The Due Loss

There was nothing more to be said. Navya stared at the face of Mrs Garg who was wearing a blank non-caring look.



Navya turned and made her way down the stairs. Walked out of the building and continued to walk towards hers and on the way, she looked at her parked car with the newly made dent.



The dent was the result of Mrs Garg’s son playing cricket near the parking area. Despite many asking him to play at the playground at around five minutes’ walking distance, Vikraal would still play here with his friends when no one was looking and his attitude was worse by the day.



“Growing boys are supposed to play sports,” Mrs Gard told Navya



“.. and what about my car?” asked Navya showing the picture of the dent



“You earn well, you can afford to ignore a small boy. Besides we, women are not supposed to interfere in their world,” said Mrs Garg, which annoyed Navya but she held her voice back.



“You do know there is a women’s cricket team as well,” said Navya



“It’s a formality to spare the men from the noise”



That is when Navya chose not to speak further to someone who was at an age where knowing better could be a bit of a tedious task.



“I have told Vikraal several times to stop playing here, but he does not listen and comes back later and his friends follow him to it,” said the watchman who during his rounds spotted Navya looking at the dent on her car



“At what times does he come?” asked Navya



“Around 5-5:30,” said the watchman



Navya looked at the smartphone, it was a weekend the next day.



“Do any girls play cricket here?” asked Navya



“Some girls attend the academy, my daughter also goes with them,” said the watchman



“That’s great. Can you ask them to come here at around 5-5:30?” said Navya and the watchman smiled



The Saturday passed and on Sunday morning during her morning walk, Navya came across Mrs Garg who was out to buy flowers for her morning prayers. Mrs Garg was not at all pleased to see Navya and in her eyes, she wanted to say a lot but Navya knew she was hurt from within and wouldn’t speak.



The girls had challenged Vikraal and his friends to a match in the playground and they agreed without knowing the cricket academy background. If Vikraal lost he would never play on the road near the parking lot again, that was the deal. The result was an obvious one, the girls had won quite easily.



Navya even made some videos of the boy’s struggling to play and sent it to Mrs Garg with a message ‘maybe if they played more in the ground, they would do lose better’



The problem didn’t completely go away, but was now quite controlled with the watchman timely reminding Vikraal of his loss.

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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