THAT KABADDI MATCH

Previously -

The team having 2 captains, a freaky man, two advisors, and a wrestler-cum-racer had been lagging by 0-10 against the team having a prisoner, a ghost from the Hollywood movie, two rather adult men, and Parnav’s target - Abhishek who happened to be their captain as well.

 

Part2-

This was the turn for the opponent team’s to raid. The ghost guy came up with the raid and went away with two points. One advisor and Shivam went for the tackle from the left, but, in spite of a good effort, they had been deceived by the ghost guy’s slow, but perfect dubkii. Akshay patted his advisor’s back for trying, Himanshu - the captain no.2 - patted Shivam Bhaijaan’s back. It was our turn again to raid next. With Parnav out of the court and our captain no.1’s shocking 1^st raid, the question was - who would raid from our side.

Captain No.2 and Captain No.1 discussed a little and ordered, no just said, okay requested to the only advisor standing in the court that it’s the right time for him to show his abilities by clenching a point for the team. We - the pretenders - supported the captains’ decision and cheered the advisor, “Yes, this is the time to SHOW them up.”

The opponent team rightly predicted the killer intend of the coming raider. They clenched their fists and wrists, puffed up their chest with as much oxygen as they could, moved a little towards the back line, and stanched a little lower; they know that this was not their chance to ride, but to exterminate a ride of a raider, CLEVER-WITTY BASTARDS!

The advisor with cautious and very skilled steps moved to the right corner of the opponent’s side. He strides his right leg to gain a toe touch, but the cautious opponent allow him not to get him away with a point so easily, the effort failed. Sensing no way to get a point from that side, the advisor moved to the other corner, swinging and striding in the meantime. Here on the other side of the court, we were keeping the pin drop silence, our critique mind was on the rest.

The advisor seeing such a cautious response decided to take a chance, and this was what the opponent team was waiting for, they made no mistake, the prison guy from the mid block without a second delay sphered the advisor, and dashed him out of the court. The score was 0-13. The team with 2 captains, two advisors, a freaky man, and a wrestler-cum-racer was still waiting for their opening point. We were playing a Kabaddi game.

With both advisor, Parnav and Bhaijaan out of the court, hope to rebound was little. Captain No.1 occupied the right corner, while Captain No.2 occupied the left corner, leaving our wrestler-cum-racer with no option, but to stand in the middle. This time it was someone different from the other side, a new face for the raid, a monster like Parnav, they should had planned to send him to wipe out our entire team with use of that Cannibalistic creature. He was the same man whom we had mistakenly thought of as their coach. He with his muscular body started his raid rather carelessly; neither he was quick like their captain nor he had such skillful moves, he was just simply walking around the court. He take a round from one corner of the court to the other - as if analyzing whether the soil of this side was softer or harder than his side.

Then, he moved to the Himanshu’s side; alarmed by a monster arrival he moved back as far as he could, but the end reached, with no choice he moved a little to the right corner, and soon the whole of the team, our three warriors, were narrowed to one corner of the court. The monster with a witty smile on his face (why he wasn’t laughing foolishly, that’s against monster’s ritual) waved his hand and touched Ankur, then stepped forward to touch Akshay as well. But wait, that’s an attack, our captain was, at last, in action, he had literally jumped on the legs of monster, and had grabbed both of them. We were in awe and our breathe was on a hold while watching the full action.“Will it be the first point of our team.”, I thought.

The monster with his supernatural strength started dragging the our

Captain, he succeed in taking a long-first stride and fall just some inches before the line. Meanwhile, the rest two players too joined the hanging conundrum. And the tussle began - the monster dragged a little more, but was been dragged back by Ankur and Akshay’s combined effort, Himanshu noticing the danger of elongating hand of monster, moved quickly forward and snatched the elongated hand back, WISE-OLD-MAN!

But the dilemma seem unstoppable, the monster elongated his left hand this time, and made a stride for the line, however Himanshu managed to push that one back too, but that take all his efforts.

The picture was - Captain and racer-cum-wrestler was holding and backing the monster’s leg while our old fellow was cautiously pushing the hands back from the line, so that they would not cheat the team effort, the picture remained exactly the same for the next five seconds. Like in a tug-of-war game - no side was moving. Then, at last the whistle blowed, and we get our first point. The monster was down and out, and our monster was in the court. We celebrated our first point to the hell out of us - shouting, yelling and jumping. What a lovely moment!

“That PTI bastard take too long to whistle.” Shivam said in rage and like always everybody agreed unanimously. With one point to our board the critique in us was back.

Meanwhile, listening to the rackus, our Maths teacher - Neeraj Sir - a concerned teacher of all highly concerned classes, including ours, and favourite to all concerned students, including mine, who happened to pass by the ground, started moving in curiosity with his small but quick striding steps towards us.

“What happened? Do we win?” he asked to a student who was watching the match with a great disappointment.

“Hell NO, just the first point after a deserted performance.” he replied tersely - an unconcerned reply of an unconcerned student to a highly concerned teacher.

“What is the score then?” our teacher asked again.

“It’s 1-13,” he replied again. “Or maybe 1-14.”

The freaky man, the monster - Parnav was ready to raid from our side. Our highly concerned teacher decided to at least saw the raid of the most rebellious figure of our class before moving away to his own business.          

Parnav, dazed with previous fails, was burning from lost pride and revenge. He went for the raid, this time with cautious steps. He kept standing to the left corner inviting them to attack first while keeping a sharp eye on their middle block - the lanky one and the prison boy. 10 seconds passed neither Parnav took a stride nor do the opponent’s player, only Parnav was just hopping on his left then his right leg a little. Next 5 seconds passed in that solitary negotiation. Irritated from Parnav’s standing - right on their chest, and overwhelmed by the superiority complex, they attacked at last. The corner jumped over Parnav’s right thigh followed by their middle blocker who tried to grab Parnav by his waist. Parnav retreated immediately and with a first great effort which nearly had succeed in making him reach the touch line.

He was struggling and trying hard to push him to the line while both the opponents were trying hard to push him back. Soon, they were joined by one more player. The tussle had started, the mighter one would survive. This is the undeniable fact of Kabaddi.

Visitors from the back and from the sides were shouting for the Parnav in unison. “Parnav, Parnav…”, “Just a little more, you can do it.”, “Bring it Parnav, show them!”

Two more strides and Parnav did it. The already crazy crowd went insane. Our highly concerned teacher was smiling. Parnav was patting his thighs continuously to celebrate his victory. But later he noticed that it cost him bleeding right leg, bruised cheek, and shirt shredded in two from the left side, making his look even more killer and monstrous - a deadly wounded freaky monstrous. The score was 4-13; we were back on the game.

The match was stopped for a little while to repair our monster’s wounds. Our concerned teacher came to Parnav and said, “You know what, you can score better in academics too if you study the same way as you play.”

“Study, Study, Study!” Parnav said in rage. “Sir, it’s because of teachers like you that our country get lesser gold in Olympics.”

“So, you would get a Gold for India.” he checked the instinct.

“Definitely I would, if the teachers like you will let me play at my will.” Parnav answered harshly.

“G-O-L-D” our teacher chortled - a sarcastic chortle encoded with mathematical formulas and theorems that only a highly concerned Maths student could decode, I decoded it. Then, he went away with the same small but fast striding steps to mind his own business.

The game resumed again.

 

To Be Continued…