The heat is a little better where we sit; me, my cousins and aunts and most of my clan. The dust swirls off the ground and makes me pull down my sunglasses, before I prop them back up on my head again. Below us, on the brown ground with white patterns, the team is warming up. I hear the clack-clack-clack of the hockey sticks against the dimpled cork ball, the sudden slap of the ball against the goalpost’s metal.
The gallery is metal, simple and self-sufficient in its ways – the yellow steps are familiar, they have always been yellow, ever since I was a child, and they have always doubled up as steps and seats both. I have grown up watching this, grown up cheering for my mother, my father, and now my cousins and uncles. I do not play the sport, much to my parent’s and my own disappointment (paradoxical, I realise); hockey is a big deal in my district, with an impressive timeline and a list of players who have represented the state and the nation on several stages. But I must confess, I do yearn to be part of this fabled but now fading legacy.
But for now, I must make do with cheering my lungs out, until my throat is like sandpaper, for my clan. One debated way hockey is kept alive in this sleepy little district I call home is the inter-clan hockey matches, where clans register and are pitted against each other on the dusty turfs. The finals are attended in droves, with nary a place to budge and with people old and young, by people in fancy SUVs and people who hail buses from across the land to get here. While the platform’s effectiveness in supporting talent is debated, it pulls people in regardless, enthusiastically or begrudgingly – if it is summer, you will be pulled to the event like a bee to a flower, a moth to a flame.
Hurried and worried whispers float above and around me, about the opponents playing rash, about our team being just middle aged men and spangly tweens and teens. But I hold faith, I tell them we will win. The previous game is still on, nothing ever ends or starts as scheduled, but that is okay. The aunties on my left (from another clan) have lost hope, and have resorted to joking about their sons and husbands and their outdated playing and moves. The other clan, the victorious one, are cheering, clapping and conversing in that easy tone that comes with knowing that you have won this round.
The whistle blows, the dust settles, the players in the dugouts rush to congratulate their team members as the losers walk by, shaking hands. I can see our team, lined up and ready to occupy the ground once it is emptied. There, they are walking in now, touching the dust to their forehead reverentially before walking in. We cheer as they do, a cacophony in the truest sense. The popcorn vendor below us is possibly too used to this hooting, he barely flinches, barely breaks his monotone call to buy his wares. The gang of boys a little way above us start the music. They have large drums and maracas, an innate sense of rhythm and music. They attend these matches with the sole, serious purpose of playing the celebratory valaga (music), stripped down to its cheeriest tunes.
I focus my attention on the ground once more, as the dust swirls and the summer breeze dances. The ball is there, the veterans and the young ones are there and summer has just begun. The whistle pierces the air. The hockey sticks clash, and we erupt in fierce cheering. The cacophony makes my sister, who is returning from the stalls with pork and sodas, a little hard to hear. Nevermind, she can tell me later, the game is on. The national sport survives afterall, and it does it by being an ingrained part of the culture, an ingrained part of us.
The band plays on, their cheery tune adding to the roar from the gallery.
The ball rolls forward, seeking the goal.