It was an early April day. Daylight had increased as the sun was setting around 8:30 pm. I was walking back from the University at 6 p.m. thinking about what to prepare for the dinner when I saw two boys at the cricket pitch. They were with their mum who was standing by side and giving the young boys their space. They were in nets area playing with a ball.
The younger boy was around 3-4 years. The elder son was around 7 years old, kicking football towards the nets. The younger one was watching him with admiration. He closed his eyes tightly whenever he sensed that the ball was aimed at him. There was the net though shielding him. Phew! The elder one kicked the ball a few more times. Every time the brother would shut his eyes tightly. Once the ball bounced back, he would open and smile. He was holding one of the cricket stumps, green in colour.
After a few rounds of this, the elder kicked the ball again but this time football shot up to a height, somehow managed to pass through the squares of the nets' ceiling, and landed straight on the net. The elder boy made an expression of pain and surprise towards his brother. The brother ran up and down the cricket pitch thinking what to do. He extended the green stump towards his brother who ran towards it, grabbed it and threw it above. In a moment of disbelief, the green stump went straight through the gaps of the net and landed quite close to the football. Both the brothers were looking at each other as if the other one had finished all the ice cream and the guests were arriving for an ice cream party.
Their expressions of guilt quickly changed to embarrassment as the elder one looked at his mother quietly looking at her phone. Probably wondering what will we do? In a very soft voice that was in quite contradiction to his yahhhs and yooss while kicking football just a few moments before, he called, ‘Mumma’.
Their mother heard them and looked at where the elder son was pointing to. From resting on one leg, she adjusted her posture and confidently strode towards the nets. She looked around the ground. There was no one. There were two stumps. In the middle of the ground there was a broken empty pot which looked very odd to me when I first saw it on the ground. She directed the elder son to go and grab it. He brought it back. Turns out it was a deflated ball.
She threw the deflated ball towards the football stuck on the nets. The net had stretched out in an uneven way such that it made a depression in the centre. The football was stuck on the edge of it.
Deflated football collided on point and moved their ball. The boys were laughing. Now they were having fun. Their mother showed them how to do it again. The elder son tried it a few times. But the ball kept moving inwards instead of outwards. Mum showed them the technique again. This time the green stump stuck on the net, flew out. The younger son ran towards it and grabbed it back. He watched everything quietly with gasps and aahs for every throw by his brother. After a few more trials with the elder son, the mum finally threw a shot, and the ball was out too.
I clapped loud and hard. We exchanged some cheers. The boys went back to playing. I continued on my two roads diverged in a wood pathway.