The Foundation Stays

Jassi's best and worst news of the year

12th December, 2023

Jassi had been off anything and everything related to cricket for the past three weeks.

23 days, 1 hour, 4 minutes. 

(Kidding; he wasn't actually counting minutes.)

(Or maybe he was.)

It was past dinnertime. Sanjana was out with friends. Angad was in his crib, sound asleep. Jassi didn't have the energy to get up from the couch in whose depths he was nestled, trying to watch a web series, and failing, trying to sing along to a couple of songs, and failing, and trying to will the casserole from the fridge into the oven zooming into his hands, and also (obviously) failing.

He'd been getting into this zone often lately, being unable to move a limb, and preferring to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling instead. After the finals, Sanjana had insisted on going for the trip, which his mother had approved of wholeheartedly, but Jassi didn't think it had done much good. Maybe he had been a bit more active there, but he'd still preferred to sit on the sand and gaze into the wave-traced skyline of the ocean rather than actually doing something.

He was not new to this zone, but he could swear it was getting worse with every passing year.

When around half past ten he was deliberating for the thirtieth time whether he should move himself and get something to eat (because it was not like he didn't get hungry anymore), SKY chose to gave him the best news of the year.

It was the screenshot of a news article that popped up from his chat.

'IPL 2024 trade: Hardik Pandya returns to Mumbai Indians in all-cash deal.'

'Spoof?' Jassi typed.

'Of course not, dummy, everyone knows' SKY typed back.

Jassi called SKY, his hand feeling a bit shaky.

"I suspected you were living in oblivion when you didn't say anything," SKY said. "You were supposed to jump through the roof."

"I won't jump through the roof till I'm sure this is real," said Jassi. "How is it real? Why would GT--"

"Look, it's been in talks for ages, Rohit bhai hinted at it ages ago."

"I never heard him hinting at something like that!"

"Maybe he didn't want to get your hopes up. And now that you both have been missing in action for weeks, you didn't stand a chance of being tipped off. But you can jump through the roof now, it's real, I've spoken to Hardik about a million times since the deal was finalized."

"When was it finalized?" asked Jassi.

"Afternoon."

Jassi couldn't deny he felt a bit put out that Hardik hadn't already called him. But he was a thousand times happier than he was put out--so happy that he did feel like jumping through the roof--and he told a sniggering SKY a hasty goodbye and called Hardik.

"Hi, Jas--"

"You couldn't have told me?" cut in Jassi. "How long have you known?"

"Been a while now," admitted Hardik.

"What the hell is wrong with you? It's been all over the news all evening, the whole world knew and I didn't--and it didn't strike you at all that I should be the first one who should know? Well, second, after Rohit bhaiya. I assume he knows?"

"Of course."

"Asking again--what the hell is wrong with you?"

"I thought--you said you--you didn't want to think of cricket for a while--"