On a hot summer afternoon, a young boy named Gopi was sitting in his veranda reading a book. Suddenly, he heard a rustling sound followed by a thud in the garden. Thinking it might be a fallen mango, he put his book aside and ran outside to check. He searched through the thick grass and bushes near the fence. Finally, he discovered a white hockey ball lying on a heap of dry leaves. Gopi looked around the gate to see if anyone was searching for it. When his mother called him inside because of the heat, he drank a glass of water and decided that he would return the ball to its real owner.
In the evening, Gopi took the ball to the playground where his friends gathered daily to play hockey. He asked them if anyone had recently lost a ball. Manoj mentioned that he had lost a ball four months earlier, so the newly found ball was not his. Another friend, Deepak, shared that his father had just bought him a new football. Realizing that the true owner was not there, Gopi suggested that they should start playing a match before it grew dark.
The friends quickly took their positions on the field. Manoj stood at the goalpost as the goalkeeper, while Gopi stood at the centre of the playground. Gopi passed the ball to Deepak, who passed it to Ramani, and Ramani hit it towards Jay. Manoj encouraged Jay to take a shot towards the goalpost. Jay swung his hockey stick with great force and struck the ball hard. The ball flew past the playground gate and landed right inside the basket of a passing scooter. The scooterist had no idea what had happened and quickly rode away down the road. By the time the children reached the gate, the scooter and the ball were both gone. Instead of being upset, the friends looked at each other and burst into laughter.