When we got over the nastiness,
If you like, the battles associated with the world of cricket,
He had this ability to fix problems,
And then became a great ally of Cricket Australia,
Which I think said a little bit about him.
It was all or nothing from here, I thought to myself, it was 2007, as I placed the next bet, this was a fairly large casino and I needed to feel this fire of having lost and then won everything back. The dealer rolled the dice and the numbers on it tumbled as they always did, except this time I was waiting desperately for this special number to roll out.
"Three plus Two," said the dealer, and I just stared, my heart just sank, I picked up my coat and walked out, purportedly with my head held high with this sinking feeling in my heart that just wouldn't go away. I had gambled my everything, which was about Rs 10 lakhs on this bet in the hope of retrieving Rs 50 lakhs that I needed to pay off my debts, life just seemed to get deeper and deeper in the same quagmire I was stuck in.
"Good night sir," said the doorman, and I gave him a twisted smile and walked out into the cold air without wishing him, I looked around for my car and suddenly realised it was going to be a long walk to the tube, I had lost the car today as well. With just a tinge of tears in my eyes I looked around for the tube station and got my day pass out, a day that had looked fabulous, looked bleak and very bleak now.
The night air was cold, the snow flakes littered the street and the traffic was sparse, as I walked aimlessly to the tube, I had no destination to go to, there was a wife waiting at home and I didn't know what was going to happen if I ever told her what had transpired.
"Hello !" I said as the mobile rang and "damn," it always did when I was in a shocked state of mind.
"Yeah, man, I am OK," I gritted out at Harpreet, a brother from far far away, as a matter of fact, everything looked far far away right now.
"Its Saturday night man, don't you want to come over."
"Look I don't know," I was ready to put the mobile down, I didn't want any part of this conversation, when a cab zipped by, missing me by inches.
"You jaywalker, watch where you going."
I gave him the middle finger and the first expletive that came to my mind, I put the phone down and continued walking.
I had lost him and knew that God would never be with me now, probably had never been with me in the first place, "damn I knew little about this Godly thing," I was a hard working man and all the friends I knew were hard working, "sitting on my hiney," that never occurred to me, that there would be debts to pay now. The smile on my face had been wiped out by one sharp hand of destiny and without a tinge of regret, "did I really believe in destiny," she had walked out leaving me with no purpose.
I turned around and looked back at the casino and stared at it, stared hard, picked up a stone and chucked at the window, it crashed right in the middle of it, there were loud noises behind me of people shouting, as I ran to the tube and quickly made my way to the platform and boarded the first train that was parked there. Suddenly I felt relieved, I had let it all out and this was me, the scrambler, gambler and hustler, I would never give in to the depression, I would try again and make money again.
My memory were fading nowadays, but those days still not forgotten, 2013 had come and gone, I remembered those friends from the past who had tried to help me and yet nothing came from the past. I had walked into this lovely office in Nehru Place, New Delhi, there was an English Speaking and Diction class going on, "hell, did I really need this class," I had been asked by Pankaj and I had told him, "Yes man, you don't know how badly I need the money."
Commentary (http://knowledgeisgreat.in/) was not a popular profession but it was what I wanted to do, so I figured what better than a profession that allowed me to make money, travel and do what I wanted, but I walked out of the shop disappointed, it was a money making gimmick, not the kind of stuff that I dreamt of. I was more into the Siddhu - Boycott debate,
"That was a Coot to the gooley," Geoffrey had said.
"You mean he got Kut in the gulley,"Siddhu had retorted.
I liked the puns and humour, the intricacies of the language and semantic, from Yorkshire to the streets of Punjab there was no place like home where they could decided on the language later and a bellyful of laughter to begin a conversation first. It wasn't the end of the world that they didn't understand me at the course centre what I wanted to do, they just wanted to teach me "a e i o u," while I wanted to understand literature, the classic from the profane to the mass seller.
On a hunch I fired up a toll free number written on the advertising hoardings, it connected me to a call centre where the lady on the line put me to a university in UK suddenly it was London Calling. I would find a school for this in UK,The Media School at Bournemouth University for the Radio BA (Hons) course..
"My calling, Their Calling, Whose Line is it Anyway ?"
