We used to play in the 50 yards wide space between two lanes of houses facing each other. This narrow space is all we have had since childhood. We would play football and cricket (with tennis ball) in the afternoon. These balls tend to jump a lot and fall in one of the houses. We would go knock the doors and the guardians would give our balls back, so that we can carry on playing. One snob neighbor used to slash through any ball that fell into their boundary and return it to us. Their faces were cruel and a certain look of us being subhuman (because we were poor) showed through.

At one point, me and a couple of my friends felt that we have had enough. We planned an assault on that house. We made cowdung bombs in paper bags, sand bombs in plastic bags and dead rats sling shots. It was a festival night (shab-e-barat) and there were a lot of firecrackers going off that night. There were a lot of people in the streets too.

We gathered all our arsenal, scouts made sure they were not outside the house and we made our attach run. We threw everything we had as far into the house as possible and eloped. There were no witnesses.

Yet we got caught. One of our compatriots got curious and came back to see what happened after that. The jerk son of that house recognized him as someone who play there regularly. He pressed this guy and he blabbered all our names.

The next morning, their whole family came to our house. Our parents were really close. The jerk’s father asked us why we did that to their house. I told him how they have hurt us by slashing our balls many times over the last couple of years. He understood. My father made me say sorry to them. They stopped slashing our balls.

The guy who ratted us out - he was never allowed to play with us after that.

That space has been transformed into something other than a playground over the last 20 years. I hate it.