The Cricket Match

How many of you have watched a cricket match at the stadium ? How did you feel ? Electrifying?….Rocking?…Pulsating?……. Let me recount my experience. It was year 1999 : November 11; I had just joined  my first company in Hyderabad.  That was the first time I had been living outside my family.

I was homesick and found a savior in Sridhar,my childhood friend . He had settled  with his parents in Hyderabad at  Mehdipatnam. Every weekend I used to visit them whether they liked or not. It was once such weekend , I got a call from Sridhar. I could sense both joy & tension at the same time in his voice . He said “Mukund, I have got 4 tickets for the cricket match at the Lalbahadur shastri stadium . So you come on Sunday sharp at 5:00 am to my house”. I was wondering why he asked me to come at such an odd time. Is it a night& day match or what ? I was disappointed, more because my interest laid more on Sridhar’s mother’s cooking rather than my friend himself.

So I was there on that fateful Sunday impeccably dressed for the occasion. Sridhar’s mother pointed me to the garage when I enquired about his whereabouts. There he was along with his 2 of his friends with Pens ,Markers & Charts all around. It took me a while to realize that he was preparing posters for the cricket match. He was literally shouting “ Don’t waste too many charts on Sachin or Dravid . they are flunking too often these days. Spend time on the new chap”. Remember this happened in 1999.

Just then he looked at me “ Come on hero, Are you not coming for the cricket match ?” “ Of course I am “… I replied feebly. Sridhar said “Then throw away that Interview dress and take this; he threw at me Indian team t-shirt. I protested that It was too dirty. He said that I have to wear it as it has been the lucky shirt . I really felt being part of 4 Idiots.
He suddenly grew serious “I need Metaphors & Triads” . I just wanted to reply “Try Talking to Shakesphere “.Instead  I replied “Sachin Sizzles, Dravid Dazzles”.Sridhar threw a stare “I don’t want clichés. I want the best caption that would catch the camera’s attention”. I replied “East or West , India is best”. By then it was around 6:30am. Sridhar was at his hysteric best or worst,I should say.He asked us to wrap up the charts as he clearly knew nothing creative would come out of this group.

Next was the trip to the stadium. Sridhar’s mother was kind enough to prepare boiled groundnuts enough to feed 4 people for a day. As I was about to grab the stuff, Sridhar threw temper tantrums again protesting that his image would get spoiled carrying these stainless tiffin-boxes. I would never budge on this issue alone and made sure it was part of our package to the stadium. Sridhar’s father threw a thumbs-up signal showing  he would be watching out for us in the TV.

So our caravan reached the stadium at 8:00am. Sridhar was restless throughout. I Struggled to understand the reason. Nevertheless I dared  to ask him. I soon found the answer. There was a serpentine queue already. Noise from inside the stadium was deafening even-though even the players were still in their hotel rooms taking bath.

I stood in the queue ignorant of the fact that worst was yet to come. Everything was seemingly going well, until a motley crowd of people with tickets came up and started enquiring to someone in the middle of the Queue. This aroused the “Mob mentality” in the people who had long queued up. Sridhar too protested not knowing what the issue is all about. And then it erupted. Crowds started jostling to gain entry through the narrow gate

It was helter-skelter allover. I was pushed from all the directions. I feared for my life as it was near stampede. It was like being sucked in a vortice as I was transported near the gate entrance. In the melee, my spectacles which were an integral part of my life since childhood was separated from me and all I could hear was the shutters rolling down.My spectacles lay inside the stadium and myself outside with the Iron-Gate standing like the Great Wall. It was a great separation. You could stand a situation a where your back is against the wall. But I found that you could never stand a situation where your nose is against the wall. I was held on the Iron shutter by the crowd and felt like lizard on the wall until I fell down as the crowd stopped jostling. I now wanted to enter the stadium desperately ….to get my spectacles.

Now, A sense of panic gripped me because of the fact that I lost my spectacles. .I don’t have any replacement as such and there was a session on OOPS in C++ the next day. I could hear my name being screamed  allover .It was Sridhar. I am sure that he could recognize me only because of the Ugly T-Shirt he had given me. I was about to complain about my missing spectacles , just when he asked to shut-up. He told me to be ready anytime as the gates would open again.

