The cricket ball

I recently visited the biggest mall in the city -the Metro. It was huge and high and we looked very small in front of the display of objects. Looked like many other things are bigger than you are! Nowadaays shops have become so big. I remember the Perryswamy's shop....conjusted and small and all the things which my house needed. He was dark and looked darker inside the dark shop. I wondered how he used to search for all the things I ask from a needle to rice. He was always sucessful. I coudnt see a thing inside his shop and just stuck to list given by mom, I was 8 then. I remember the jute thread and news paper, the common packaging materials to pack everthing. Once packed everthing looked same! I had to fight for a small step in the corner to interact with him when the shop was busy. I was short and I had no other way of getting things from his shop.
Perryswamy took the exact money and gave back the change which I counted with half heart not to show that I dont trust him. I often didnt count as I felt he would feel distrusted. I have carried this obligatory nature all along which puts me in the most horrible of situations even today, a lousy mix of unwanted feelings and confusions very bad for taking decisions and live happily. One day, I bought a red rubber ball, a must for my cricket in the evenings which we played on the streets. I payed 2 Rs. I used it for 3 days till it tore. Raja, Viji, Babu, Pramod scored runs and I was good with my spin. I could pitch the ball way outside the legstump and turm it for the leg wicket. It was my weapon. I tried it atleast once an over. It helped in the crucial times of the match. The red ball tore along the partline of the mold. As a ritual we used to put some mud into the torn ball and throw deep into the parthenium ( a weed which was bought to india by the british two hundred years ago).
I must have bougt a hundred balls in all my life but never bought a leather ball.
As I looked at the huge displays of Metro, I was lost in the world of objects. A shop is museum of Product design! A huge world of objects just like a world of cake or a world of forest.....life like, big and engulfing.....The shop was ment to sell these objects. We went to buy. I saw a section of leather balls, hundreds of them....all looked same....all I had to so was pick few up.
Leather ball looked like a good object to gift rather than play. May be I had grown and trained to see the making of objects lately. It was stiched, polished, well finished leather object! I bought them not to play but to gift! Okay this story has no sense of stop and I dont want to complete it with some wise words, I rather inser a picture to seee its beauty.