Part 1:
Will I be on TIME?:
“Me: Will we reach on time? I don’t want to be late for the match. When will we reach Dadar?
Amit: Say that once more and I throw push you off the train! Listen to music, solve the Rubik’s Cube but most importantly….SHUT UP! ”
I didn’t manage to solve the Rubik’s Cube. I was way too fidgety and nervous! How was it possible to get to the match in Brabourne at 8 if you had to get down at Dadar at 730, collect the tickets from Lower Parel and then go to Church gate on the way to the stadium? I failed to understand this, and fretted…and fretted…and fretted some more! But then realized it was useless since everything I did or said would amount to natter because at the end of the day we were still sitting in the godforsaken train!
This was going to be one hell of a ride and we knew it! It was not for something ordinary that we were willing to put ourselves on the line too…it was the IPL- KKR versus MI in Mumbai!!
But we began late and got later still, after 5 and half hours in the train just wondering when we will get to the match, we reached Dadar and the feeling of a rush took birth in my stomach. I could feel the excitement welling up in my stomach as we got closer to reaching the stadium! But that was all going to come to an abrupt halt as the madness began!
We caught the slow Western line local to Lower Parel and ran about two kilometers to the damn office where the tickets were supposed to be bought and then back to the station to catch the local to Churchgate.
In between the running when my mind was not panting along with me and actually thought about things for awhile I found myself cursing that person who had said, “Enjoy the journey, more than the destination!” This wasn’t fun at all. This seemed to be a race against time and the match had already begun!
We ran and we ran, all the time our mind’s focused thinking of only one thing… the match! That was what gave us energy! While I was running towards the office I had noticed this old lady walking, after collecting the tickets which in fact took a lot of time and while running back I noticed the same person not having moved more than a few meters! This time though she was looking at me as if I was crazy, to be running like a wild animal for no apparent reason! The look was scary! It always is with old Parsi women! (no offence meant!)
It was quarter past 8 when we finally reached the stadium and the guards thought we had actually played the match with the way we were sweating in the heat of the night! But then what we witnessed was something out of this world but totally worth it!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Showing posts with label KKR vs MI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KKR vs MI. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Part 2:
The Match, The Rush:
“We enter the stadium and this is what follows:
Sachin….sachin….sachin…the entire Brabourne stadium roared. And I…I was one of them. I was pumped up…speechless…amazed…at how one man could bring the nation...Alive! Together! Like one beating heart..!”
Even a staunch KKR supporter (though a big fan of Sachin as well!) couldn’t help but feel a happy rush as the crowd cheered their favorite son on!
A Sachin and Sourav face-off, anywhere in this whole wide world and me witnessing that face off was a dream I had cherished for a long time and 8 pm on the night of 22nd March at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai- my dream came true!
The joy, the excitement, the whole feeling of seeing a live match courses through me even as I sit and write this- it is a feeling that is hard to put down in words and even harder to control! But it is a feeling that I have been fortunate enough to experience and will cherish for all my life!
Every time a shot was hit by the Little Master, one could feel the power and the exhilaration in every cheer of the crowd and the thrill that coursed through them was infectious- unreal. The whole stadium looked so beautiful and there was this vibrant feeling in the air which always kept egging you on to become someone totally different from who you were. I was no exception, I danced as the cheerleaders danced, I screamed my lungs out at all the wrong times just for the heck of it- I was an excited fool who cared about nothing except each passing moment in the match! I went there as a KKR fan who unabashedly sat with the Mumbai Indian supporters and sang Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo re even as the fight was snuffed out by the ferocity of a certain Mr. Sachin Tendulkar. I went there as a KKR fan; having a small feeling of the impending doom which ultimately struck the Knight Riders but returned a happy man, having witnessed something extraordinary. I wanted to see a special from either of the two tigers and though Sourav didn’t shine as much, my wish was granted by Sachin, who was in sublime form and enthralled the crowd with an amazing array of strokes!
The whole feeling to the place was electric! It was highly weird though, sitting in the VIP seats where there was a section of the crowd who just watched the match with the occasional cheer here and there. It gave me a very weird feeling that whatever I shouted be it in Bengali or English or Hindi, I could hear myself saying it! But I couldn’t care less, it is not often that you get the most awesome seats and get the complete freedom to go mad with the reward being having all the stupidness being shown on television, which for me actually happened! I guess what really spurred me on were the amazingly beautiful cheerleaders! Often I was caught by my friend Amit who accompanied me to the match, just ogling at the cheerleaders instead of watching the match!
I wonder how the players keep their eyes off the prize which the IPL has given to mankind!
Thanks to my dad, I actually got the tickets without paying a penny in the best possible place ever- the Pavilion End, to make it simpler for the layman to understand, right next to the player’s box! A seat next to Mr. Shah Rukh Khan would have been something out of a dream book but well this one’s not that far away either!
Fireworks, flags, jerseys, painted faces; everything was on display at Brabourne. It was excellent! It was super, a once in a lifetime experience! Something that I will cherish all my life!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Match, The Rush:
“We enter the stadium and this is what follows:
Sachin….sachin….sachin…the entire Brabourne stadium roared. And I…I was one of them. I was pumped up…speechless…amazed…at how one man could bring the nation...Alive! Together! Like one beating heart..!”
