As all good stories start, this one too starts... Once
upon a time, long, long ago... about 120 years ago... A small kingdom in
Africa had been hit by severe droughts. The rains had failed over and over
again for many years and the kingdom was on the verge of a catastrophic famine.
The kingdom’s benevolent king had bankrupted the state treasury in an effort to
save his people. He had tried new methods of irrigation, water conservation
techniques and bought water in from outside. But without the rains, all his
efforts were only delaying the inevitable He had even consulted local witch
doctors and shamans who had had promised, falsely, to “make” rains. No rain
came. When all hope seemed to be lost, one of his ambassadors to a faraway land
came back with a report of a group of people who had the uncanny ability to
bring water pouring down from the heavens with their apparently inane rituals.
Intrigued, and as a final throw of the dice, the king made arrangements for these
people to be brought to his country. They arrived to much fanfare, and, on a
fine sunny day, without a cloud in sight, took to a field with their wooden
implements. The group spread out on the open field and a couple of them started
marking the ground with their wooden sticks. Another one, with a smallish orb
in his hand ran in and threw the orb at one of the person standing with the
stick… and sure enough, 10 minutes later, the match was abandoned due to heavy
rain. True story.
I have a bone to pick today. It is about Lagaan,
the Bollywood movie. Common consensus is that the ending would have been tragic
if Captain Russel had caught the last ball within the boundary ropes. I
disagree. In fact, not only would it have been more tragic and but also more
realistic, if the rain had arrived not
after the match, but started about 30 minutes prior to the end and turned into
such a heavy downpour that the match was abandoned without the final over being
bowled. The way it turned out, to put it mildly, it is the equivalent of Inzamam-ul-Haq
beating Usain Bolt in the 100 m dash at the Olympics. Unrealism dripping out of
every seam. But then, Lagaan is product of the Bollywood industry and you make
your peace with it. On most days, anyways.
The reason for this grumpy post is not hard to
fathom. Our cricket match over the weekend was cancelled due to rain, despite
the weather forecast being sunny right up until the evening before. If I had a
nickel for every time foul weather has had a hand in curtailing my cricket
matches… no, I would not be a millionaire, but I would, nonetheless, have
$2.43. Now, the mathematically astute amongst you might be going, “Wait a
second, if I have learned anything at all from the knuckle raps I received at
the hands of my primary school math teacher, it is the firm knowledge that
$2.43 is in no way perfectly divisible by $0.05.” And you are absolutely right!
The amount is pro-rated to include reduction in overs due rain delays.
But then, onward we look to the next weekend.
Hope springs eternal.
