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Source: The internet.
I am not sure who has created this. Do not sue me, whoever you are.
Inform me. I will give due credits. If there is still an issue, I will take it down. |
They saw him emerge. The white
robe was smeared with enough dust for the screen to freeze and run multiple
Tide commercials. The grime-coated mane looked so shaggy that it seemed he
would go into a “rose, rose, Nima rose” dance the moment he would come in contact
with anything remotely similar to water.
The tired legs, refreshed by inexplicable magic that only grim determination is capable of producing, marched on. The boys heard his footsteps and turned around,
one by one. His feet were clad in paduka of the make that echoes on
wooden floors, but refused to do the same on loose, soft of dust of Haryana.
The man looked at the princes. The question in his eyes was unmistakable.
“The ball has landed in the well,
Sir,” Yudhishthir told him. The great man believed him the way everyone has always done. Years
later, this trait would lead to his downfall, but that is another story.
“Hm, but that is not a serious
issue. That can be resolved. You can throw something inside and get the ball in
the well,” boomed the voice.
"But we do not have anything with us! And what on earth can be long enough to reach that deep inside a well?" asked Arjun with genuine curiosity.
“Why don't you show us how to do
it, Sir? We are hungry,” growled an irate Bheem.
“He cannot. All he has is a paduka,
not a bazooka.”
“This is no time for puns, Dushshasan,”
Duryodhan shut him up.
“Look at what I do,” announced
the great man, and threw his own ring into the well.
Dushshasan reacted immediately: “The
ring will be having a ball down there.” Duryodhan gave him a glare, but not
very seriously. Encouraged, Dushshasan added: “He thinks he retrieve get the
ball by giving him a ring.”
This time even Duryodhan smirked.
If the ring is made of gold we can always call it a golden retriever, he
told himself, but did not say it out aloud. The Duryodhans of the world are all
about glum personalities and fragile thighs.
“Look at what I do,” the great
man spoke. “You may laugh today, but one day I will have a prestigious award named
after me.”
“Is he Alfred Bernhard Nobel?”
Arjun asked Yudi.
“Nope, does not seem so. Nobel
will be born much later. This is probably Dronacharya,” an eavesdropping Sahadeb
responded, “the son of Bharadwaj and Gritachi who was born in a pot.”
Dron picked up a handful of dry
grass from the dusty ground. “He seems to have moved on from pot to grass,” Nakul
interrupted, celebrating silently the fact that he had beaten Dushshasan to the
pun by a millisecond.
The princes watched in marvel as
Dron uttered a few mysterious words that could well have been in Hebrew. Then he
took up a blade of grass, which, by some magic, had turned dart-like; he pierced
the ball with the blade, went on to hit the first blade with the second, the
second with the third, and so on till he formed a well-length rod of dried
grass converted into darts.
Then he pulled the ball out of
the well. Then he did the same and pulled the ring out as well. A confused
Duryodhan tried to ask him why dropping the ring was essential, but he was
interrupted:
“Go, kids. Tell Bheeshma that
Dron has arrived.” And Arjun ran, for Dron was impossible to find despite
the fact that he was searched by the police of as many as eleven nations.
And Dron was recruited. He was
given a village, which later got the name Gurugram, and is usually referred to
as Gurgaon these days, but that is another story.
[Note: The etymology of Gurgaon, as mentioned in the paragraph above, is generally accepted. It is for a reason that the metro station between Delhi and Gurgaon is
called Guru Dronacharya. However, the tale serves no purpose to the story. I used it
here only to show off my knowledge of Delhi metro, which is probably the most
efficient thing the National Capital Region right now. It also has a station
called Ghitorni, where you put a hard stress on the Gh while pronouncing. Try
saying it.]
***
We all know what followed: the
famous incidents involving Dron’s leg, Arjun, and the crocodile; Arjun’s pitcher
and Ashwatthama’s pot; Arjun and the bird’s eye (an incident that has made its
way into classrooms); Ekalavya, a significant chunk whose life was spent
without the ability to give a thumbs-up; the Pandavs defeating Drupad’s army in
a violent battle; and Dron taking control over half of Panchal.
The others became experts at
combat as well. Bheem and Duryodhan, for example, showed became Aces with Maces,
and were sent to complete their PhD under Balaram. There was much else that
happened, but everyone knows about all that.
***
Let us now get back to that fateful
summer day (I am assuming it was summer; it adds to the effect, with dust and a
near-dried-up well; basically the entire package) when Dron arrived in
Hastinapur, the Pandavs and Kauravs were left bewildered.
Despite being outnumbered by a
hundred to five, the Pandavs had always been the stronger of the two sides.
Dron’s appearance tilted the scales even further. Not only were the Kauravs bashed up by
Bheem, but they also had to be very, very scared of the prowess of Arjun.
Dushshasan was affected the most by the incident. He had kept the ball as a
memento. As the young princes lost interest in ballgames and moved on to bigger
things (ballgames were not, after all, everyone’s ballgames), Dushshasan grew
more and more interested.
Ballgames meant a lot to him. They
played ball every day, and for longer hours every winter. An annual contest between
Pandavs and Kauravs typically marked the advent of spring. Reduced to five members
a side, the contest was inevitably won by the Pandavs, who were led by their
ace player Bheem, who could muscle the ball anywhere.
The matches followed a familiar
course. Dushshasan could hurl the ball really, really fast, and could even move it in the other. The other four
Pandavs, terrified of his pace and foxed by his wiles, succumbed one by one till
Bheem came along and plonked him all over and even outside the ground.
It was the same story every time.
Nobody seemed to care for the
contest this time, but Dushshasan kept hoping. He urged Duryodhan to go for it
one final time. “I will bowl us to victory,” he gloated. Duryodhan seemed
amused, took some cajoling, but went ahead with it. He loved his brother too
much.