Even a staunch KKR supporter (though a big fan of Sachin as well!) couldn’t help but feel a happy rush as the crowd cheered their favorite son on!
A Sachin and Sourav face-off, anywhere in this whole wide world and me witnessing that face off was a dream I had cherished for a long time and 8 pm on the night of 22nd March at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai- my dream came true!
The joy, the excitement, the whole feeling of seeing a live match courses through me even as I sit and write this- it is a feeling that is hard to put down in words and even harder to control! But it is a feeling that I have been fortunate enough to experience and will cherish for all my life!
Every time a shot was hit by the Little Master, one could feel the power and the exhilaration in every cheer of the crowd and the thrill that coursed through them was infectious- unreal. The whole stadium looked so beautiful and there was this vibrant feeling in the air which always kept egging you on to become someone totally different from who you were. I was no exception, I danced as the cheerleaders danced, I screamed my lungs out at all the wrong times just for the heck of it- I was an excited fool who cared about nothing except each passing moment in the match! I went there as a KKR fan who unabashedly sat with the Mumbai Indian supporters and sang Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo re even as the fight was snuffed out by the ferocity of a certain Mr. Sachin Tendulkar. I went there as a KKR fan; having a small feeling of the impending doom which ultimately struck the Knight Riders but returned a happy man, having witnessed something extraordinary. I wanted to see a special from either of the two tigers and though Sourav didn’t shine as much, my wish was granted by Sachin, who was in sublime form and enthralled the crowd with an amazing array of strokes!
The whole feeling to the place was electric! It was highly weird though, sitting in the VIP seats where there was a section of the crowd who just watched the match with the occasional cheer here and there. It gave me a very weird feeling that whatever I shouted be it in Bengali or English or Hindi, I could hear myself saying it! But I couldn’t care less, it is not often that you get the most awesome seats and get the complete freedom to go mad with the reward being having all the stupidness being shown on television, which for me actually happened! I guess what really spurred me on were the amazingly beautiful cheerleaders! Often I was caught by my friend Amit who accompanied me to the match, just ogling at the cheerleaders instead of watching the match!
I wonder how the players keep their eyes off the prize which the IPL has given to mankind!
Thanks to my dad, I actually got the tickets without paying a penny in the best possible place ever- the Pavilion End, to make it simpler for the layman to understand, right next to the player’s box! A seat next to Mr. Shah Rukh Khan would have been something out of a dream book but well this one’s not that far away either!
Fireworks, flags, jerseys, painted faces; everything was on display at Brabourne. It was excellent! It was super, a once in a lifetime experience! Something that I will cherish all my life!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 4:
Marine Drive makes it even more special:
“Sachin…sachin…sach… (pulled out of my reverie!!!)Abey oye ab match finish ho gaya hai! Dekh liya jisko dekhna tha…What do we do till the earliest bus?
MARINE DRIVE!!”
I had just witnessed something really special and although it had ended I wanted to relive it again and again and again- the best place for that feeling of complete peace was Marine Drive. One could not come to Mumbai and not visit Marine Drive. It was nice, peaceful and left you alone with your thoughts. The way I saw it… the night was ours anyway! No buses or taxis or cabs would take us back to Pune so might as well do some thinking…alone…cut off from the hullabaloo of the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Commotion…and for that moment...the world!
It was then that both me and Amit began writing- the night had demanded it off us. And both of us, though tired and a tad bit sleepy, readily obliged!
We wrote, we walked, we talked with our own thoughts- questioning, answering and then finally just dreaming away the night!
(this was of course all before our stupid cum heroic walk back from Marine Drive to Dadar! and this was done to cut some more time in order to get the 1st bus out back to Pune!)
Thinking of it all I really am amazed I could do all this in one day, but at the end of it all, I did and I am proud of it because we got a more than enough reward for it too.
P.S. - A big thanks to Dad without whom this whole thing would have merely been stuff from my dreams!!!
Marine Drive makes it even more special:
“Sachin…sachin…sach… (pulled out of my reverie!!!)Abey oye ab match finish ho gaya hai! Dekh liya jisko dekhna tha…What do we do till the earliest bus?
MARINE DRIVE!!”
I had just witnessed something really special and although it had ended I wanted to relive it again and again and again- the best place for that feeling of complete peace was Marine Drive. One could not come to Mumbai and not visit Marine Drive. It was nice, peaceful and left you alone with your thoughts. The way I saw it… the night was ours anyway! No buses or taxis or cabs would take us back to Pune so might as well do some thinking…alone…cut off from the hullabaloo of the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Commotion…and for that moment...the world!
It was then that both me and Amit began writing- the night had demanded it off us. And both of us, though tired and a tad bit sleepy, readily obliged!
We wrote, we walked, we talked with our own thoughts- questioning, answering and then finally just dreaming away the night!
(this was of course all before our stupid cum heroic walk back from Marine Drive to Dadar! and this was done to cut some more time in order to get the 1st bus out back to Pune!)
Thinking of it all I really am amazed I could do all this in one day, but at the end of it all, I did and I am proud of it because we got a more than enough reward for it too.
P.S. - A big thanks to Dad without whom this whole thing would have merely been stuff from my dreams!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)