Fruitcake - Volume 1: The Chapter 13 Journal: The Tournament

I continued reading. Abhinu states that they left for Purulia on the morning of 25th March and Lt. Col. Banerjee came to Kolkata with them, he wanted to see the children in action.

26th March 1992.

I got up in the morning and found Aamaya didi strolling with a very tensed look on her face. I went to her and asked her not to worry and assured her that everything will be fine and we were going to be selected. We reached school at around 9.00 A.M. Our school PTI divided us into batches of 5 and we were asked to play a game for 15 minutes. Our PTI has asked some acquaintances of his to help him out. The selection process started and Monika was the first to be picked. She was the only one from among the group of 10 kids whom our PTI considered to be good enough. As I kept waiting for my turn, Taposh dada and Grihamani were among the next ones to get selected. I always liked to make fun of Grihamani because of his name, and his girly habits. They were Aarohi’s mama’s sons. Finally, my turn came and both Aarohi and I got selected. Dad looked very happy with our performance. I was happy that all of my friends were selected and we will be able to play together. Aamaya di was however told that she has been kept in the reserves because her age doesn’t fit the criteria. I could see that she was very disappointed by this but I decided not to talk to her today. By the time the selection was done, it was already past evening. Dad dropped us to our homes and left for Purulia, to re-join his unit.

27th March 1992

I decided to go and talk to Aamaya di, hoping that she might have calmed down by now. I went to her and tried to console her about yesterday’s selection. She was sad but quickly turned angry at what I said and shouted at me by saying, that I hope I was happy with her misery. She hates me and will never forget this day for the rest of her life. She also told me that how is it possible that we lilliput’s were selected and she was rejected because in 1994 she will exceed 2 months the required age. I didn’t wait for another moment to hear any more of her hurtful words and ran to my room. Half an hour later, Uncle and Aunty came to my room and told me that Aarohi has told them what Aamaya said to me. Uncle apologized to me and asked me to forgive her for that. I told my uncle, that as she is my elder sister, she has every right to shout at me. I was only crying because I was hurt. Uncle took me in his arms. He had my favorite chocolate in his hand, and Aarohi rubbed the tears off my eyes. Later on, I heard Uncle and Aunty scolding Aamaya didi for shouting at me. Thank God nothing eventful happened the remaining part of the day.

**** I can understand Aamaya was sad, but she shouldn’t have shouted at Abhinu. He writes that the next day, Amaya came to his room in the morning and said she was sorry, and that she shouldn’t have shouted at him, and Abhinu forgives her. He also wrote that for the next two days, He, Aarohi, Aamaya, and Monica spent the whole day practicing for basketball. Their school reopened on 1st April 1992. That was the day, the results were declared. ****

1st April 1992

I woke up at 5:30 in the morning today. Our results are going to be declared. I was both scared and excited to know what would be the outcome. We reached school at 8 a.m. Uncle had to come to school today to get the results. Our PTI announced during the morning assembly that from tomorrow all of us who were shortlisted for the basketball team had to be in school by 6:00 a.m. and also we will have to wait for 2 hours after classes are over for practice. He also announced that the tournaments are scheduled to start from the 18th of April and that we will be playing our first match against South Point School. After the assembly, we were waiting at the quadrangle while Poddar ma’am started calling us one by one to let us know how was our results. It took ma’am about an hour and a half to declare the result. Later I came to know that Aarohi topped the class followed by Monica who came second. I came fifth in class and Soham was 3 marks behind me. I saw the happy looks on both the girls’ faces. I was happy with my results. We came back home and called up dad to inform him about my results and he was happy with my performance and told me that he was very proud of me.

2nd April 1992

Today has been a hectic day in school. Practicing for the basketball tournament has made us very exhausted. However, something happened during the second period that made me excited. Monica went to Soham’s desk and asked him whether he remembered the challenge that they had 2 months back. Soham was rendered speechless with shame because before I joined the school he was the class topper and today he could not even make it to the top three. Monica told him that there was no denying the challenge since half of the class witnessed the conversation that day. Soham asked Monica resignedly what was Monica’s task for him and Monica told him that she wanted him to take part in the inter-class Karate champion that will take place on the 25th of May. Soham told Monica that he does not know anything about karate to which Monica retorted that he should have thought of that before he decided to bully her thinking that she was a girl and now since he lost his bet he has no choice but to participate. I checked our match roster and found that we don’t have any matches during the fourth week of May.

*****Wow…., I don’t believe this Monica, first, she scores better then Soham and later forces him to take part in something of which he does not know of. This is bad, you shouldn’t have done that. I hope Monica doesn’t cause too much harm to this boy.

Monica is a trained fighter who has been learning martial arts since the age of three. I always keep telling her this is for self-defense and not for hurting others, but she doesn’t listen. In the next entries, Abhinu keeps on mostly talking about the training and how it was very hectic. But thanks to the training provided by Sagar sir they were better prepared.

