Cheering Sixers for Tau

 

A decade back, I once took a photo of one of the taus in our village. ‘I know why are you taking my photo,’ he said as I clicked the picture. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because you think I’m just about to die and you will be able to see my face later,’ he looked hurt.

He is still around after ten years and most importantly can see reasonably well. I need to take his latest photo so I approach him. He is near the century of years and loves cricketers hitting centuries. He loves those who meet the three-figure mark and hates those who get out in the nineties. He hates them even more than who get out on zero.

He was watching an IPL match. That was the time when luscious cheer-girls danced in skimpy skirts to celebrate the hits to the boundary. I am not sure whether he loves the boundaries more or the dance. I think both of them cheer him up. Once after a hit to the fence they forgot to show the dance. He looked very disturbed and the next boundary took a few more overs in coming. He grew impatient and jittery. ‘Why would they hit boundaries if the girls turn lazy and don’t dance? The girls didn’t dance on the last hit,’ he held a grouse against the girls.

He had another issue about them showing the same dancing reward for both fours and sixes. ‘They should do something better for a sixer, which is far better than a four,’ he reasoned. I was about to say, ‘Do you want the skirts to go up tau to celebrate sixers?’ But I kept the query hidden within me because in that case he would have surely taken a sixer-type swipe at my legs with his well-oiled stick.