Hai". Shash is one of my close friends who for all his heroics in his life
so far had mesmerized many a people and a new term was coined to honor his
heroics -Shashmerize. Being shashemrized means having oneself completely
immersed and treated to the wittiness of
Shash's inane ability to bowl over any one in his witted
dialog/conversation over any topic covering whatsoever sphere of life. He had
something unique in him to make us listen to him whenever he opens his book of
imagination. He was truly J K Rowling of our peer group.
This evening it was a bit different as we were in no
mood to contemplate but to enjoy what is being offered to us. A souvenir scotch
which was given to me as birthday gift by one of my friends was accompanying
us. I poured out the scotch and served Shash.
We both took a shot each. It was from here that our thoughts went topsy turvy.
Shash took in the reins of controlling the events which will eventually
happen. He just started with a preposition,
"What if we imagine ourselves now being in the middle of a IPL
match". Frankly came the unabated reply from me "What?". He
continued, "Those stars in the sky smiling upon us look like the IPL
Franchisee owners who in real life are stars representing their team, the
roaring sea waves resembles the huge cry of the spectators cheering for their favorite
team/player". For me it seemed to make sense as my logical brain was
shutoff. I asked, "Where are the teams, players, I see none of them".
Pat came the reply from Shash, "You can only see as much as you can
imagine. You can't see beyond your imagination/thoughts". But he added
indistinctively, "The distant light beacons resembles that of flood lights
of the stadium, making the lit sea look a cricket ground".
Shash was painting a picture in front of me which my
mind too was well augmenting. I was able to see all the action alive as the
narration went on. It was akin to listening to audio of a movie over a radio
station and trying to picturaize things happening by the narration. "If
narration is rewetting your eyes can behold the unforeseen". I was just
falling pray for the witty web that Shash was laying. There was a white
rectangular look-alike patch in the middle of the sea being lit by the silvery
rays of the moon and flood lights. Anyone who could see that white patch could
tell that the ambience conjures with that of a stadium with the patch
resembling the pitch and the slightly lit region of the sea resembling the
cricket playground. The dancing waves looked as if they are the fielders
hustling all around the field.
Waves advancing from bowler-end of the patch to the
batsmen-end were considered as a ball being bowled to the batsmen and if those
waves were reciprocated by the waves originated at the batsmen end of the patch
then it was considered as the ball being batted. If there was a wave which came
from batsmen's end all along the way to the sea shore with a ferociousness of a
lion then it was deemed as 6. The wave
originated at the batsmen-end which had all the potential to reach the shore
but was annulled by another wave was considered being caught. Likewise, If the
wave coming from bowler's end to batsmen's overcame the wave from batsmen's end
then it was deemed as being bowled out. The rules which Shash explained me were
all making sense. I really started feeling like being in a center of the
stadium abuzz with people.
I helped myself with another shot, meanwhile Shash
was continuing with his story. He started immediately saying - "Look,
Look, Look over there! That huge tall wave; that is our Chris GaayLe from
RCB". Shash muttered
"Gayle" in native UP accent which if it had to be understood in Hindi
meant "take the cow" -- Gaay Le. It automatically tickled my laughing
hormones and I had been rolling over the sand for comparing Gayle to a cow.
I vaguely
asked "What is our weather forecast?". "Till Gayle is around
there are huge chances of a tsunami or more precisely GaayLe Tsunami. So hold
on to your ground, you never know when you will be swept off", Shash
replied. I was compelled to imagine what Shash was narrating by correlating
waves to sixes, fours, catch and what not. On that night I was just like blind
Dhrutharashtra vizualizing what Sanjay was narrating about the happenings of
the Mahabharatha battle ground. Shash had turned more better than Sanjay as he
was able to overlay on my eyes fielders instead of hustling waves, sixes for
ferocious wave, being caught out for the waves being annulled. All in all that
was the night which I had stretched my vision beyond my thoughts. Shash's
Sidduisms in between was just adding to the flavor of the ongoing event. Shash
on that day was as effective as Siddu in making comparisons which created an
everlasting impression in my mind.
The on-coming wave –cricket shot from Gayle to be
taken in proper sense- made us so oblivious to the surroundings that little did
we realize that the huge wave which was splashing towards us was the actual, all
devouring, all consuming TSUNAMI. It was the last blow that we received from
Gayle after which we never WOKE UP and have gone into infinite loop never to
return back!!!!!
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