30th March,2011 - Day of a lifetime

It was 5o'clock in the morning and as usual i got up cursing my office bus timings. My head was heavy from the dreams the previous night, dreams which am sure i shared with another 1155347678 people. Images were crossing in front of my eyes when i was having my shower, images of the past failures and a possible future brilliance. I was reminded of footages of a God born on 24th of April. Fine i had to forget all those things and run to catch my bus.

I wasn't shocked to see the roads empty. It was obviously an un-official govt holiday. I was sad, sadder than when my love was rejected, because my Project Lead was apprehensive in giving me half a day off. But i was determined to escape somehow. Confidence, which has been my only savior till now, was always smiling at me. You know these IT employees; even though 95% of them don't have any work to do they act as if they're the backbone of the company. You ask anyone in IT , he/she will tell "I don't have time to even breathe!!!". And these people when they're with their team members will be like his/her team is the world to them , but as soon as you separate them and ask about one of his team members, its better you carry two pieces of cotton with you . Ok here i was doing my act like all other IT professionals. My lead came around his usual timing and i timidly went to him to ask for permission again. I was feeling as if i was at a cliff and about to jump from Mt Everest without any harness. What if he says I can't leave? What if i miss 70% of the action? The moment came and i could feel the words travelling in air at 340m/s from my mouth. My vocal cords made voices which i havent heard my entire life. 340m/s is quite fast when you consider that scientists struggled for years to crack that barrier. You would've felt the Theory of relativity many a times in your life, for instance when you were waiting to see your board exam results or when you had proposed to a girl and waiting for her reply , but this case was completely new to me. I was waiting for the words to travel a distance of hardly 1 meter and having said the speed of sound you can do the math to understand how long it would take for my words to enter the labyrinth of my listener. It was a long wait . But once my listener got the question he told just one word . The word which we take for granted and use it at a frequency almost equivalent to our breathing "OK". I was damn happy.

Finished whatever work i had before 12:30 IST and got back home exactly at 2:12 IST. Just in time for the toss, the National Anthem and the Goose bumps. I have watched many matches with my frenz and have felt the adrenaline, but this was something special. Among the audience in the stands where one of the most influential women in the world with her son, two of the most powerful leaders in the world with their diplomacies and almost 25000 other lucky people whose lifetime would get fulfilled by that single day. The captains where out in the middle for the toss. Dhoni won it and the crowd was shouting as if India had won the world cup. Dhoni uttered one name and am sure 1 billion people would've started cursing him "NEHRA". I was continuously yelling the 4 letter word in front of my parents to their embarrassment. Then came the National Anthem. The sweetest National Anthem i have ever sung. Wherever i had hairs on my body they stood upright (Guys will understand this lol). My face turned red with pride. Here we were in the middle of a modern war singing our National Anthem. Am sure almost the whole of India would've sung at that time. Then came the music from the Mozzart of Madras. The hairs on my body where complaining saying that they can't rise more than that , but still my adrenaline was pushing them further.

The match started and it was blitzkreig from Sehwag. Am not gonna narrate the entire match now . But people who watched it would have discovered one thing for sure "Even Gods have many lives like Cats". There are three things which haven't changed in Pak "Terrorism, beautiful women and dropping catches" . Even if the cricket ball was changed with football i don't think they would catch it. Something which we should all be thankful to. Our innings got over and we got a modest total. Remember two players whose mom and sister would've been the most scolded souls in the recent past where about to bowl now "MUNAF and NEHRA". When your in a tense situation you transfer that tension to the atmosphere around you in the form of heat and the whole place starts to feel like a furnace. I was in a furnace like that. It was down to the last 5 overs. Pak had to get 60-70 odd runs and India 1 wicket. Zak lost his cool and gave away runs in the first over of the powerplay. It was poor Nehra's turn the next over. Images of Pietersen lofting this guy over mid-wicket were in front of my eyes. What is he gonna do now? He answered my question with 5 yorkers and a well directed bouncer. Over of his lifetime and saved his mom n sis from another round of swearing. Munaf followed the footsteps of Nehra and bowled another GEM of an over. We won it eventually. How the guys would have felt? Have we ever felt something like that? What would Sachin be thinking? Is this a dream? How can you explain this - A man who is revered as GOD, who has all the records under his sleeves except for the WC,who has played in 6 editions of the WC and still hasnt won it , who is playing in probably his last world cup, for whom an entire nation is praying ; is about to play the finals at his home ground in probably his last WC match and is just one short of 100 centuries !!!! Is this what you call coincidence ?? Or is it DESTINY ?? Or is it something divine , something unexplainable ?? How can you explain this ?? I leave this question to all the readers of this mail . I doubt if Atheists will be able to explain this.