Introducing Naala cricket at Jaipur !!

Unfortunate events in Jaipur took me back to Naala cricket in here. Many decades back there was a huge flood in Jaipur, it created big crater- a naala 50m deep and more than 100m in breadth it cut across the city, many houses just floated away. It probably was the biggest natural calamity Jaipur ever faced. Naala was a dead place with broken, half washed away and abandoned houses in small islands (when I visited this city few years back things are just like that!!). This was the sight for afternoon cricket for us, the housing colony- Amba bari, was huge settlement with thousands of middle class and upper middle class-some very rich residents, was located next to this ravine. We collected on afternoons in our cycles and climbed down this deserted ravine for 10-10 cricket (each team 10 overs). We didn’t mind the hot desert sun, it was great fun. The best part though was when we ventured into those abandoned houses and enacted movie scenes!!. Amitabh Bachchan dialogues and fight scenes were quite popular and since setting was all there we just had to jump from the window (shouting ye hath muche dhedhe takur!) or further break the house with all ferocity, many houses had some items left which were used as props!!. The masterpiece though was ‘slow motion’ fight and chase scenes, the fight with slow reactions- these few minutes ‘action’ was planned and choreographed with lot of care, the ‘dying scene’ with exaggerated moves were enacted amazingly by some of the kids. I recall one kid who could brilliantly do the ‘slow motion’ dying-with-bullet-in-his-body complete with labored dialogue ending with fixed open eyes and holding his breath!!. (There are some wonderful things posted in YouTube and this blogger has spent hours going through it. Some of the creations are brilliant. Slow motion fights which we enacted could easily have found many viewers, it was one the kind. Some memories of growing up!!!).

When I look at TV screens showing dead people in bomb blast in Jaipur a thought did not escape my mind: Was that man in his thirties lying on the trolley gasping for breath the same kid who enacted those incredible scenes of dying?. Terrible passing thought, it is sickening.