250° West From Ojai
Written in 2014
Thhhhhhhhwhoook. Clack. Thththwoook. Clack. Thththwoook. Clack. Old Jugsy’d pitch, hardly ever hitting the strike zone. The poor feller had lost his arm; his pitch had gotten a miserable arc to it and he’d pitch foul ball after foul ball. Old Jugsy needed to be retired to the baseball shed. We needed Jugsy 2.0.
I’d assume position, swing, hit. Assume position, swing, miss. Assume position, swing, hit. I’d screw my eyes up, compacting my body into the perfect batting form, with coach Franco watching my every muscle-twitch, waiting to pounce on my every mistake. Baseball – the American pastime. It’d embraced me. It’d welcomed the foreigner, the cricket-playing Indian, with its spitting of sunflower seeds, and its chewing of bubblegum. And I loved it back. The smell of the freshly-mown outfield, the zen-like patterns on a well-raked infield, the small splinters on the handles of the wooden bats. I loved its sanctity of tradition. There was a deliberate routine to each practice: first the warm-up toss, the run around the flagpole, the stretching circle, and then the infield-outfield practice. The history of decades of Thacher baseball boys lay in the layers of sweat soaked up by the batting helmets. I had joined that history; I was in that number, clad in the off-white baseball jersey embroidered in orange, with a rich-green undershirt.
Baseball field at The Thacher School
But it feels weird now, gazing down from the Pergola, the heart of campus, to look back at baseball. I can picture the diamond below. I can smell the dugout, strewn with sunflower seeds mingled with spit. I can hear the boys’ yelling, “He-ere we go, Cri-icket Ki-i-id! Hit it all the way to India !” But it feels weird. I never thought I’d play baseball. It seems alien. Baseball isn’t my natural habitat; it isn’t my turf. It is the product of my ability to play cricket. Cricket is the mother of my baseball. And the mother of my cricket is India , the place where I learnt to play it all. And its weird, to be facing the baseball diamond, because if I extend my gaze, I can see India , over the Pacific Ocean, past China , Burma and Bangladesh . India , the land of culture, infinite tongues, numerous religions, and one distinct national pride. The first time I heard the Indian National Anthem, I got goosebumps. I remember that moment vividly; I was six years old and at a pongy movie theatre in Mumbai, about to watch a three-hour long Bollywood movie. And, as was customary, a voice boomed, “कृपिया आप सभी राष्ट्रीय गीत के लिये खडे हो जाये।” And then in heavily-accented English, “Please stand for the national anthem.” I stood at attention, fists balled up with my thumbs on the outer-seams of my trousers. The national anthem started to play. I had no idea what the words were, or what they meant. I just knew they were deep, peaceful, patriotic and powerful. I couldn’t understand them, not just yet. I was simply a foreigner, a tourist from London . I shared similar external features as the Indians around me, but I wasn’t one of them. I was still a Kenyan-born British Indian, just there to watch a movie, out-of-sync with the local vibe. India hadn’t become my home. Its national anthem hadn’t become my national anthem. I was still busy singing “God Save the Queen.” But India is my home now. I feel it in its air, I feel it in its languages. I can write about this resonance in Hindi: कुछ गहरी बात हैं उस देष में जो कहीं और नहीं। It’s not even my mother tongue. But English fails me.
There’s a word in Hindi called गर्व (pronounced “gurv”) that doesn’t have an exact translation to English. On the surface, it means pride. But it is so much more. It is the feeling you have when you see the colours of your national flag. It is the feeling you get when your friend gives you a tight hug. It is the sweetness as chocolate melts slowly on the tip of your tongue. मुझे बहुत गर्व महसूस होता है जब में वो तिरंगाको लहरते हुए देखता हूँ। I feel a lot of “gurv” when I see our flag – saffron, white, green – waving in the wind. It’s a sensation I can’t easily forget, a sensation, a little piece of home, that stays with me no matter what country I go to, no matter where I live, no matter how many miles separate me from home. I’m at home at every new home.
