One night of Cricket

March 25th, 2015,10:00 P.M. EST

The residents at 438 Hoosac were awaiting this mouth watering encounter for quite a while. In their innocent hearts they had decided the outcome already. Preparations were in full flow. The ‘usual suspects’ were invited for a grand dinner and dessert treat. This was a momentous occasion. After all it was their first ‘World Cup’ in a foreign land. Fervently hoping that their team would lift the trophy they decided to follow all the superstitions in the book of life. The tallest member of the apartment was the designated ‘chef’. During all the previous matches, he cooked the ‘same’ dish and that turned out to be a lucky charm for their team. The entire house wore a very festive look and was expecting  a ‘cracker of a game’. (Quoting a famous commentator ;-) )

What a mouth watering encounter it was. The Men in Blue were simply stunning. Their ‘Captain Cool’ had done it again. Not surprising was the fact that he finished the World Cup with his trademark ‘Helicopter’ shot. It lacked all cricketing sense and purity, it looked more like a hard worker scything the ball out. But heck! who cared, the residents were up in joy. The ‘Desserts’ were distributed rather gleefully. There was talk about getting more ‘Desserts’ and some more drinks ( Orange Juice and Carrot juice - our boys were health freaks obviously). Something unique happened during the presentation ceremony, ‘Captain Cool’, who received his trophy from the ‘God of Cricket’, dedicated the trophy back to him, saying that all he ever wanted to do was give the ‘God of Cricket’ more trophies. The whole nation erupted in joy! This was not enough for ‘Captain Cool’ and the other members of the team. They decided that they’d take the ‘God of Cricket’ on a victory lap again in that ‘sledger-friendly’ but ‘cricket-loving’ foreign land. Indians all over the world watched this scene gleefully. In fact a lot of them even started online petitions in change.org for the ‘God of Cricket’ to come back and play. The benevolent ‘God of Cricket’ said that his time was over and just like how Goku never came back in DragonBallZ, but always remained an integral part of the franchise, our man(oops God) would also remain an integral part of Indian Cricket. The protagonists of this tale, our humble residents, even benevolently decided to split the bills of the day among themselves, thereby giving the invitees a special party. Oh! it was a wonderful feeling to see their country win…

March 26th, 2015,10:00 A.M. EST

Alarm Tone : Maa Tujhe Salaam

Mobile Phone : Nokia Lumia 1020

ramA woke up to the mess in his room in a jolt. He hadn’t bothered to clean up before dozing off the previous night. I mean after all India had lost the encounter with Australia. The team capitulated very quickly. It was only their captain who gave any semblance of a fight. All the ‘usual suspects’ who were invited were actually asked to split the bill (Duh, India lost, come on! pay up for what you ate). He had enough cricketing reasons to give for India’s defeat, but the first thing he did was to point fingers at the ‘tallest’ room mate and say, “You cooked Pizza yesterday! All the days India won, you had cooked Chole!, It is all your fault”. All the poor room mate could do was remain speechless. In fact he actually started wondering if that was the reason! Motions to ban cooking of Pizza in the apartment were given serious considerations but at the end of the day graduate student life beckoned and all that was left was a feeling of sadness. “The next World Cup is in England”, the other roomie chipped in! “Lets not make Pizza again then”!, chipped in ramA. A hearty laugh ensured!. Whether they stay in 438 Hoosac or not, some of them would remain cricket fans forever!

PS : Please close your eyes and listen to this from 'Lord of the Rings', as the curtains draw down.

The Substitute

Sometimes, in days like today an old incident visits your otherwise vacant occipital penthouse. The trigger could be a scene you are watching from a movie, a dish that you are eating, a photo that you saw or perhaps this .  How often does one conjure up an anecdote with a web page of a player, whose only claim to fame is being a substitute and effecting a run out in the 2005 Ashes. I am sure, this would be one of those rare occassions. Well let me spit it out here. 

The incident occured once upon a dull and dreary day in the office, at around 4:00 P.M. My cubicle mate in those days, Prazy as he is known, wasn't around. I really wanted to do something and then out of the blue, I realized I could play a prank on somebody. A prank call maybe? I have done prank calls in my lifetime, a lot of them unsuccessful, but I wanted to erase that blemish and had to find the perfect sitting duck/guinea pig. After long and hard thinking I decided to call Anantha, a fellow cricket fan, who perhaps breathes cricket more than  some of the biggest fans I know. I call him from my office number. The unsuspecting chap picks the phone and all I say is "Hey there, can you tell me something about Gary Pratt".   Ah! I thought, one of the worst prank calls ever in life! Who in heavens name other than me can do this absolutely monumental blunder. Surprise Surprise, the voice on the other side of the phone prattles about the player so much so that the Wikipedia article would have been put to shame! I pose as an editor of a cricket magazine and ask the guy a few more questions. Not once did our Anantha ask me who I was. I had a question and he had the right answer. After that chat, I had to tell him who I was and I found myself in splits. Dont' worry if you don't!, it was just funny for me and for a change enligthening.That day a truth dawned on me. A fellow cricket fan is not a stranger and so nothing would be asked about him. You could be poles apart, but cricket would bind you together. What started out as a prank ended up being memory that was stored in the dark corners of an empty brain only to be recounted here. 

PS : Ananthasubramanian Narayanan is a die hard Cricket Fan, who in addition to being a cricket fan is also a Photographer(spams you with wedding photos). Before I say anything more, he is a writer at sportskeeda and also has this