Burrow friend

Here's another story from the life and times of a little boy with a restless mind. This is from the phase where I had found an awesome friend in a red rubber cricket ball.
It costed Rs.4/- and was usually bought after a lot of pestering and promises that this time I wouldn't lose it. I loved the design on the ball which had markings that vaguely reminded me of the seam on a real cricket ball. It was enough to make me imitate seam positions with my little fingers and sometimes even rub it on my pants just to feel "even I'm in the league"

With not many kids in the neighbourhood and my two sisters hardly bothered about cricket, I used to have a tough time motivating myself to get to play cricket or any other ball game. So it usually used to be one department a day...say bowling, batting (hang ball) or catching (rebounds from the uneven, stone compound wall) It would begin with religiously watering a stretch of the ground that I had demarcated as a pitch. Then rolling it, yeah rolling it by riding my bicycle on it several times. No half measures here. For the pitch to be ready at the right time of the day, I had to start early in the afternoon, and that meant completing home work as soon as I finished lunch. So home work was just another thing on the way. Ok the pitch is ready. Now the stumps go in place, the ones cut and sawn from trees around the neighbourhood.
Six of them.... I had to be professional!!!
Then the unending process of marking the run up and bowling innumerable deliveries to an invisible batsman at the other end would begin. Thank God there was a compound wall at the other end which helped in stopping the ball. The thrill was in getting that perfect line and yet not hitting the stumps.
Then there would be comments to oneself on how the batsman should be made to play and quotes from the commentators on TV. Towards the end of the day at twilight, I would give up and then go for the kill. Would love the sight of the stumps going cart wheeling. Bails used to be very interesting. A thread wound around a small bamboo piece to get just the right extrusion.

Something made me realize that I wasn't alone in all this.
Like there were times when I would hit the ball around in the space outside our house. There used to be these burrows dug by rodents that I had only heard about from my parents. The ball would find it hard to avoid these holes......there were too many. Once it was in there, I would speculate and see if no one is around. Then ever so carefully, slide my hand deep into the burrow, as far as I could go and try to feel the ball with a hope of retrieving it back. It was sometimes possible only when I would take off as soon as the ball reached the hole and instantly put my hand in.Then there was once this horror moment when I felt something in the hole that was moving. Horrified, I thought I wouldn't attempt it again but every time the thought of spending the day without playing would
depress me so much that I would eventually end up taking the risk.
There was something very interesting and weird about these burrows. They were interconnected. I realised it very late. It so happened once that I was playing and the ball headed to its usual destination. The only difference being this time my parents were around. I rushed towards the zone....and as was my practice, bent down at the hole. My parents warned me to stay away. Disappointed I gave up and resigned myself to not play for a few days now. Spent the whole night thinking about my friend and what would I do the next day.

Morning came, and I was ready to leave for school. Around 7:30, when I went outside in the garden, I was overjoyed. Almost magically the ball had appeared at the entrance of the burrow. Wondering how it all had happened I was off to school. On returning back I couldn't resist asking my mom about it. She said, "Maybe it was the rodent inside that pushed the ball outside, so that you could play" I was convinced. Then one night I saw this huge thing moving about in the garden along the wall. Called my dad and showed it to him. It's the same burrowing creature that has created all those holes, he said. I looked at it closely and thought it was "cute"and smiled....coz at the back of my mind, I knew, the next time my cricket ball would be inside the burrow, it is he, who would give it back to me. Another friend to the list.