There is this heart-warming video from last year about Indian cricketer Rinku Singh moving into his 500 square-yard two-storey villa with a pool, a lift, walk-in wardrobe and front-lawn with a swing, on YouTube. It’s a touching house tour by his proud and beaming sister Neha Singh, a silver-button vlogger.
It’s the day the family has moved from their two-room derelict shack in a gas-cylinder stockyard, to Aligarh’s new tony address – the gated township where homes have chandeliers hanging from high-ceilings and spacious balconies with faux-grass.
Away from the din of family and friends, sits father Khanchand Singh. Back in the day, he could lug a few gas cylinders on his cycle and deliver them around the city. Now, he looks frail. Neha, in the house-warming video, can be heard asking him to have an early meal. He is too pleased for words, happy to be in the home that his son built for the family, but he doesn’t seem in the best of health.
Khanchand on Friday . Rinku between hitting crucial slog-over sixes, taking stunning catches, being the perfect team man during the ongoing World T20 had been living the trauma of rushing to the ICU ward and helplessly watched his father on a ventilator. The internal turmoil that he hid when on field was there to see as Rinku waded through a crowd of moaners and media outside the home that Neha had so lovingly showed the world, with that heart-felt opening line – “Mere bhaiya family ke liye bahut karte hain”.
On Friday, it seemed Bhaiya had rushed home. His wardrobe – cap, casual blue T-shirt and track pants – was of a man who was in a hurry. He was trying hard to control his emotions but once he came close to the front gate, he gave up. Rinku lifted the blue T-shirt and wiped his tears.
Neha’s old videos show the one ritual Rinku would always follow when he would leave home for games. With a bag on his shoulder, he would touch his father’s feet. Khanchand would nod his head, place his hand briefly on Rinku’s head. This father-son good-bye routine would last just for a few seconds but it seemed important for both. This time when Rinku would leave his new home for , where India will play their virtual quarter-final against the dangerous West Indies, there would be the one person whose blessings he longed for.
Khanchand didn’t live long enough to enjoy the comforts that he so deserved after a very tough life. Few years back, when Rinku was just an star and not yet an India player, The had visited his old home and met the father. Khanchand had confessed about his reluctance to let his son pursue serious cricket. Every time Rinku would return from a game, he was sure to get a sound beating from his father. But that changed one day.
It was in a school cricket tournament that Rinku dazzled Aligarh with his lusty sixes. His reward was a motorcycle and it changed his life forever. The good son would give the bike to his father, who could now increase his gas-cylinder delivery trips without getting too tired. Cricket was making life easy for the family that needed every family member to earn so that they could make ends meet. Rinku would also, rather haltingly, recall those desperate “hand-to-mouth” days.
With the cricket plan not working, the budding cricketer was told by his mother about a vacancy at a tution class. Rinku was open to doing odd jobs and contributing to the meagre family . But not what he was asked to do – sweep and mop the floor before students arrived. The family didn’t push him, the two-wheeler at home was a reminder to everyone that Rinku’s cricket passion would give them gifts they had never imagined and fruits they had never tasted.
Rinku’s five-sixes in that last over to give the game a theatrical climax, would get them everything money could buy. Neha would get a shining red scooty, expensive raksha bandhan gifts and also something that every YouTuber dreams – the button that Rinku bhaiya would unbox. The India call would make him Aligarh’s most-eligible bachelor, a status that would be short-lived. Rinku, after a brief courtship, would get engaged to Priya Saroj, the young Member of Parliament from a family of politicians who lived in a sprawling home with a White House like facade. This was a Cinderella story, with roles switched.
Destiny’s unfathomable design would bring a tragic twist. The father would leave the world when Rinku was shaping up as India’s trusted finisher. He was there to see his son get on the stage that he truly deserved, but wouldn’t be around to witness the moment when he possibly delivered on his promise. Khanchand didn’t have time to sit on the lounge chair in the balcony and sip tea while gazing at the hillocks in the horizon – a dream Neha had shared in her Day 1 video in the new house.
Social media, these days, has a grainy video, captured from stands, that has a very touching frame. Possibly shot minutes after Rinku got to know the news he dreaded the most. It has Mohammad Siraj putting a hand around his shoulder and walking him out of the field.
Siraj knows what Rinku would be feeling. During the 2021 Covid days, he lost his father, the only man who believed in him. Siraj was in Australia, he couldn’t travel to India. The auto-driver, well below poverty line, couldn’t give his son financial support but he made up for it by taking his side when his mother gave him a sound beating for avoiding studies to playing cricket. The day he got his first IPL cheque, he asked his father to retire the auto, rest and reap the benefits of his cricket earnings.
But for some – like the gas-cylinder delivery man from Aligarh or the auto-driver from – there is no rest, at least in this world.
