A love lost, A life gained

Mirrors and Realizations

Man Jammy is so cute, was watching this tanmay bhatt vid that got recommended out of nowhere to me, (Ok well not out of nowhere, this was a Jammy-Mahi chapter and I like listening to them speak before writing cuz I want to capture them better) apparently he is the writer of that Indranagar ka gunda ad. Everybody was fawning over how after every line my guy was blushing. Such a Mr. Good Boy, Mahi takes after him.l. He is always overshadowed by Sachin and Dada but player wise I like his style more than theirs. Sorry, my Jammy fan got triggered. It is no secret that I think Mahi learned leadership from Dada and he learned the game from Jammy. But I think he also learned nurturing the players from Dada and strengthening the players from Jammy. (Truly the mom and dad of modern cricket XD. Mahi is ofc THE modern cricket). People here forget how much of Jammy's boy Mahi is.

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Rahul had seen the team that was now, form infront of his own eyes. Dadi had fought tooth and nail to build it as a safe place after the complete disaster their own youth as the youngsters of the team had been. Sure there were a couple of older players who would look out for them, but generally it was very known that the 90s young cricketers had the most insecure future unless you were Sachin Tendulkar. Couple that with the absolute nightmare of '99, and yeah he did not particularly miss that dressing room. It was the reason they as seniors, were insanely protective of their boys. He knew that Mahi thought they were going overboard with him. In their defense, it was not like Mahi was behaving normal either.

One moment he would be hovering right by their shoulders trying to subtly cling to their presence. The next he would be avoiding the hell out of them. He had an uncanny ability to guess just when anyone wanted to talk to him about him and boy he could run circles around them all. Rahul had appreciated his people reading skills when they had first started playing together, it was a golden quality to have as a cricketer, as a teammate. Now he kinda wished that the ability was a bit less effective against them. Kid knew exactly when they were going to be too busy with matches and official work, and when he was most likely going to be the center of attention.

He rubbed his forehead. For the last hour and a half he had been trying to catch Mahi alone. Sourav had picked up an injury and hadn't played two matches. Captaincy had fallen to him. Injuries were a common part of cricket, especially their team had their fair share of injury stories. But it was disturbing Mahi a bit. That morning on the terrace, he knew that the two had made some sort of a breakthrough though he didn't know complete details. He had thought that with Sourav injured and having way more time on his hands, more breakthroughs will happen but apparently it was impossible to get Mahi to talk to him anymore about himself, all he would focus on was the injury. So now this too has fallen on him to do because obviously Mahi hadn't magically become alright just because they managed to get to the root of the problem. 

If anything he was more visibly struggling. He had stopped pretending to eat the healthy amount he should be eating, chewing on granola bars instead of proper meals. His sleep was erratic according to Sourav, getting up at odd times during the night. His mood could go from normal to miserable in seconds. His game ever since they had come back had been either highly focused or completely careless. They had been managing it very carefully in practice to accommodate his mental state and maintain his play, making sure he was in the space to focus on his cricket when they played practice matches. But he had suddenly switched completely to aggression. He was an attacking batsman. But now he was pushing himself with anger, wanting to smash the ball in every hit. Any time he got out there would be visible rage in him which he would then take out on bowling machines and or on the tennis court. It was useless trying to make him stop, all their scolding was doing was making him better at avoiding them. Sourav not being there was not helping either of them.