A/N - Disclaimer - This is a fan fiction. A little tribute/my version of what may have happened to lead to or after these events. There will be some references to events which has happened but some will be entirely my head canon.
There is no intention to hurt or malign anybody. All members of ICT are most respected by me and this is just a fictional point of view. No incident have any resembled to what actually may have happened.
Matches and Incidents are in part completely of my imagination. Kindly do not take any part as the truth. Happy reading.
Do not hate me! I was just stuck at one point in my story "An Interlude to Sunset" and needed to scribble out this tiny little ficlet. (It is related to my story 'The Song is Ended, But the Melody linger on'. No real need to read that one.)
My mind works in weird ways.
After the World Cup 23 Finals, Jassi receives a phone call. Unexpected but welcome; the warm voice and his words were much treasured.
Main Characters - MSD and Jassi. (One Shot)
A Warm Voice
The night was singularly chilly. It was as if nature was commiserating with the grief that had laid its hold on a billion beating hearts.
No one had the heart to talk to the man who sat bundled into the corner of the room, quietly grieving, his eyes fixed resolutely on the iPad Screen. The others had dispersed long since; no one had the slightest inclination of watching the presentation ceremony, when their hearts were being torn into pieces.
But the man forced himself to watch every moment. He forced himself through the post match discussion, analysis and the Press Conference.
It was a good couple of hours or more before he fished out his forgotten phone from one of the drawers in the study table and found that it had just enough charge left for one call. The man swiped away the missed calls and the assembled messages and found the one number he wanted.
He had not expected the call to be received as speedily as it was, certainly not by the man who had picked it up and was slightly taken aback.
"Keep your voice down and don't call out my name." Regrouping himself, he delivered the instructions firmly.
"Ok sir." The reply came in a voice so lowered that MS Dhoni had to press his phone harder to his ear in order to hear it; he winced at the moniker.
"Not sir, Siraj!" He scolded. "Are you okay? Where is Jassi?"
"Ok sir. Jas Bhai is just giving some water to Ishaan. He is coming now; I will give him the phone." The voice was so painfully innocent that MS felt his mind and heart shutter in pain and disbelief.
"Ok, kiddo. Take care and do not dwell too much on the defeat."
"Haan ji, sir." A choked back sob before there was silence.
A moment or two and Jassi's familiar voice danced through the phone's speakers; familiar and yet unknown, as heavily tear-stained as it was.
"Mahi Bhai?"
The voice was fairly muted and yet MS repeated his instructions.
"Voice low, Jassi. Don't call out my name."
"Understood, Bhai." Jassi was never one to ask a lot of questions.
"Are you okay, kid?"
Ever since MS had seen that smile on the screen, that smile while comforting a distraught Siraj, he had ached to talk to this young child of his; one of his youngest.
"Haan ji, Bhai. I am fine. Shubman is in a stupor, Rahul has locked himself in his room, Virat Bhaiya is probably having a migraine attack but Ishaan has dragged him away to try to talk to Rahul, Rohit Bhaiya and Jaddu bhaiya..."
"I am asking about you,Jasprit." MS interrupted and a little harshly at that. "Are you okay?"
"I am fine, Ma... Bhai." The same answer and MS sighed heavily.
"I saw that smile after the match, bachcha." MS leaned back and hit his head against the back of his chair. "Stop diverting the topic and my mind."
"I-I..." MS could tell that Jassi wanted to speak but he couldn't find the words. "I don't know, Bhai." The reply came at long last.
"Talk to me." One thing MS had in aplenty was patience and he utilised it quite frequently.
"We lost again, Bhai." MS could make out the barely held back and suppressed sobs in the voice. "Again. In a Final. Why, Bhai? We performed so well throughout the tournament, just to chock in the finals. There is no surety about how many of us would get the opportunity of playing a World Cup again. What went wrong, Bhai? Where do we always go wrong? Again..."
"A lot of things, Jassi." MS replied once he was sure that no more words were forthcoming from the kid. "But do you really want to know that?"
"What, Bhai?"
MS shook his head absently, stared intently at the fireplace, and when he replied it was with a voice heavy with experience and regret filled lessons wrought out of it.
"When the match has been lost, there is little to be obtained from dissecting the reasons. All that would lead to will be playing the blame game and friendships being broken as a result. Just give yourself time to heal, Jassi." MS paused and then asked, "But I do have a question for you."
"Of course, Bhai. What is it?"
"The anger. What's that for?"
"What...How, Mahi Bhai?"
Jassi had sounded so taken aback that MS couldn't hold back his laughter. "I know you, kiddo. I know all of you a little too well."
That Jassi was blushing hard was kind of evident to MS, even from just his voice. "Yeah... Well, I am angry on myself for that terrible first over and a-a l-little bit o-on on H-Hardik."
Having been the elder brother and confidant of many young lads over the years, not much took MS by surprise any longer. And neither did Jassi's words. In fact he had been expecting something similar.
And he knew better than to outrightly dismiss any such thoughts.
"Hardik would have played if he could have, Jassi. You should talk to him once. I am sure that he is as broken as you..as all of you; if not more."
"Maybe," was Jassi's throwaway reply.
"And there is no reason for you to be angry at yourself, kiddo. You were amazing all through." MS made no attempts to mask the affection lacing his words.
There was some moments punctuated only by intermittent sniffles and MS simply held on. With each passing moment he could feel the younger cricketer rebuilding his shields and his belief.
"We miss you, Bhai. So much." Jassi finally said, his voice heavy with tears. There was another pause. "Virat bhai?"
MS felt his breath catching and he felt the first brush of tears on his eyelashes.
"What about him?" He asked, after taking a moment to control himself. There was no reply and MS was quick to realise that his voice had come across unusually harsh. "What about Virat, kiddo?" He asked, much more softly and with warmth encashing his tone.
"Have-Have you spoken to him, Bhai? Virat Bhaiya has kind of shut down. Rohit Bhaiya has also not really spoken to anybody. Speak to them, Bhai?"
MS was not one to overshare and he had to work hard to keep his voice neutral even as he replied to Jassi, "Just not yet, okay? But I will talk... Just later, okay?"
But Jassi held perception to an extent that MS had quite forgotten.
"Are you angry on them... on Virat Bhaiya, Bhai?"
In front of the softly uttered question, MS could not lie outrightly and with a sigh of dejection and hopelessness, he replied, "A bit, Jassi. Just a bit. You take care, kid. You do not need to smile when you would rather not....And...Well, just look out for Virat and Rohit too, okay? For a while?"
"Of course, Bhai." Jassi had replied but the phone had already been disconnected.
The man, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, had then spent the rest of the night siting in the same chair, submerged in thoughts so turbulent, that he doubted that even the most tempestuous waves could compete against them.
And only one thought remained even as the first streaks of dawn lighted up the mountain tops; 'Was he only angry, or was he, for once, disappointed?'
A/N - Yeah. This is it. Just something random. Just to get out of a slight writer's block. Now back to my original story.
Btw Jassi and Mahi Bhai... Unusual but I kinda like it. A great younger brother to the greatest Elder Brother.
Do comment. Your thoughts pretty much make my day.