Turban granny

How many precious minutes or hours do we spend each day listening to people talk about themselves? I will follow this question up with another: why would anybody willingly read somebody else's blog? I cannot imagine a scenario where person X wakes up early, drops his or her children off at school, slugs through traffic on the way to work, listens to his or her colleagues talk about themselves, slugs through heavier traffic on the way home, listens to his or her spouse and children talk about themselves, and then scours the internet to read about what person Y has to say about him or herself.

This blog is mainly personal. A futuristic diary, if you will. However, in the event that person X, the masochist described above, somehow finds this post, they will not be reading about me and my opinions. Sorry, person X. This post is dedicated to my sweet grandmother.

In her age, my sweet grandmother has become rather paranoid about certain things. For one, she does not like anybody unrelated to her by blood to know her true name. It is my understanding that this paranoia is a result of two things. The first being a dire lack of medication, and the second, a notion that the Japanese want her dead and are working on it. But I don't believe the bit about the Japanese. Not one bit. Understand, I must respect her wishes, and so to give a name to my sweet grandmother, you may call her turban granny. I find this name suits her perfectly, as she is typically seen wearing a turban.

Ever since her school days, growing up in South Africa, she has dreamt of playing cricket at a professional level. Her dominance with the iconic red stitched ball was established as early as the time she began playing mini cricket in her primary school quad. Before long, turban granny had amassed a fine collection of small, wooden-based trophies depicting athletic stickmen frozen in their bowling action, poised to shatter the wickets in front of them. At the tender age of 16, word of her abilities reached the rest of South Africa, as she was named the country's top young sportsperson. The road ahead of turban granny was certainly paved with bricks made of the most expensive cement. Things appeared very bright for her. However, everything changed in the summer of 1931, when her skills earned her the opportunity to captain her side in a tournament held in Japan. Overwhelmed with mirth at receiving such positive news, turban granny felt it necessary to celebrate her good fortune. That very night, she hosted a party and a feast, inviting everybody she knew to join her. She had a great deal of friends and acquaintances. However, one does not pick up enough mini cricket trophies to fill a room without also picking up a few enemies on the way. As the night grew older and the celebrations wilder, turban granny's own sweet grandmother suggested a toast, in honour of turban granny's immense promise and increasingly bright future. In our culture, whenever a toast is made, those present who are carrying loaded firearms are obliged to fire a single round up into the sky after performing the dance of our heritage. Admittedly, this is a flawed tradition, as it does not take a university professor, or even a fully developed adult, to realise that mixing alcohol with munitions might not yield the safest results. And on this particular night, it did not. Koos, who considered himself to be turban granny's sworn and bitter sporting rival for life, would not normally have had the courage to do what he did at the moment of the toast. But drunk with confidence and desperate to prove himself as the final victor, before turban granny ascended to victory at the Japanese tournament and even greater things beyond - things he knew to be out of his reach - Koos hoisted his six-shooter and aimed it at the back of turban granny's turban. This may be the perfect time for me to attempt to describe our cultural dance. It is a fairly simple dance to master as it only consists of two movements performed in repetition, gaining in speed until the people performing it have reached what we call the eskom. The eskom is a physical state that one reaches after a few moments, minutes or hours, depending on fitness levels, where they have no power left. No energy. No electricity. The first step of the dance is a tip of the head to the left, followed seamlessly by a double finger click and slide of the body to the left. The second step involves raising the right bicep parallel to the shoulder and bending the elbow at a 45 degree angle, pointing the fist forward. From here the dancer pumps the right fist forward and back as furiously as possible until a state of eskom is attained. By the time Koos pulled the trigger, turban granny, who was a fantastic dancer, had already completed the first step of the dance, effectively moving out of the path of the bullet. Fortunately for those nearby, the bullet whistled clear of all human bodies and burrowed into a tree in the garden. I wish I could say that turban granny remained unharmed, but Koos' pistol had been fired no more than 30 centimetres from her right ear. Before realising that the blast had rendered her completely deaf in one ear, turban granny had started the second step of the dance, unknowingly driving her elbow directly into Koos' face. Koos hit the ground, his consciousness leaving him until well into the next morning. Needless to say, turban granny did not make it to Japan that year. Losing half her sense of hearing meant that she had also lost half her sense of balance. Doctors said that she would never run in a straight line again. These doctors did not know turban granny very well though, and could not possibly factor into their diagnoses an iron heart and indomitable spirit. Through sheer determination and a love of the game that is cricket, turban granny has nursed her talents, training daily so that she can realise her dream of becoming a professional cricketer. The truly inspirational thing is, her dream has finally come to fruition. After being scouted and recruited to play for Middlesex county club in England, she has shone time and again and has earned a place in the English XI. I have included a recent picture of her at the Pro 20 World Cup held in Japan earlier this year. She took a record breaking 8/22 in the final, without which her team may have lost sorely.

Sincerely
Person Y