Ode to Brian Charles Lara

It was in art class in third form at Campion College that the name Brian Charles Lara first had any significance to me or to the members of Mr. Young's portraiture class. While we slowly sketched with our pencils, our ears and heads perched out the window to listen to the ball-by-ball commentary from Fudgie's tinny sounding radio.

The boys and the odd tomboy crew(of which I was the sole member at times) in the courtyard, neglected the usual break time scrimmage game, as the dirty yellow tennis ball sat motionless in the middle of the gathering. Bigger things were happening elsewhere.

Even Fudgie himself abandoned his pastime of cleaning his toenails with the same knife with which he cut us bun and cheese. Everything was quiet. No one spoke. No one dared to rustle the universe, lest we disrupt history in the making.

While we held our breaths, scared to breathe too loudly, our individual hearts betrayed us and pounded. They seemed to mimic the Lara's sweet operatic aria of leather against willow. It was soft at first, but then as our anticipation grew, the beats got deeper and louder and soon our nubile West Indian hearts played a wild rhythm, ushering a unified kindred spirit to witness what lay ahead. And then the din rose, the clambering cymbals, the steel pan and congo drums, the maracas rising to a climax we were not sure we could handle. And then it came, the jubilant crescendo greater than any little death- "Brian Lara bruk the record!!!"

It was no surprise that I would 10 years later- having graduated both high school and university thus finally earning my right to unfettered travel- as the kindred spirit would have it, be there to witness history the second time around. After 10 years of an unbroken record, a feisty Lara, upset with the audacity of his challenger, batted all of us spectators at the Antigua Recreation Ground into a dancing and screaming frenzy in his retort. It seemed like he was saying "stay bruk!" in his Trini lilt. Again, it was pandemonium. Again, it was Lara, working his magic.

Today you said goodbye but I will hold on to the positives. Thank you Brian Charles Lara for synchronizing the beat of my heart with this beautiful game of cricket.

"Walk good my friend," and as the Jamaican saying continues as a blessing to those departing, "may good duppy follow you."






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(c) Sheer Almshouse , April 21, 2007.