Within / Without

The heat, the littlest one had
wept, was killing him. The ball
would melt. A foot taller,
(so much faster), his sister

Had the look, of utter disgust
wiped in the next minute by
a wicket going down. Willow,
leather and some even had

Pricey Canvas Shoes. In the
afternoon, the shouts of a game
rang in the empty, grassless
field. The distinct sound of ball

Hitting bat. That ‘tock’ and
collective sigh. Some body’s mother,
her screaming lungs, and the
proverbial broken house window.

Amnesia Cricket¹, Like when the
memory of a ball thrown melts
into the brown of the pitch, or
the blood from a wounded knee

Drips down the naked calf. Half
a memory sitting rather still on
the stumps. Like a bail. Or a
sleeping insect when it was 8 PM.

Amnesia Cricket, or the art of
having forgotten all the times
that blood was sworn to testify
and attest the remains of the day.

I just spent some time poking my nose about in flickr to look at photographs tagged cricket. Found some old lovelies here. These two are records of village cricket. (1905 and 1931). There are some interesting snaps from Mungabareena from the 1930s, which I think is in Australia.

1. Incredible term, discovered via CC, when he mentioned the google searches that were getting people to his blog. [back]

Posted on September 18th, 2006 by Neha Viswanathan
Filed under: India, Poetry and Fiction