Player or Commentator?

“Why doesn’t he just shut up and let the game go on, instead of boring us?” Swami complained. He was watching the IPL final on that Sunday afternoon on his iPad while sipping his coffee.

“So many players become commentators after retirement,” Jigneshbhai remarked, while sipping into his coffee.

He peeped into Swami’s iPad to check the status of the game, though I knew he wasn’t such a big IPL fan.

“It’s atrocious sometimes, though. I put the commentary on mute when some of them speak,” Swami said.

“I am sure they themselves didn’t listen to commentators when they were playing,” Jigneshbhai said, out of the blue. I did not quite understand what he was saying, but Swami missed it.

“Of course not. They would go crazy, isn’t it?” Swami agreed.

“I wish they could hear their own commentary then,” Jigneshbhai then said. “Drink a bit of their own medicine,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.

“I am sure they would mute it themselves, and then keep playing,” Swami broke into a guffaw.

“Hmm. True,” Jigneshbhai said. “When they were players, they must have been experts at that,” he added.

“Experts at what?” Swami got a bit confused, not yet getting a hang of what Jigneshbhai said.

“Experts at muting their own commentary,” Jigneshbhai replied.

Swami and I looked at each other. We were thinking about the same thing. Muting their own commentary? we wondered. What was our wise friend talking about?

“But they weren’t commentators when they were playing,” both of us said at the same time. “They were players on the field.” And as if to clarify further, Swami added, with an apparent snub, “And by the way, players can’t listen to anyone else’s commentary when they are playing.”

Swami turned his attention back to the game.

“This game is going to go down to the wire,” he said, and then smiled when he realised how he sounded. “Did I sound like…?” he started, but his attention was pulled back to the iPad by some noise. He saw that the batsman had heaved two sixers. “Maybe it will get over before that,” he said looking at the score now.

Jigneshbhai smiled while sipping his coffee but we knew there was something else to it in store. Something else was cooking.

“See even your commentary turned out to be wrong,” Jigneshbhai remarked.

“True. He hit two sixers changing the course of the game. I am sure he didn’t listen to the commentator,” Swami agreed.

“But he had his internal commentator, I am sure. He must have shut him up every time he spoke, before going ahead and hitting those sixers,” he said.

“Eh? Shut up whom?” Swami asked, looking confused at me and Jigneshbhai, but stealing a glance at the match.

“His commentator, who else?” Jigneshbhai replied.

Now Swami and I raised our eyebrows in a frown. We suspected that we and Jigneshbhai were talking about different types of commentators.

“His commentator?” Swami was the first to ask, as usual.

Jigneshbhai sipped on to his coffee a couple of times again, while we waited.

“All of us have one, isn’t it? An internal commentator that only talks and doesn’t let us play,” he asked.

Swami and I looked at each other and got a hang of what our friend was saying.

Jigneshbhai munched on to his muffin this time.

“How would a game be if you were both a player and also the commentator?” he asked.

Swami and I realised that Jigneshbhai wasn’t talking about the commentary we had in mind. In fact, he wasn’t referring to the IPL game of cricket anymore that Swami had been watching.

Swami set aside his iPad as the game was done and dusted and cast his attention on Jigneshbhai’s commentary.

“It strikes me that our real life is truly like that game, isn’t it?” Jigneshbhai asked with the excitement of a new discovery. Then he continued. “A game in which we are both the players and the commentators, isn’t it? “

Our friend was on to a game at a different level, Swami and I realised. Both of us tried to digest what Jigneshbhai had left us with, while also munching on to the real double chocolate muffin. We were just starting to agree with him.

That’s when the wealthy old man barged into our table. He had been listening to our conversation for a while. He tapped Swami on his shoulder and said, “If you are the player in the game, neglect the commentator.” Swami and I scratched our heads as the wealthy old man left us with more food for thought, while Jigneshbhai smiled.

***