My Autobiography: The glassy Goal!
Like all kids, my favorite game was cricket. But we used to break a lot of neighboring apartment window glasses by playing cricket! So, we sometimes changed the games that we played in order to convince the apartment residents that we were not playing cricket and hence their window glasses were safe. We used this technique to temporarily divert their attention.
So, during one such change, we shifted to football. We kids, as usual, were convinced that no glass would be broken by this ‘peaceful’ game 😛
During one football match, we were trailing 0-3 and were under a lot of pressure to score goals. So, our forward player (whoever happened to be in the front) was trying too hard to recover for the team.
During a stage of the match, H – who was our forward, took the ball rather brilliantly into the opposite penalty area. He tackled two guys before he went (with the ball) near the goalkeeper. He could have hit the goal right then, but he waited.
The goalkeeper came forward to grab the ball, and he managed to tackle the goalkeeper as well. Now – it was him and the goal. No one else was in between. We were all cheering – go for the goal, go for it………….
Imagine the scenario – it was an empty goal and he could have just tapped the ball slowly (on the ground) to score. But this guy closed his eyes and hit the ball with all his might and power.
The ball not only missed the goal but went and hit a nearby window. This window is usually closed but on that day, maybe due to our bad luck, it was open. Unable to stand so much force, all the glass on that window broke and fell down like water. I still remember that scene.
We were all frozen unable to believe WTH he just did!
The house owner was the father of one of our teammates, which only added to our embarrassment. He came out, saw the window which was totally devoid of any glass, perhaps wondered how we managed to make such a clean hole, smiled at us, and went back inside. Not a single taunt, not a single complaint.
We all wished we had such ‘cool’ uncles in other apartments too 😛 🙂
Of course, our team lost that match 😛
Destination Infinity
PS: I wrote this post in Feb. 2011, but for some reason, it has been sitting in my drafts all these years. Finally publishing it now after some editing 🙂
Happy Pongal/Sankranti to all of you 🙂
Happy Pongal to you and your bride.
May be you boys should have asked for commission from the window glass replacing company. The more business you bring for them the more dough for you all to buy cricket equipment.
Good idea 😀
Destination Infinity
Oh I remeber it was such a mess in case glass got broken, But a Good uncle that one 🙂
Happy Pongal DI
Yeah, we need more such good uncles 🙂
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Happy Pongal (wishing you very late).
That was an interesting incident. 🙂
Thank you 🙂
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Happy Pongal, Rajesh and Ramya!
I remembered a movie where Shivaji Ganesan and Thangavelu were a team. One of them will break the windows and the other will come behind shouting, ‘Jannal/Window repair panradhu’!
If possible please visit the old house and thank the uncle for an interesting post material!
Good business idea, that one 🙂
The family in that house shifted long time back, but I remember my friend’s name… will try to track him in FB or something and see if I am able to narrate this incident to his father.
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I searched the net for the same dialogue… Do you remember the movie name?
He should be someone encouraging sports to be kind with kids! I used to watch boys playing football in the road in front of our house and when mom scold them for making noise, i used tell at least they play unlike many kids who are gadget addicts.
That uncle was a very cool person, especially with kids. He was an inspiration for me. I wish I could meet him at least once and tell him this!
Destination Infinity
I remember the kids in our locality playing cricket and breaking our windows! 😛
If that was not enough, we always found ‘lost’ balls in our verandah. At the end of 3-4 months, we used to collect all of them and donate them to our house help’s or the watchman’s kids.
Oh, how much I’d have loved to find lost balls in our varandah!! 🙂
Destination Infinity