Time Travel

A promo of a recent movie screamed out “If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?” (Oh come on MS Word “would it” sounds more correct than “it would”!)

This got me thinking. What would I wanna change if I were to travel back in time? And then it struck me!

*Rewind to the time when Blunt was somewhere in the 3^rd or 4^th grade*

Li’l Blunt was playing cricket at the base of his building. Now there’s something you need to know about Li’l Blunt. Like majority of the children, who played cricket in India, he too hated fielding. Hand him a bat or a ball, and he’s the happiest guy around, but ask him to field and he gets all grumpy.

So there he stood all sulking and grumpy, when the batter hit a shot past him and he was expected to chase the ball, which of course had crossed the boundary line, but still had to be retrieved nevertheless.

“BLUNT!” The bowler had yelled the moment the ball was hit. Like every other bowler to have ever played the game, this one too didn’t like it when he was hit for runs and inadvertently found fault with the fielder or the pitch or the weather conditions or luck or the quality of the ball or …(you get the drift right?)

Bottom line: It’s never the bowler’s fault!

“Not again!” Li’l Blunt muttered under his breath as he ran behind the ball. And then he saw it. The ball had hit the door of a cab parked there. The cabbie was washing his vehicle and looked pissed. Now you must realize that kids of this age, playing near their buildings used to play with rubber balls, the kind that didn’t cause much harm when it hit a cab.

The cabbie had picked up the ball and was staring at Li’l Blunt, anger venting out profusely from his eyes.

“Sorry” Li’l Blunt said meekly as he reached near the cab.

Cabbie: “Why did you hit the ball on my cab?”

Li’l Blunt: “My friend hit it here. I’m just fielding.”

Cabbie: “Don’t give me answers, when I’m talking!”

Li’l Blunt: “But you just asked me a question.”

Cabbie: “Shut up!”

Li’l Blunt: “I’m sorry. Can I have the ball back?”

Cabbie: “It’s not your father’s cab, that you can just come, hit it and go!”

Li’l Blunt: “Why you dragging family into all this? I said I’m sorry!”

*Whack*

The cabbie slapped Li’l Blunt right across his tiny face.

Li’l Blunt (holding back his tears): “Why did you hit me? I wasn’t the one batting, I just came to fetch…” (His voice broke away as tears started finding their way out of his eyes)

Li’l Blunt’s friends had by then gathered around him and were pacifying him.

“It’s ok buddy. Let him keep the ball. We’ll go back” They said.

“BUT WHY DID HE HAVE TO SLAP ME?” Li’l Blunt yelled over his tears and looked at the cabbie with all the anger his little eyes could conjure up.

“DON’T YOU DARE STARE AT ME!” That was the last thing Li’l Blunt heard before another *Whack* sound blared into his ear. The cabbie had slapped him again. And Li’l Blunt was crying non-stop. His friends dragged him away as he howled uncontrollably.

“I’ll go right away and tell my Dad about this and he’ll come kick the cabbie’s ass” Li’l Blunt told his friends when they were at a safe distance from the cab and the monster who drove it.

“No no. It will just create more problems. Let it be Blunt. It’s alright. You’ll be fine.” They said.

And Li’l Blunt just kept crying.

*End of Flashback*

And for some reason, this incident stayed with me all these years. And if I could go back in time and change it, I might have wanted the ball to break the windshield of the cab, or ram into his nuts, or maybe both.

PS: Haven’t been around that much and don’t even have an excuse for the same. Just plain old laziness and boredom creeping in. And I know this ain’t the kind of stuff I normally write, but it’s been 5 months since I last posted, so obviously I would be a li’l rusty :)