Pepsi Cup

(I wrote this short story when I was in 9th standard, for a competition. This is not a real life incident.)

"Arun, wake up. It's six-thirty.", my mother's voice from kitchen woke me up from sleep. Hoping to continue a pleasant dream I was having, I tried to bury myself deep into the bed and mumbled, "Five minutes mom."

"Hmm, it's first of November. Remember you promised to start regular yoga from today ?", her words made me forget all about sleep and I was immediately wide awake.

'First of November', I thought. 'India versus Australia Pepsi Cup ODI series starts today. Man, after the humiliating defeat in World Cup, it's pay-back time, got to pack-off these Aussie batsmen with spinning tracks...' My thoughts were interrupted by the realization that I had to go to school. 'Maybe I can watch the match in library', I continued thinking. 'The librarian is a very nice guy, he will surely let me watch. The trick is to escape from class after attendance. Hmm, with double Maths class first-up and then sport's day rehearsal... No, it's impossible.....'

"ARUN !!", my mom's tone was getting impatient and I knew that it'll be my funeral if I allowed her to continue in this vein. In a second, I worked out a strategy and yelled, "Aah, my stomach.... Ooh..."

"What happened ?", her tone was a bit suspicious but nevertheless, concerned. Come on, she is a mom !

"Severe stomach ache mom. Oh God, don't know how I am going to spend the whole day standing in the sun." Yes, that's it, subtlety is the key. 

"What ? Standing ". Good, now I have her full attention !

"Yes, we have sport's day rehearsal today. After attendance we will go out and, aah, it's paining, and yea, full day practice." 

Mom hated sport's day, annual day, teacher's day, library periods, music periods... pretty much anything happening in school that had nothing to do with academics.

"I don't know why they waste valuable time with these practices" she went on, " that too for sport's day. Don't go to school today." Yes, I did it !

"But mom, it will be fun, we are planning to play cricket and..." Well played Arun !

"Nothing doing", she interrupted with finality, "stay home, take rest and when you feel ok, study something."

"Oh-k", I said in a 'reluctant' mumble. Self-hi5 !

*****

"Take care, eat lunch properly. And no junk snacks ok ?  Tata", with these words my mom left for work. It was almost 9 AM. I sat in front of the TV, switched it on and let Ravi Shastri's voice fill the drawing room, "A lot of cricket is being played in this part of the world. Here we have the two captains, Sourav Ganguly with the coin. Up goes the toss...."

The TV screen went blank. Perplexed, I looked around and noticed the ceiling fan slowing down. What a time for power-cut ! I sat there for two minutes, staring at the black TV screen, hoping beyond hope for power to return. When nothing happened for few minutes and the room started getting warm, I opened the front door for some fresh air. Our neighbor was leaving for work.

"Hello Arun, din't go to school today ?"

"No uncle, not feeling well. Do you have electricity in your house ?"

"No, it's Wednesday, isn't it ? They do maintenance work in our locality, so there won't be power till 6 PM. Anyways, got to go now, take care. Bye."

I stood there not knowing what to do. Slowly I walked in and sat down. The disappointment of missing out the match slowly sunk in. 'Anyways', I attempted to console myself, 'you at least escaped from double Maths today !' I sat reading some random books and soon it started raining. The dark clouds did nothing to improve my mood. By two in the afternoon, it was beginning to get very boring. Just when I decided to grab some snacks, I heard a soft knock and someone calling out my name. I rushed to the front door, opened it and saw my grandmother standing there.

"Hai dear, how is your stomach ?", she said.  "Your mother told me you will be home. Help me with this bag, will you ?" 

"I am ok grandma, how are you ?", I picked up her bag and kept it on the sofa. " I thought you were gonna return tomorrow." Grandma lived with us, she was away visiting a few relatives in a nearby town.

"Oh, it got boring there. I spoke to your mother today and she said about your stomachache. Thought I will return and take care of you. Oh my, were you planning to eat these oily snacks ? Go to your room and take rest, I will make some kashayam for you.", she said unpacking her bag.

'Kashayam' is a typical grandma remedy for petty sicknesses. It's made by boiling some Ayurvedic herbs, leaves, root etc (different ones for different ailments). It always tastes yucky though and that yuckiness is supposed to cure you (I never get that logic.).

Knowing it was no point protesting , I went to my room and within half an hour, was subjected to the unpleasant experience of drinking kashayam. "Now take rest.", said my grandma.

*****

At 5 PM, I picked up the telephone, called my friend and asked him about school work.

"Oh, today was total fun", he said. "Maths teacher was on leave, so we had two periods free. And then it started raining so the rehearsal was cancelled. Few of us sneaked out of class just after attendance, went to library and watched the match. Am sure you watched it too, right ? Man, what an innings from this new guy Sehwag. Awesome right ?! And  Zaheer's hat-trick ! I am so glad I caught the match live, what tension in the end. We all yelled and shouted when we won finally, it was legen....."

I silently cut the call.

*****