Rugby comes to Basavanagudi

 




We knew the rules here.
Cricket in the morning, football by four.
The chalk lines faded but remembered us—
as did the mango tree that doubled as third umpire.

Our games had rhythm—
shouting over appeals,
jostling for the best bat,
teasing the goalie who always let one through.

Then they arrived—
a dozen strangers with laced cleats and broad grins,
their ball—odd, oval, unfamiliar.
Their run—deliberate,
their pass—backward,
their cheers—loud, but joyful, not arrogant.

We didn’t know the game,
but we knew the joy.
The shouts, the scrambles,
the huddles that made space for everyone.
Even the girl who fell face-first
got up grinning, dusted off,
and ran back in.

We stood around, arms folded,
not judging—just watching.
Like when rain falls differently
but still wets the same ground.

On the side
we mimicked their moves—
bent low, made fake passes,
laughed at ourselves,
and kept doing it anyway.

As they packed up,
dusty, flushed,
not a trophy in sight—
someone said, “Come again tomorrow?”

No one claimed the voice.
But they heard it,
and nodded.

And that day,
our playground didn’t change.
It just learned
a little more room.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 29, 2025 at 8:30 AM

    Wonderful!! The joy of playing unhindered comes out so nice!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Face We Show

Image
  There are stories that arrive softly— a life carried carefully, a grief that does not shout, a truth that asks to be met-without armor. And there are others. Loud with impact. Red with excess. Pain inflated into spectacle, violence polished until it gleams. The hall fills faster for these. People sit still, faces neutral, hands folded like witnesses— yet something inside them leans forward. Not the body. Something older. Quieter.  Less examined. They say it is entertainment. They say it is fiction. They say it is just a movie. But nothing draws a crowd-without answering a hunger. Perhaps the outwardly gentle- carry an inward noise— rage disciplined into silence, fear trained to behave, desire never given language. The screen permits what life forbids. Here, damage has no consequence. Here, cruelty is clean, contained, applauded. No one has to act. They only have to watch. Violence becomes a service—doing on their behalf what they would never allow themselves to feel. The sen...
Read more

HOME IN ITS FULL CIRCLE

Image
  HOME IN ITS FULL CIRCLE We began in a rented house— walls borrowed, hope our only possession— and slowly, brick by brick, we built a house on Bannerghatta Road, a place with no pedigree but filled with the pride of first foundations. Life shifted, paperwork turned, and the house we thought was ours became a lesson in impermanence. we bought a flat, believing it would hold our future, and yet never lived in it, for distance has a way of telling truths that blueprints cannot. So we let it go, and once more returned to the simplicity of a rented home. But life had already taught us that space is not measured in square feet, and worth is not inscribed in property papers. Its lessons came quietly, in the years spent with family (in-laws) elders who shaped the air of the house into something sacred. A home that felt like a temple not because of rituals or incense, but because of the discipline of kindness, the practice of restraint, the daily, ordinary worship o...
Read more

The very notion of the second is the seat of fear.

Image
  Krishna Speaks of the SECOND Listen, dear ones— you who chant My name with trembling faith, you who fear loss, death, loneliness, the world’s cruel turning— I tell you a secret the Upanishads sang long before you were born: The very notion of the second is the birthplace of fear. When you see Me as separate— above you, beyond you, outside you— your devotion still holds a thread of trembling. You love Me, but you fear My absence. You trust Me, but you dread My silence. You pray to Me, but you fear I may not answer. This is not wrong— it is just incomplete. For when the mind imagines two— you and Me, self and world, devotee and God — fear stands beside devotion as a silent shadow. Arjuna, this is why I revealed My cosmic form— not to frighten, but to show you there is no “other.” If all forms are My body, if all hearts are My pulse, if all beings rest in Me as waves in the sea— tell Me, beloved, what is left to fear? You are afraid only because you think ...
Read more