Kadhal Kanmani

Ice Breaker

It was Tuesday evening, 5 p.m. I was sitting on the pavilion, analyzing some data on my laptop, when the boys started to return from their noon practice session. Gaurav was walking in front, and he walked towards me. He didn't smile this time; his tone was stern.

"Tara, we're done with practicing for the day and returning to rest. Would you like to have some evening snacks with us?" he asked. I nodded my head and said yes. He said "Keep following then". I followed him obediently, taking two steps behind him. I could hear some of them mumbling, though I couldn't be sure who was doing it. We were walking in complete silence, and I was the only one who could hear the faint murmurs. It was almost as if they were speaking in code, though I couldn't make out what they were saying.

As we reached the food area, Gaurav, a strict disciplinarian when it came to his diet, took a cup of milk and two eggs and sat on one of the tables to eat. The rest of us followed suit, grabbing some snacks for ourselves and sitting down at the tables in smaller groups. I, however, felt a bit lost. I had no idea what to do. I just grabbed a cup of warm milk and sat down at one of the tables, feeling a bit out of place. Zahiri walked towards me and invited me to sit along with them. I readily accepted his invitation and sat on their table. All the other boys from the rest of the table surrounded us, but Gaurav was still sitting alone. Zahiri started the icebreaker by introducing himself as the keeper batsman of the team. Before he could finish, a voice from the back of the room interjected.

"Zahiri nahi, Shorty!" the voice called out.

Everyone turned to see who had spoken. It was Rachin. All the team members burst out laughing, and Zahiri couldn't help but smile.

Zahiri quickly responded, saying, Let me introduce you all.

He pointed his hands towards Dhawan and said, "He is the dancing beauty of the team." Dhawan responded quickly with a few impressive dance moves.

Next, he pointed his hand towards Roby and said, "He is the daddy of the team." I looked at him with a puzzled look, and he clarified, "He is the oldest member of the team." Roby nodded in agreement.

He then pointed his hands towards Surya and said, "He is the Mr. Cool of the team." Surya responded in the same way as Dhawan, with a few cool dance moves.

Finally, he pointed his hands towards Ajay and said, "He is the spin master of the team." Ajay responded by saying "Vanakkam papa" (hello in Tamil). I responded back, saying "Vanakkam Anna" (hello brother in Tamil).

At that moment, Zahiri and others exclaimed, "Ohhhhhhhh! A Tamil club is getting formed here!" We all laughed at the comment.

Gaurav suddenly left the table and walked out of the food area. The team was stunned into silence. After a few seconds, Zahiri broke the silence with a joke.

"Don't bother," he said. "That's how our captain is. We call him the goat—the 'Ice God' of our team. I don't understand what's so attractive about him. Everyone in the world falls for him, even though he has a vicious tongue."

The team burst into laughter, and the tension was broken. They all knew that, despite his flaws, Gaurav was the kind of leader they needed to succeed. He was the goat, and they were all proud to have him as their captain. "Speaking of attraction, here comes Romeo of our team," he said, pointing at Adhi and teasing him a little.

Adhi responded back, trying to be modest. "Ahh! It's not like that. Just the audience likes my way of playing," he said, blushing slightly.

Pritam, another teammate, couldn't help but laugh. "Say it precisely, bro; it's girls, not the audience in general,' he said, and the rest of the team chuckled.

Sanju said, "So, Tara, it's again all of us speaking; we just know your name and your professional expertise; tell us more about you." I nodded my head and started speaking. I said my name is Tara, 25, completely born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, and I have been living in Mumbai for the past 4 years. I can speak Tamil nala pesuven; Hindi kuch kuch; Malayalam korach korach ariyam."

Zahiri replied back, "Tara, you are older than me, Adhi, Rachin, so we are going to call you Dhidhi (a way to call an elder sister in Hindi)" . Adhi and Rachin immediately jumped at the idea and started chanting "Dhidhi! Dhidhi! Dhidhi!".

We were having fun, and it was around 7p.m. All of us were about to leave. We exchanged each other's phone numbers, and Pratek gave me Ice God's phone number.