On one of the entries, he also writes that Lt. Col. Banerjee suggested Aamaya gest her name enrolled to Yuva Bharti Krirangan and start practicing basketball there. If she can prove herself, she could get a scholarship to play with the professionals. She took his advice and got herself enrolled.

I have nearly read 60% of his diary. However, there is no mention of who Geeta is and how is she related to these three friends. Diary also doesn’t have any mention of any cousins in the Banerjee family whose name is Geeta. I continued reading*****

17th April 1992

Tomorrow is going to be our first match against South Point School. PTI sir came to us and announced that there will be no practice today because he wants us to be well-rested before tomorrow’s match. Taposh Dada told sir that he is scared about tomorrow’s match. Sir told us that he just wants us to play well and not think about winning or losing the match. He asked us to give our hundred percent and forget about the consequences. Even if we lose tomorrow’s match we will still have 9 more matches to play and will need to win only 7 of them to get a chance to play in the Netaji Indoor Stadium. He also said that this tournament is not about winning matches but getting an opportunity to be one of the 10 players to be selected for the national basketball team, and if all the 10 players are from West Bengal it would be the greatest honor for the state.

18th April 1992

I have been getting goosebumps since morning. I was both scared and excited about today’s match. Early in the morning, I received a call from dad and he wished us good luck for today’s match. Uncle called me and Aarohi and told us not to worry much, Maa Kali(she is our family deity) will be with us, we just need to give our best and hope for the best. The match began and sir thought it was a better idea to let me and Monika be on the bench. By the end of the first half, our team was falling behind by 9 points. In the second half, Sir asked Taposh dada to play in place of Titu. Taposh dada was tall and fast and his entry to the field really helped us. Within 15 minutes our team has leveled the score with South Point. During the last 20 minutes of the match, sir told Monika and me to enter the field. Our entry boosted the team performance in the last 20 minutes and in no time we were leading by 8 points. We won the match that day. Sir told us not to be too excited because we don’t know what the future has in store for us. The other schools might have a better team than ours.

**** The way the coach motivated the team, It felt like he really knows his job well. Leading a team of 7 – 9 years old children to play professional basketball is a herculean task, and this man is doing a pretty good job up till now. Abhinu writes that the next 3 matches were with Central modern School, DAV Public School and Loretto Entally which they were able to win, without much effort. However, he also says that they lost 2 of the matches with Riverdale High School and Our Lady Queen of the Missions School. He says that even though Our Lady Queen of the Missions School was an all-girls team, they were so skilled that they didn’t stand a chance against them and could not score a single point. Aarohi cried that day seeing the condition of our team. Their next match was against National Model School.

10th May 1992.

Today our team was in high spirits. The leader board was showing we were in second place. We just needed to win the remaining 3 matches and we will qualify as one of the three teams for the district level. During the match, we received news that one of our team members was approached by SAI to play for the West Bengal sub-junior team. Sir didn’t disclose the name of the player, lest the remaining team members get discouraged. As the match started, something happened which we didn’t expect. The opponent team was an all-boys team. It was against the rule to have an all-boys team. At least one member of the team had to be a girl. Loreto Entally and Our Lady Queen of the Missions were given an exception due to a special request, but in this case, they didn’t. Sir tried to reason with the organizers but they allowed the team to play all boys. We also came to know from the other teams that they had a very offensive play strategy. Sir came to us and said that the organizers would not listen and that we will have to play against them. He asked the girls to volunteer themselves as he doesn’t want them getting hurt. Monika, Sunaina and Aarohi stepped forward and requested sir to let them play and they will show them that it is not okay to cheat. Sir asked Taposh dada and Me to be the wingman for the girls and play the match. The strategy was simple. The girls will score, and we will provide cover. That day in front of a crowd of 7000+ people the 5 of us proved to the boys at National Model School how basketball is played. We won by a margin of 3 points, and Monika was declared the best player for that day.

***** I knew, my sister has some talents, but she never told me about this match. It must have been a pretty interesting one. I just hope she didn’t break anyone’s leg during the match. Abhinu writes that they won the next 3 matches too. They were 2nd on the leader board, right next to Our Lady Queen of the Mission School and followed by St. Thomas. those were the 3 schools that were going to represent the district for the next level. From here on it will be a knock-out, which means they will have to win every match. They were told that their next match was supposed to begin from the 1st of June. He further writes that they were behind studies and that Aamaya had helped them cope up. And Monika submitted her name for inter-class Karate championship and also forced Soham to participate in it.*****

While Abhinu’s diary is very intriguing, my exhaustion is taking over and the only thing keeping me awake is the question that,

“What is the relevance of Abhinu’s diary in Geeta’s life?”

“Where are Abhinu and Aarohi now?”

“Should I ask uncle about Aarohi?”

The news report, we found, clearly stated that Geeta Banerjee is one of the survivors,

“God… This is becoming confusing…”

Without thinking any further, I went off to sleep with the hope that soon Geeta will wake up and assure me that I didn’t need to worry and that she is perfectly fine. I can go back to school and complete my studies and rescue her from this life one day.