My journey to a Cricket stadium...finally!

“The beautiful green outfield, the scoreboard and the flags of the two countries, increased my excitement. I sat staring at the batsman at the crease with my eyes wide open and tiny droplets of sweat on my forehead. We needed four runs to win off the last ball. Supporters of the two countries screamed at the top of their voice. I sat praying. The last ball of the match. The bowler came speeding in and delivered the ball. The batsman reached for it and hit it hard. It traveled quickly and reached the boundary. We had won! Oh wow….

This was a little flashback. No, not a part of my memories, but the first paragraph from the first ever story I wrote, “My journey to a Cricket stadium”. Something I wrote in my eight grade, when I was completely smitten by the Cricket bug. It gives me the creeps when I read it now. I realize my parents were quite supportive when they read it and gave me positive feedback for ‘that’!

But coming back to the present. I had always felt bad that I never visited the Cricket stadium even after staying here in Chennai for quite sometime. But 14^th November 2008 was a different day. The RBS Cup, India Vs England was on and it was the fourth day of play. I hadn’t even bothered to follow the test match; that’s when my dad announced to me that we were going for the 4^th day’s play, the previous night. Wow..now that was something! I was filled with mixed emotions. I felt silly, because I didn’t even know what was happening in the match, but I also felt excited. I set aside my new shoes, my new white t-shirt, my new coolers and my new cap. Yeah yeah…it was all new, and waiting to be inaugurated! I also forced my dad to wear his new white t-shirt! Seriously, anyone who had seen us walking on the roads that day would have guessed where we were heading! With all the get-up done, we made our way to Chepauk.

It was about 8am and we joined the queue at the ticket counter. Sesha mama (our family friend, who had been coming all 4 days!) waited for us inside. However we didn’t have to wait long. You see, there are quite a lot of advantages when you are among the few girls in the whole male dominated queue. The policeman asked me to go get my ticket. He told the man behind the ticket counter “Andha paapa kku rendu ticket kodu pa!” (paapa!?) I happily bypassed the line and got tickets for dad and myself. (Sure, dad was proud :P )

Once inside, we went to stand D, right under the commentary box. It was quite an awesome view. Thanks to Sesha mama (who had discovered the best seats in the whole stand!) I took out our binoculars and looked at the players practicing. First I saw Ishant Sharma…then Dhoni..then oh my god Dravid! I couldn’t contain my excitement. I shifted focus to the England side. I looked at them practicing! Anderson…Pietersen…Monty…I was shifting back to Anderson, when I noticed a small commotion behind me. Apparently, Ravi Shastri had come out of the commentary box and people rushed to get his autograph. Sadly, by the time I could gather my pen and autograph book, he went back in. Never mind. The people around were totally stunned to see Sunil Gavaskar, who cheerfully posed in different styles for the cameras! It was quite a pleasure to see him respond to play cards with writings like “Sunny, pad up! We can draw the match”. Then Mike Atherton entered the box and looked around and smiled. I assumed he smiled at me and returned the gesture! :D

The match was quite a drag in the morning. The England players almost made me fall asleep with their extremely slow batting. Yawn… But after tea, when it was the Indian’s turn to bat, Viru gave us every reason to be there. He jus slammed the ball away. The crowd went ballistic! People used their pee-pee(the ones they sold outside the stadium) for everything and anything. Some guys started creating filmi music with them… err…not the exact notes though! Every time a fielder came near the boundary, the spectators went bonkers, cheering and hooting. It felt like the whole world had come alive. I screamed so hard. The uncle sitting in front of me shut his ears! But that’s what it is all about! The whole atmosphere, the crowd, the cacophony, it was totally brilliant! The day’s play ended with India on a high. My dad went for the last day and watched Sachin’s century and India’s victory. I watched India’s win on my television set. The commentators claimed that it was a wonderful victory and the spectators who had come to watch it were truly lucky.

Well, I couldn’t watch India’s historic win live, but I did make it to a cricket stadium! :)

When I thought and thought and thought...

Have you ever been in a situation when you think and think,yet you have no answer? When your brain goes blank and refuses to function? When you try to recollect but all you can garner is nothing? Well, I definitely went through this,not once, but twice.

My mind drifts back to 12th November,2008.My alarm rang at 4am. I literally jumped out of the bed,freshened up and sat in front of a pile of notes, books and xerox copies of Signals and Systems. My heart sank. I was 6 hours away from writing the exam. I tried to recollect and revise what I had supposedly studied. I wore my lucky dress(yeah right!),slipped into the same sandals that I wore for the previous exam and even used the same rubber band for my ponytail(now, that was a little too much,I agree!)As the bus took me closer to college,I tried in vain,going through all the formula e that i had studied during the study holidays and before the exam. "Don't worry.I'll remember during the exam", I told myself. (gulp)

2 hours to go.
We all sat outside the exam hall partly revising, learning, discussing, teaching and confusing each other, until it was time to enter the testing chamber. My mind was saturated with equations and symbols literally juggling through my brain. Sigma, DFT, IDFT, convolution...it all seemed a mess. "I'll sort it out during the exam", I calmed myself. (gulp again)

10 minutes to go.
I cautiously filled in the details in the answer sheet and waited for the question paper. I was chanting prayers non stop. This is when we got out first blow( or rather 'bulb', in colloquial terms!) We were sitting in the wrong room. The seating arrangement had been changed and we didn't realize. About 10 of us made out way to the new hall.
"Bad omen", my instinct said.
"Don't be ridiculous", my mind contemplated.

I rubbished away the useless thoughts and tried to concentrate. The bell rang and I got my copy of the dreaded question paper.I made a quick scan. The two marks first.Then the sixteen marks. At first shot, it seemed okay.
I read the questions again.

There are times when you wish you could just disappear.

That was exactly what I felt then. I sensed the pressure mount, my heart started beating rapidly. I tried to be patient. I started with the questions I thought I knew. As I proceeded towards the sixteen marks, I was low on confidence. Half way through them, I lost all hope. I looked around helplessly. I gathered some relief when I saw everyone around me was blinking and staring at the paper.I felt my temper rise, when I thought about the person who had set this question paper. He had probably fought with his wife when he set this paper. Why on earth would he then set such an atrocious paper?I managed to sit through the three hours,nonchalantly filling up pages in the answer sheet with answers I felt were sensible,not knowing whether they were right or wrong.Amusingly, at that point, all the formula e and symbols that were earlier a blur,seemed perfectly clear. But, they had no use in the paper. When the bell finally rang, I handed over my paper and looked at Selvi. Her expression, seriously helped me feel better. Sanch and Shweta followed. We gave each other that "it was awful" look, left and hall and surprisingly started laughing. That was quite lame, but we couldn't contain that feeling of helplessness that surrounded us.Many people sought to crying.

After a long discussion;blaming the university, the paper setter, the questions, the syllabus and finally the subject itself, we decided it was time to leave.

I kept calculating mentally to check if I would be able to clear the paper. Sigh. I walked home pondering over the effort I had put in. Was it less? Or was it enough?

The 'traffic signal' changed the green and all the vehicles rushed past me.


Oh damn...I just don't like signals!!