The Promising star

Annex days

    The child Kani used to get dressed up by his mother every day with white shirt and green trousers which was his school uniform, during that time. His annex days were like heaven on planet earth. He had lots of amusements and excitements there. Mostly they had classes only till afternoon after which the students were allowed to sleep. Also, in the evening time, they used to give Britania biscuits to the students. When Kani was studying UKG, he danced for the song ‘Ande Nootrande’ from the Tamil movie ‘Mugavari’, for the first time during his school life. 

    He had a school friend named Madhan, during his childhood times. He was a chubby boy in the class. He used to make a lot of comedies in the class, similar to Jerry's character, in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Kani had even participated in a fancy-dress completion in the school by playing the role of ‘Bharat Matha’. During his first standard, his class teacher was Mrs. Anbumani, who took care of the budding child as he grew up. 

    Soon, he entered his second standard. In the meantime, his parents came out of his paternal grandfather's home and they came to a new house for rent. The house is often called a Line house as there were 7 houses, all lying in one line. 

    During his second standard, his class teacher was Mrs. Valarmathi. One day, when the assembly was going on in the school, one of the students came forward to recite a story named, ‘the honest woodcutter and his axe’. The boy kept narrating the story with so many mistakes, due to which, Kani can’t able to control himself and he busted out into laughter. That was noticed by the headmistress madam named, Mrs. Getzie Sundaravally, and she called upon Kani to come to the stage and continue the story thereafter. The brave child without showing any kind of hesitation went on the stage and presented the story in a very good manner. It was appreciated by everyone in the auditorium. After that incident, the teacher asked him what gift he would prefer, whether a pencil or a five-star chocolate, on the account of his outstanding stage performance. The child said that he wanted a pencil as he thought that a pencil would last for a long time than a bar of chocolate. 

    As the days were going happily, all of a sudden, the child's father suffered from kidney stone problems. The doctors said that only God could save his father’s life. The child’s parents lost their hope to live and they even tried to commit suicide. But they were saved by a Christian Father, who advised them there was no power vested in the hands of us to end our lives by ourselves, which was given by God. He blessed Kani’s father, after which, his parents gave up their worries and started to do their activities, as the way, they used to be early on, unmindful about their problems in their life. And it worked as well! The will to live worked so well! 

    The child used to go to his grandfather's shop during his leave days. He used to spend most of the time with his grandfather by playing cricket, listening to stories, etc. Also, the grandfather used to give him money to buy Paal Kova every time, when the child arrived to see him. Kani started playing cricket right from his childhood days itself. He played cricket with his grandfather in their house and he used to count sixes and fours for each ball that was struck by the bat. His grandfather used to bat, by sitting on a chair and when Kani came to bat, he even used to do bowl from there. Kani enjoyed his first cricket ever in his life, during that period. Kani learned cricket from thereon. 

    Kani liked Rahul Dravid very much, especially his Britania bat, that Dravid used for batting, at those periods. At that time, there was a TV serial named ‘Shakalaka Boom Boom’, in which there was a small boy, who could get anything from what he was drawing from his pencil. Kani believed that it was true and tried many times in drawing Britania bat with his pencil so that he could also get it, as like that of the Television boy. But it never worked at all! Although Kani was unhappy, he never gave up his try in drawing the bat for a long time in his life until he got to know that it won't happen at all. Also, he had a hobby of collecting cricket player's stickers and he used to paste it on the walls, doors, two-wheelers, and his favorite plastic bat. 

    Another interesting thing with Kani was that he used to write whatever comes to his mind in his slate and would show it to grandfather to read and see how it was, although he never knew the real meaning of what he had written actually, even at that very small age itself.