My best friend is unassuming, shy, reserved and humble. He’s also a 2 year coloursman for Royal College. With his glasses on and his unathletic posture, you wouldn’t really guess he scored 900+ runs in one of those years and took 45+ wickets in the season.
If you are like me and not so big on making it early on Thursday to save yourself for Friday and Saturday, you would have probably missed his majestic, game changing, opposition dominating 140, coming in when Royal were 65/4. Characteristically it was done with no fuss, with the ground semi-full, with not much headlines or fanfare. But the big match is the grandest of the stages for a school boy Cricketer and it is an opportunity of a lifetime to reach out and touch the stars. Mad props to Dhanushka Edussuriya. Unlike him, I shamelessly tried to leech on to that, “do you know my best friend is a big match centurion for Royal” a common pick up line as I entered my twenties.
Wow, that was 15 years ago. My school batch is celebrating our quindecinnial year of leaving school. It’s scary to think we’ve been out of school longer than we were in school. It doesn’t seem too far ago that we played cricket under the siyambala tree, shared a 20 Rupee rice at the canteen or spent all the cash left on the swimming pool canteen rolls. Oh those delicious rolls. Depending on the crowd you rolled with, you probably have other memories that are varied from mass brawls to debating team wins, but the thing in common is that those memories are sure to not have been replicated in the last 15 years.
My first memory of a Roy-Tho was when I was 4, watching it with my dad, possibly in a kid proof area. I remember the commentary over the loudspeaker (yeah that was a thing back then) saying ‘fielded by Gully’ and me asking my dad whether Gully is from Royal or from Thora. Then it was off to the Boy’s Tent. School coloured flags, bands, pins attached to where ever possible on your body, dozens of Keells hotdogs and rolls a day. I remember wondering to the corner of the tent next to the ‘Uncles’ tent and being shocked at all those adults being slightly senseless and quite comical. My dad still laughs at me for coming home in disbelief that all those fathers and uncles singing ‘kunuharupa’ songs right next to us. I don’t remember much about the years after graduating to the big boy tents. Out of school, with lack of responsibility and with a huge intolerance to alcohol, those were hazy memories with the odd altercation and puddles of vomit.
Something that has greatly changed is the immediate people around me at the big match. After shouting and signing about those ‘Thora P&^*%&*%&’ for years, some of them now are my closest friends. The party is very much more blue, gold AND black. The banter is still there, and probably gone up a notch but the animosity is long gone.
Times change, people grow up (well most at least) but the one constant is the ‘big’ match. Unfortunately, after leaving school, I’ve lived 9 of these years outside of Sri Lanka. Fortunately, I’ve still managed to make it to the Big Match bar one or two years. Our batchmates have excelled academically, have excelled in wide ranging careers, most have added more than a couple of inches to their waist, some have gone through girl-friends faster than a Ferrari on the Nuremburg track. There are doctors, lawyers, bankers and entrepreneurs. Some have migrated to greener pastures, some have returned from studies and some have travelled for adventure. Most are married, some are getting there and the rest are still racing around.
Through it all the one constant, come the second Thursday that falls on March, everyone leaves behind all that and walks in to our tent with 3 little expectations. A Royal victory, to talk hours and hours about the wild days in school and to leave in ‘high’ spirits. Over 15 years you still see the same people hanging on to the railings and watching the match keenly, the same people standing right at the back near the beverage booth guzzling away. The middle of the tent of course has changed now, that seems to be the designated couples area.
The circle of life will be completed in a few years when I’m the senselessly intoxicated old uncle screeching away ‘kunuharupa’ songs oblivious to any listening young Royalists. But hey, life is too short, and it only comes once a year.
Sandeep Rodrigo (follow on Instagram – arm_chair_critic)
