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Its surprising how many people you find in this world ready to sink you with not a thought of how you helped them the float. It marvels me every time. It also horrifies me. I guess it is as good a reason as any on why I’ve lost all faith in humankind.
Rewind 50+ years earlier…
My father lived in this world for 28 years. In that limited time, he set standards for himself and for those around him that now, 50+ years after he is gone, people remember him with the respect and love he deserves. He died of a disease that had no cure back in the sixties. It’s called muscular dystrophy.
He started a cricket club a few years before he died when he was more boy than man. It is one of the oldest cricket clubs in the State of Andhra Pradesh and has been one of the founder members of the State’s Cricket Association. After my father’s passing away, owing to the fact that I was three months old, one of his ‘trusted’ friends was given management of the club by my father’s very young widow, to run and maintain the club until such time that he wanted to and then hand it over to me.
It should be mentioned here that this ‘trusted’ friend and his father came up to my father (who of course was a wealthy and titled gentleman), seeking livelihood. My father took them under his wing and then trained the boy to be a cricketer, a captain to his team and then the secretary of his club. This is important to note to understand what’s coming next.
Now, his son runs the club. By run, I mean, he sells the vote he gets to use for the election of the managing committee of the Andhra Cricket Association to the highest bidder during election time. I am told it fetches a tidy sum of money. All the laurels the club earned, of which I have photographs, trophies and shields, stopped with my father. When I stepped in to question this, after giving this blackguard a very long rope to straighten himself, he actually filed a case before the court stating that my father was never the founder of the club and that in fact I have no right to question him. He did not even know the hand that fed him nor did he care to acknowledge it.
And I say, no good deed goes unpunished. And bad deeds are generally fruitful. After all, its Kalyug, the last age. Yet, it never ceases to surprise me. I had helped a friend in need and he backstabbed me. My father helped a family thrive and they backstabbed him. I mean, the only good one can do for one’s self is for one’s self. Keep your loved ones happy, secure and together. That doesn’t guarantee a thing, I can give you personal examples of that too, but at least, they will stand by you when push comes to shove.
To end this story, I’ve picked up the gauntlet and I am going to do my damnest to get the club back and to conduct a cricket tournament within 15 months of winning the case. That’s a promise to Raja BSV Prasad from a son who doesn’t have a memory of him but would have loved to know him.