On a very laid back summer afternoon in India, one gets the feeling that nothing can be more depressing than being alive. From everything that we tend to do, it becomes a very cumbersome task. The heat starts to hit the roof even at 10am in the morning and all efforts are made to beat the heat. From sherbets to juices to energy drinks to cold showers; everything is tried and everything fails. There are people who would eat mangoes or relish on panna(made from raw mangoes) but the effort is more out of summer habbit than anything.

One thing very noticeable about this Indian summer is the ease with which people play the game of cricket. Unlike football or hockey it is not very tiring and it can be played with the maximum fun derived out of every ounce square feet of space. Although, it is a british invention, it does not carry any of it's colonial past but has added the Indian masala to it as an added flavour.

What really makes people from non-cricket playing countries  wonder is the ease with which they  fail to understand the various counters of this wonderful game. The fact that convincingly only two players out of twenty-two actually play the game at most times and that almost for the most part, one team is entirely in the dressing room; doing nothing but watching, reading or eating; all while the game is in progress. Leave alone the plentiful-ever-changing rules or the complex nature of the paraphrenalia involved while playing the game!

While it's poorer cousin in the gullies or mohallas in India play a totally different game altogether. There are wooden sticks, planks or 'anything that can be held with the close grip of the hand' for cricket bats and a tennis or rubber-made ball with again 'anything that can stop a ball as  'stumps'. There are plenty of rules, as I said, that make this game exciting. Any ball hitting window panes or a parked vehicle or an elderly person or better still entering a house can get the batsmen declared out. This rule might be tweaked for a person who is the true owner of the cricket bat brought to the field.

What really irks people in the vicinity when folks play cricket is not just the fact that the balls might break some glass or enter a house but the amount of noise that it generates. The excitement over a catch, a run-out or worse when there is a disagreement during the run of play with the existing rules being enforced. And this happens often with the noise reaching high decibel levels.

Couple of hours of intense game is good enough. It involves a lot of fighting and a whole lot of  fun. You might find a toddler or a septuagenarian holiding a cricket willow or throwing a ball. The Indian family atmosphere is very prevalent here with everyone relishing the summer holidays with a game of cricket.