I felt an eerie calm all over. Sridhar’s prediction came true. A policeman was misled by the calmness, and just slightly rolled up the gate a feet above the ground to peep outside. That was enough for the crowd including me. Floodgates opened .The policeman was floored by the crowd and was helpless. And I could see my spectacles at the corner of the gate. I felt elated when I laid my hand on my specs. It was short-lived joy as a heavy foots also laid their legs on the spectacles at the same time. All I could retrieve was a mangled frame along with pieces of unbreakable glasses sticking in the frame.

I was about to cry. But in cricket stadium time rarely stands still. Sridhar escorted me to a  place. We were perched at-least quarter-of-kilometer from the pitch . To me even the pavilion fielder looked to be in the horizon. Sridhar was adamant it was a vantage point and blamed it on my vision without my specs.
The match had already begun. India won the toss and was batting. Soon, I understood that Chairs were put in the stadium for us to stand on it and not to sit. Everybody was   standing .Their sole aim was to grab the camera’ attention. We hardly understood anything happening on the field. Just when there is a loud scream I assumed it a six or four.
Sridhar was peeping through the binoculars to find out which direction the nearest camera was directing at. It never turned to our side. I was getting even more nervous at the thought of getting my spectacles done well before the class. Just then I indulged in some personal motivation “ Past is dead. Future is unknown. Present is the moment to live upon”…and so on crappy motivational quotes. I started to enjoy the cricket with my limited vision. I even gave some punch lines to Sridhar : “Lunch – Special Hyderbadi Biryani with Kiwi Roast ”
We were able to sense that boundaries and sixes were hit all over. We had a dispute though on who was in the middle. Somebody told it was sachin & dravid ; Somebody told it was Sachin & Saurav ganguly. Again remember that this happened in  1999. Sridhar told that Sachin was too great a player. I looked at him with Shock & awe. How could a person have such a forked tongue?

There were Mexican waves going around . Only problem was the frequency of the wave was so often that , I was asked to jump from my seat even as I was landing . I lost count of how may hours I was standing ,rather to say jumping .Then a sudden  calm prevailed all over. It was lunch time .Silence was deafening. I started to sulk about my spectacles again . More sulking about the OOPS session.

I gobbled up the boiled groundnuts that I had preserved so long. My lunch was done. I really felt that we were on the edge of the stadium as even pop-corn vendors felt too far to reach our place.
It was time fo New-Zealanders to bat. I pitied on them because I could feel that from Hamilton to Hyderabad, It was too much of climate change for them to handle. And now the view was clear simply because the crowd on the seat. I just clapped for an extra-cover drive that Stephen Fleming hit and there were thousand eyes looking at me as if I was a traitor. Sridhar asked me for the 100^th time to keep shut. Just then a roar went over the stadium. A wicket had fallen. Again there were arguments about whose wicket it was. Sridhar’s philosophy was “A wicket is a wicket. No matter who fell”. And then there were 10 such roars. The New-Zealand team was bundled out. I felt it was more due to the fact they wanted to get out of this terrible noise and wanted to get back the Grand kakatiya Hotel as early as possible. I wanted to be there for the presentation ceremony.
I felt that the climax of the match proved to be a damp squib compared to the spectacular beginnings. The thought of my spectacles and the C++ Class the next day made me to walk even slower. As we trudged past the Gate , I could see the Policeman again…the same hapless guy who opened the gate in the morning.  He asked me : “who won the match ? …India ….I replied beamingly….What was the margin of victory ? Who scored the highest ? How much did sachin Score? Who took the most number of wickets ? I just showed a deadpan expression, unable to answer any one of his questions.I could hear his sulking “ I just could not understand why no one from the Stadium could tell me even the margin of victory”.

It was a moment of truth for me. It dawned on me that you don’t go to the stadium for learning the cricket technique or statistics. You just go there to enjoy the game along with thousands of others. Suddenly I also felt watching the cricket match in a stadium Electrifying, Pulsating & Rocking. For the first time in the day, I felt very comfortable now in the Ugly T-shirt and felt proud about having a great friend in Sridhar !!!