CRICKETER
SREESANTH RETURNS HOME
The
Cochin International Airport witnessed a flurry of activity on Wednesday, 12th
June,2013, morning when cricketer S. Sreesanth landed here after being let out
on bail by a Delhi was returning home after almost a month-long
detention in Tihar jail on spot-fixing charges.At the airport, outdoor
broadcasting vans of channels were seen parked right outside the domestic
arrival exit where security guards usually don’t allow cabs more than a few
minutes’ halt to drop or pick up passengers. The space outside the terminal
building was taken over by the media, and was dotted with cameras mounted on
tripods.As a crowd started ballooning, the police made way for a white sedan
driven by Sreesanth’s cousin Appu who had come to take the cricketer home.
Anticipating media frenzy, police closed the usual exit. Inside the terminal,
the airport staff and shop employees were bunched up against the railing
separating the visitor’s area from the arrival section to catch a glimpse of
the cricketer.
Five
minutes after the clock struck nine, the electronic display board flashed the
arrival of the Air India flight AI 467, carrying the cricketer. Signalling the
imminent arrival of Sreesanth, his cousin Appu emerged out of the terminal with
the cricketer’s baggage. Television reporters who were all along giving a
running commentary, which often went all the way back to the morning of May 16
when Sreesanth was arrested, suddenly raised the pitch of reporting. The first
of the passengers who emerged out of the terminal were dumbstruck to witness
the chaos that greeted them. They could not find their friends and relatives
who had come to receive them as they were literally pushed to the background.
Excitement reached a feverish pitch, as the reporters caught sight of Sreesanth
sporting a beard and clad in white t-shirt and blue denim jeans. He emerged out
of the terminal building with his brother Dipu Santhan, friend Jayan Thekkedath
and reporters who escorted him from Delhi. Sreesanth addressed the media
briefly and started to make a move.
But the
media didn’t have enough of him and tailed him despite a protective ring thrown
around the cricketer by the police and CISF personnel. At one point, Sreesanth
lost his footing in the melee and almost fell. In between a fan was heard
shouting “Sreesanth, we love you,” as if to compensate for a few boos that greeted
the cricketer on his arrival. In their anxiety to get Sreesanth safely into the
car at the earliest, the security personnel took him in the opposite direction
where the car was parked. The car had to be brought to his side before he could
eventually leave the airport. He shifted into another car in which
brother-in-law Madhu Balakrishnan and father Santhakumaran Nair were waiting
for him near Kalamassery, away from the media glare.Jayan Thekkedath said the
cricketer had hardly slept the previous night in the excitement of returning
home. Sreesanth reached Madhu Balakrishnan’s home “Madhavam” at Tripunithura
amid supportive sloganeering by a few fans, who also garlanded him. No sooner
had he entered the house than the cricketer found himself in the warm embrace
of his mother Savitri Devi who spent most of her time since his arrest in
temples and churches praying for the well-being of her son. And for the first
time in almost a month, she gave a hearty smile. She fed her son the offerings
from a temple.Sreesanth then sat in the drawing room holding his parents on
either side close to him. Ms. Devi could not suppress her love and affection
any longer as she embraced him in a tight hug and covered him with kisses with
tears rolling down her cheeks. The mother’s emotions rubbed on him as tears
welled up in his eyes.
The
motherly concern was visible yet again when Sreesanth was addressing the media
as she constantly reminded her son not to get in to trouble by answering knotty
questions of reporters. Sreesanth then had his first homely breakfast after a
month’s break in the company of his parents and family members.
Prof. John Kurakar
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