The summer of '88

As should be evident to those who experience the current weather in Chennai or follow the same through other sources of information, this August has been quite vague. For that matter, most of the formal summer season (April-August is the formal summer. All other months are the informal summer.) this year has been like this.

There are the usual hot and humid days of course, but there have also been a lot of rains in this period. Typically, we only get a short spell of two of rains during these months and even that is most often due to some cyclonic storm forming in the Bay of Bengal.

But this year, the weather in Chennai seems to be moving from Tropical to Equatorial. Every hot day or a couple of hot days, is invariably followed by a heavy spell of rain. And this spell has sometimes lasted for 2-3 days.

While the doomsday believers may attribute this to the end of the world and the more informed ones may blame Global Warming for this, the only thoughts I have are of a similar weather pattern that Chennai experienced in the year 1988.

Want to know why I remember that year more than any other? Long story.....

In the years 1987-1988, I was an active cricketer in my school. I was a constant part of the Under-12 and Under-13 cricket teams. Not that I was someone extraordinary on the field, but was more like the Manoj Prabhakar or Ravindra Jadeja type of player – players who basically seem to be able to do many things, but in reality are not really good at anything!

In 1988, I was in Class XIII and therefore, was eligible to play for the Under-15 team. While many had to undergo selections, those of us in the U-12 and U-13 teams were automatically moved into the U-15 teams. I say U-15 teams because there were usually 2-3 teams every year.

When the final list for the U-15 teams of that year were announced (pasted on the notice board to be precise), I saw that there were 4 teams – A, B, C and D. The teams seemed to have been formed based on the principle that the A team was the best and the D team was the worst. And guess which team I was on?

If you said D because you think that's where I should belong based on the details I shared earlier about my skills, well you are right. Except that you are wrong. My name was not in the D team list. So, do you think there is an anti-climax here and thought I was on the A team? Wrong again, because I was not. So, do you think I was the average dude and hence got placed in either the B or the C teams?

Ha ha ha... Wrong again. To cut another potentially long paragraph short, my name was not listed at all. All my fellow U-12 and U-13 players were in the A or B teams, while my name was not listed anywhere. I hurriedly checked with the PT master who directed me to our trusted marker, Ravi. Ravi realized the mistake and was wondering where to slot me.

His thinking process was along these lines:
Team A is quite strong and this guy probably didn't belong there. Team B and C seem to be okay too, so let me not disturb that. Team D seems to be doomed anyway and maybe I will simply add his name to the list.

And so he did.

Quite soon, the TNCA Under-15 tournament started and we got our first match scheduled at the YMCA grounds Nandanam. I don't remember the date of the match, but I do remember traveling in the Standard 2000 car of one of the guys in my team, to the venue. This guy was my classmate and a really rich guy. Most of us in school came from normal middle-class backgrounds and traveling by a car was a luxury suited for the rich kids. And we sure as hell were in awe whenever this guy used to come to school in a Standard 2000 car, which is an iconic car that was far ahead of its time in India.

Anyways, we all reached the venue and were in for some shock.

To be continued.....