Part 3:

Soon Afterwords, We become Men with a Mission (Autographs!):

And then came the time for the both of us to show our daring. We had to. It was our janam-sidh-adhikar to act like mad and sneaky autograph hunters in a bid to catch all the big fishes! And so we began, by first pleading to the police officers that we had travelled all the way from Pune in a grueling 8 hour journey just to witness the match, just so that we could get into the player’s lounge- which we did! And then began the game! It was all simple, just act like you’re the son of some big-shot and get in wherever you wish! The player’s eating area/mess was one such place where I was successful and though this might not sound all that royal- I shared a piece of cake with Shah Rukh Khan’s or was it Tendulkar’s (don’t know actually!) son, whose name at that point of time I completely forgot and it became embarrassing when I said, Hi Karan instead of Arjun!
After stuffing up we began our hunt again and it was easy to spot people like Lalit Modi, Ajit Wadekar and Neeta Ambani to ask for autographs because the media buzzed around them like women window shopping around jewellery stores!
Shane Bond, Zaheer Khan, Murali Karthick, Harbhajan Singh, Harpreet Singh, Manoj Tiwary- you name them, we saw them said hi and hello but couldn’t get autographs from all of them because Amit had gone after the ever elusive Sourav Ganguly only to be stopped by those pestering guards and I made the foolish mistake of not calling Bhajji “SIR”! The look I got from him when I said, “Harbhajan can I have your autograph?”
“Sigh”!!
These stars I tell you!
I wish I could have clicked the stadium; it looked majestic with all the people in blue’s and purple’s. But sadly, cameras were not allowed inside and my phone went dead at the wrong time!
Such was my luck!
While coming out of the stadium, Amit noticed a small bunch of fans talking excitedly to a reporter who turned out to be a Senior Correspondent of NDTV 24*7. I on the other hand, noticed a chance to be on TV and joined the group shouting randomly that KKR will be back as will Dada! I had gone mad with excitement and as is the case, the world saw it!
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