The Pandavs accepted the challenge,
especially Nakul and Sahadev: it was their only opportunity to be treated as
equals.
***
The big day had arrived. Six long
sticks were placed on a bare strip, three on each side. The princes had arrived
with well-polished planks of wood, specially obtained from the beautiful
mountains up north.
The ground was covered with
spectators. They knew it was going to be the last of of its kind for the current generation of princes. The next
fixture may have to wait for decades.
Yudhishthir and Duryodhan walked to
the strip at the centre, accompanied by Bheeshma, the most eligible bachelor of
the era. It was decided that the Pandavs would get the first share of the ball.
Duryodhan and Dushshasan were, of
course, there in the quintet. The others were selected randomly: Chitrasen,
Durmukh, and Vikarna made it. Duryodhan sent Chitrasen and Durmukh in first.
Arjun started proceedings with
nagging accuracy, and soon the sticks went flying, sending Chitrasen back to
the makeshift tent. Duryodhan walked out and smashed a couple here and there.
He had managed to cross ends
before Arjun was through. It was Bheem’s turn now, and he hurled a missile that
hit Duryodhan straight on the thigh. Duryodhan yelled in agony. It would not be
the last time that it would happen.
Bheem soon hit Duryodhan’s paduka,
and went into a war cry. Vidur raised his finger spontaneously. Dushshasan
walked out and glared back at Bheem.
“I will rip your chest apart and
drink your blood,” warned Bheem.
“Who do you think you are, Count Dracula?” mocked Dushshasan.
Bheem did not answer. He grunted,
and sent down one that was too fast to be encountered. The ball took the bat,
the sticks, and Yudhishthir (who was standing behind the sticks) along with it. Ripping his chest apart and drinking blood had to wait.
Had he played a few centuries
later Dushshasan would have had a zero against his name on the giant scoreboard.
Unfortunately, Aryabhatta had not yet been conceived, so the spot remained
blank.
Vikarna and Durmukh ran about a
bit, and when Arjun pitched one to Vikarna’s left he went for it; the ball
grazed the edge of the plank and went to Yudhishthir. The Pandavs needed to
score only nine.
The Kauravs had half lost the
battle there. Had the Kauravs scored 50 they would have stood with a chance of a
fight, but eight? It was a matter of two hits from Bheem!
Duryodhan took first ball, and Nakul
and Sahadev played him out cautiously. They had run four times, twice when each
was facing Duryodhan. Devoid of all hope, the eldest Kaurav threw the ball to
Dushshasan.
Dushshasan ran in. The paduka
made a soft, characteristic plonk-plonk when he reached the crease. Sahadev
knew the ball would leave him and acted in anticipation: only that it did not.
The ball swerved in, as if by
some magic, and knocked one of the stumps straight out of the ground. Arjun followed,
same fashion, next ball. Bheem walked out.
Dushshasan had bowled to Bheem
before. He knew the strongest of Pandav brothers had little technique, but whenever he
connected, it cleared the ground irrespective of whether he had timed it well. Bheem
was all about power.
It was a dry day — reminiscent of
the one when Dron had stepped into Hastinapur. Bheem took guard. Dushshasan took
his time. He had apparently bruised a finger. The attendants ran in with random
medicated oils.
Then Dushshasan ran in to hurl
the ball again. He knew exactly what he had to do.
Bheem saw the ball early. He went
for it. He simply waited for that sweet sound that would send the ball soaring
over the marquee, resulting in victory for his side.
[Note: The cliched phrase “into
the stratosphere” would have sounded a lot cooler here. However, the term “stratosphere”
had not been coined till then.]
He was wrong. This time the ball
swerved almost absurdly. The movement made absolutely no sense as the ball crashed
into Bheem’s paduka and rolled on to the stumps.
Duryodhan was the first to
celebrate. He ran in and embraced his younger brother. The Kauravs rejoiced:
this was, after all, their first chance at beating the Pandavs.
It took them one more ball to
decide the match. Dushshasan’s ball grazed something on the way and Vikarna
flung himself to his right to pouch the ball in spectacular fashion. They
shouted only half-heartedly, but Yudhishthir — being the person that he was — walked.
***
Once the festivities were over, Duryodhan
cornered his second brother: “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Move the ball into the
Pandavs. That is what I do. You move it the other way round. I have seen
your grip. You bowled with the same grip.”
“Oh, that. Remember the day when
Dron arrived?”
“Yes, so?”
“Remember the ball he recovered?
It still had that long rod of grass sticking out from it. As all of you went to
the palace, I sat idly, next to the well, scratching the ball absent-mindedly.”
“So?”
“I started playing with it since
then, hurling it randomly, the way I had always done. The ball started swerving
— you have to believe this — in the other direction!”
“Really?”
“Yes. Then I started making marks
on one half of the ball, leaving the other intact. All balls behaved that way.
In fact, it worked better in dry days. Then I asked myself, why not use
something like oil to smoothen up the other side? It will simply increase the difference in smoothness levels between the two sides.”
“Makes sense; and all this time I
had used oil to smoothen...”
“Let me finish. Oil had the same
effect. It was just that the ball swerved the other way. Now, for Sahadev and
Arjun, I had already scuffed up one side. To be doubly sure for Bheem, I thought of applying oil on the other. But I did not.”
"Why?"
"Because I have never practised with an oiled ball. It struck me that a much better alternative would be to scruff up the already soiled side more, and more, and more. I used this dagger..."
***
Somewhere in the 20th century a fast bowler woke up with a start. He told his colleagues: “I
had this strange dream, you know. Will someone give me an old cricket ball and a soft-drink bottle?”
