  Action/Adventure
This week: To Make Nothing Happen Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  
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When 'nothing' becomes a concrete goal --
when 'nothing' becomes everything to strive for,
it calls for a different sort of action! |
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Dear Reader,
(Special note to iKïyå§ama  , 🌖 HuntersMoon  , Dragon is hiding  and other non-fans of cricket  -- I've used cricket only as an example here. Read, understand, read further -- okay? Please.   )
THIS DAY THAT YEAR :
7th February 1999 : Indian spin legend Anil Kumble scalps a PERFECT 10 against arch rivals Pakistan at Delhi's Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, entering record books and the annals of history .He became only the second player in the world after Jim Laker of Australia to capture all 10 wickets in an inning.
So basically, in cricket, there are two 'ends' of the pitch.
There's a batsman at each end.For one over, that is, six balls, a rival bowler bowls at one end. The batsman could score, get out or merely defend.
Then, the action switches to the other end, and another rival bowler bowls at that end.
Bowlers have to change after every over, one bowler is not allowed to bowl two consecutive overs.
The batting side's inning is finished if ten batsmen are out.
Getting out is referred to as losing a wicket for the batsman, or, for the bowling side, getting a wicket.
Now, in that historic inning I've mentioned above, Anil Kumble was bowling steadily at one end.
And there were others, notably Javagal Srinath, bowling at the other end.
So, when it looked like Anil Kumble was going to manage a record ten-wicket haul (getting all ten of the rival batsmen out), what were the captain's orders to the bowler at the other side? "Don't take a wicket."
Which, of course, goes against the grain and against every bit of training a bowler has imbibed all his / her life. Except that, being team players and understanding that a team-mate is about to achieve something truly great, they want to do their bit.
Do their bit by not doing anything.
By making sure NO wicket fell at their end.
Which involved a whole lot of strategy and some heart-stopping moments.
Here's one description taken from an interview with Anil Kumble himself.
Javagal Srinath was bowling at the other end when the ninth wicket fell. He bowled wide of the stumps. Obviously, he wasn't bowling to take a wicket. Waqar Younis, Pakistan's last batsman, went for a heave in that over, and skied the ball in the long-leg region. I don't think Sadagoppan Ramesh, or for that matter, any fielder in the history of the sport, would have been shouted at by his team-mates not to catch the ball, when they were fancying their chances of going for it! Javagal Srinath was among those who shouted the loudest!
So there it is. A bowler purposely trying not to take a wicket, and allowing the batsman to get away with a silly shot by telling the fielder not to catch the ball.
The strategy to make 'nothing' happen.
For a writer, especially a writer of mysterious or adventurous tales, this gives food for thought with character and plot development.
What strategy are you going to employ, to make sure nothing happens? To make sure the real culprit gets away, or the action slows down when you need it to slow down?
Let's take the Harry Potter series. Remember when Harry isn't allowed to get his Hogwarts letter, back in the first book? So much action on the part of Uncle Vernon, to make sure nothing happened about Harry's letter. And, in the background, so much action on Hagrid's part, to keep it going, till 'something' happening finally won. Then the third book, or actually, everything up to the end of the third book -- think of all that had to happen to make sure Scabbers remained Scabbers and didn't get discovered as Peter Pettigrew. 'Nothing' was discovered about Ron's pet's true identity. Cut to the last book. Remember when Aberforth hides the trio in his pub, when they're attempting to return to Hogwarts? Some action with the Death-Eaters, there, to ensure that they don't enter the pub and find Harry, Ron and Hermione.
A classic example would, of course, be O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. Neither of them gets a useful gift, all said and done! The whole story can be interpreted to have happened to make nothing happen!
In the book Songs of the Cauvery, there is a scene in which a girl's house is being watched because her boyfriend is a wanted man. When he does visit her, in the dead of the night, he manages to climb the tree outside her window, attract her attention, wake her, speak to her and leave. It turns out that the person watching the house has since switched sides, and is, in fact, on the boyfriend's side at the time of the incident. So, nothing happens. The guy talks to his girl and leaves without getting arrested. But there's a whole character developing, in the 'watcher', and an important twist in the plot. Author Kalyanaraman Durgadas says: "In a story of course, you need to foreshadow a little bit to make the reader know that the nothing that is happening is mysterious."
So yeah, let's have some nothing happen in those action stories and adventure tales!
Thanks for listening,
Sonali
PS -- Here's a song. Talk about making sure 'nothing' happens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLpKewnxp4
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Action/Adventure: February 22, 2017 Issue [#8124]
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