Seeking the stillness

Being still is hard.

When you think about it, it should be easy. After all, it involves doing nothing.

Over the last few months, I have tried desperately to be still. To take the time to breathe, to reflect, to just be.

Truth be told, it has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in recent times. The uncertainty that comes with freedom is daunting to say the least. After years of movement and structure, as a student, an athlete, a working professional, there was suddenly nothing.

Stillness is strange – it means the absence of movement. But my mind has not stopped racing since December. I have felt restless and frustrated and unsure of where to channel my energies. So many possibilities, so many ideas, but little (read: no) motivation. No deadlines to meet or plans to make, meant I didn’t have to dig into an empty reservoir of enthusiasm either. There was no need to plod on. I could just be.

Until a couple of months ago, my days have always been very structured – things that needed to be done, dreams that had to be worked towards. Now, it’s all dissipated. Turned to nothing, through choices I made.

Walking away from work was easy, but walking away from cricket was hard. I still pick up a ball, and my first instinct is to bowl… try and knock the stumps down. Try in vain (!) to knock someone’s head off.

Cricket used to be my happy place

Going to the nets was one of my favourite things to do. How I talked myself into letting that go, I don’t know. Maybe it was years of disappointment – in myself, in the system, in all of it. Maybe it was finally growing up and accepting it was over.

I remember the day it all fell apart for me; the day I decided I had had enough. It was in the middle of Sikkim’s match against Chandigarh in Pondicherry. I had just been dismissed playing a horrendous lofted shot off Priyanka Guleria after seeing off challenging spells from their opening quicks. Normally, I would have admonished myself for the recklessness, gone back to the dressing room, sulked for a little bit before joining my teammates again. But that day, I walked to the dressing room calm as ever, sat down in my chair and broke down. The place was empty – the ground being a distance from the dressing room. I sobbed uncontrollably, wanting only to go home. When a teammate walked in, I headed into the shower and just stood there as the water ran over me. I hated it. I wanted to leave. I remember pulling out my diary just before our innings folded and writing ‘I think it’s over’, right under the match goals I had scribbled that morning. It was the worst I have ever felt on tour. Despite the runs I scored and the wickets I took, all I wanted was to get out of there. It was a feeling I had experienced before, playing in my last season for Hyderabad. But the difference was, that back then, while I hated the sense of insecurity within the environment off the field, I wanted nothing more than to be on the field – play, practice and chase my dream. In 2020, I was searching for an out despite playing some of my best cricket.

Since then, I have searched for stillness. But all I have found is self-doubt. Questions in my head that have no answers; or maybe they are just answers I don’t want to find.

I chose to walk away from the game for a variety of reasons – lack of motivation, opportunity, pent up frustration, but most of all, I chose to walk away because I didn’t want to end up resenting the game the way I have come to resent the system. Cricket is my happy place… Or, at least it used to be… It was where I wanted to be ever since I was 12 years old. It was my life for as long as I can remember. It was where I learnt to be still. But I had lost that space and was scared that cricket would also be the end of me.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the game, but I crave the opportunity to be involved in it on my own terms. There is too much scar tissue, much of which is fresh. And Indian women’s cricket is no place for the faint-hearted.

***

It’s funny how our minds work. For a large duration of the second half of 2021, I remember myself counting down the days to December 5. There was an expectation/ anticipation around what would follow… Would I feel like a weight had been lifted? Would that light-bulb moment finally happen? Would I feel like me again? 

In my head, things were going to magically work out...

I was supposed to give myself two months to find some clarity. I was supposed to spend two months searching for answers. I didn’t have to be productive. I didn’t have to tick off any milestones. All I needed, was to be and let the world flow by.

As I write this, the instructions sound simple. They should have been… But it does not work that way, does it?!

Like Suzie, I will continue to search for my centre. (ICC)

So now, a little over two months later, here I am, back in the space I ran away from. But I’m back on my own terms. No expectations. No obligations. Just celebrating the people I have admired and sought inspiration from over the years.

While I am still searching for a sense of calm and stability, recently watching the likes of Suzie Bates, Amelia Kerr, Maddy Green and (of course) the magical Maggie, I realised something important: stillness is not necessarily only the absence of movement, but the presence of clarity.

Through the ODI series between New Zealand and India, it was Bates’ clarity of thought and the precision of movement that resulted in her fluency. She was still in her crease, and momentarily still in her mind: able to simply act on instinct… They all were.

People often say that the harder athletes try, the worse they get. Their muscles tighten, their movements become almost robotic and everything seems strained.

This last while has felt like that for me. But I hope that, like I managed for the past 18 years, I find a way to translate my learnings from the game into my life as well.

Like Suzie, I will continue to search for my centre, but this time I know to let it find me.

Clear thoughts. Efficient movements. I hope I can handle that!