losing

 

I have a little plastic bat and ball. My father has set the toy truck upright. If the ball goes behind me you get four runs, he tells me. If it goes past me without touching the ground you get 6. If it hits anything on the shelves you are out. If it hits the garbage truck you are out. If the bat hits the garbage truck you are out. Once you touch the ball with your bat you can run. If I hit the garbage truck with the ball while you run you are out. The game seems rigged to get me out. I get to ‘bat’ first, he says. I try to get in position like Jayasurya on the TV. My father does not like my stance. He does not know how to put me right because I’m batting left-handed. He makes me switch hands and shows me how to prepare myself for the ball. India loses to Bangladesh. I lose to Uppa. India loses to Sri Lanka. I lose to Uppa. I keep losing to Uppa. He gives me an extra wicket but I lose again. He promises to bowl slowly. I keep losing. Cricket isn’t all that  Uppa has bought me a board with white and black squares that he says if for playing chess. He teaches me that each piece has a place and a role. He lets me start with white as we start playing. I lose the first game, the second, the third, and the fourth. Months and years pass, but every time we play chess, there is only one outcome. He knows everything. Chess is for nerds.

My mother holds a few pages in her hand; she’s cleaning the cupboard. They’ve been torn off a journal from 2000. March 12 10:40pm, it says, Mishal is born. May 6 – Mishal’s first smile. I cannot keep browsing the pages, I’m not sure I want to. Those pages have a recorded a relationship between me and her indescribably different from the one we share now. I try to remember games we have played. Did we play any? I am sure she would have let me win at least once. There might have been some ludo or snakes and ladders here and there. If there are any, they don’t stand out, nothing significant comes to mind. I’m pausing to think about the implications of why even the parent I played with is so gendered. I’m sitting down to watch a movie. She hears the TV play. She comes upstairs, upset I did not tell her about the movie. You’re leaving me, and you don’t even want me to watch this with you. It works, I play it from the start again.

I am watching again the next night; this time, I do ask if she wants to join. Of course she wants to join. I know why I did not ask last night, but it does not need to come up. She’s right, I will probably get to keep leaving anyway.