‘Avinash! What are you doing? I told you to go out and play. Now leave those books alone and run. Look at all your friends. Learn from them, you duffer! Just like your father. All the time with books, books, books! I will burn them if you touch them without my permission’ Screamed his mom.

I could hear the commotion quite clearly. The kid is having a bad day. Poor fellow. Look what these guys Sachin, Dravid, Mallya and co. have done. Now there’s so much of performance pressure on poor little Avinash.

In good old days, all they had to do was study. After the cricket revolution, it has all changed. Now every mother wants her child to be a Sachin or at least a Harbhajan.

Poor kids.

Look at this fellow Avinash. He has to wake up at 5 AM and go for his practice sessions. Half-sleepy, his dad drives him down to the Cricket Stadium. Two hours of severe sessions in batting, bowling and fielding after ten rounds of running around the field.

I feel sorry. But what to do?

He has to attend school after that. He has to be very careful about his Physical Education classes. If he scores low, there’s hell for him at home. Scoring well in all the subjects and being a first rank holder is no excuse for bad PE scores.

Initially the fellow used to sneak into my house to read books. I let him. And soon I was his favourite Uncle. I didn’t mind having him around at all. All he does is sit in a quiet corner and read.

I wonder how he copes. He doesn’t like playing cricket. He loses. Most of the time, he sits in the gallery watching his friends play! Thank goodness his Dad is the understanding type. They both sit together cracking jokes and sharing stories about performance pressures.

The problem is the lady, Avinash’s mom. She is very aggressive. She wants the best in life. All she does is sit and watch TV all day. Or gossip. Through some ‘reliable’ source of hers she learned that there is big money in cricket. In fact much much more that what her stupid husband will earn in his lifetime. The husband of hers is fit for nothing, definitely not for cricket, anyway. So she focused her attention on her progeny.

In the initial days of her “Sachinising Avinash” project, it was good. He was made to drink Horlicks and Boost, (as seen on TV) after all, that’s how Sachin started hitting big – the secret of his energy. In those days poor little Avinash had no clue what was coming his way.

Very slowly his home started becoming a mini-gym and Mom started becoming a coach – no-not exactly a coach – more of a manager. Exercise cycle, rowing machine, multi-gym, treadmill – you name it, it was there.

Anyway, one good thing about the whole exercise was that when little Avinash went to bed - dead tired - he slept very well. And had lots of nice dreams.

His favourite dream was to have a house with a huge library. And a mahogany table with a big leather chair. And he had Jeeves for a butler who would somehow keep his mother away with his wit, so that the young master can read in peace.

Ok, here he is now! He looks happy, the little imp. He has some good news. Oh my God! This is incredible. His mom has got hooked to the “Star singer” show. The prize money is bigger than cricket.

The little brat was grinning as he said that. He knows the rules of the game, already!