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I am round and I am red…This fact about me was pointed out to a man by another. The next moment I was hit aloft the 30,000 fans, screaming up, gazing at me. I was away from them as if I was shunned from their community, but then, when Newton’s Fourth Law [the one which says that things going up, come down too] cared to take notice of me, they, ecstatic of my air-borne presence, held their breaths and jumped in the air to welcome me – before anybody else – to the best of their abilities.
It is not always that I land in the stands, into the incapable hands of spectators – spectators to the unfolding drama of commitment, competition and passion. Sometimes or the other, unfortunately for some bloke standing in the midst of the open air theatre, I am recepted by both hands with such extreme care enough to shy away the most brittle of glass.
As such my heart is very soft, of cork. I always have to tie down my emotions with a string covering it all very tightly and put up a shining face of leather. But have to save the face from disintegrating into pieces of orange peel with the help of a seam.
I rather have a bright red face as to my younger cousin who is clean white but when the stress of the world weighs down on him; he easily becomes very placid and dirty. And then there are others of my species close to me, the Golf and the Tennis balls, quite different in various aspects. Actually they’ve adapted themselves (we are a pretty evolved species) according to their civilisations and Philosophy of life.
I was in a peculiar geographical confinement called as the subcontinent. The people here claimed that Cricket was religion, but I knew better, here, religion involved politics and politics involved religion.
Nevertheless, the fans – ranging from various communities, thronging the stands, never deny me the multitude of feelings which stem from various causes—counting from the minutest details of body structure to the Purpose that I serve the world.
Measuring hardly 225 mm when gauged by circumferential standards, I can be easily gripped in between fingers and that helps me conform myself towards my ultimate Purpose, notwithstanding, my weight of a five and a half ounces caters to need of the hard-hitters, who believe that I stay beyond the green cover. But it hurts me more when I’m tired and down and am deteriorating and I have to bear the hard ground on my face…rather than when I’m new and young and enjoy performing antic movements in the air.
Thus I serveth…
This is what my life’s aim is. Come what may, I am here to entertain the cheering crowd and repay whatever love and affection they’ve bestowed upon me every time I’m out in the middle. To make myself worthy of the recognition that I crave for.
To live through the power-plays and slog it out to the death while keeping the scoreboard of life ticking, over by over.
