14th June 2010
I found this post as a draft from September 19th, 2007 in my dashboard. This was a draft for the Conjunctivitis post that follows this one. I didn't even spell the word right the first time but I make the changes once I find out.
I was wondering why I abandoned this post that night suddenly. It was about the good fun I had the previous weeks when I wore an eye patch to class, spoke like a pirate to everyone and pretended that I had a parrot on my shoulder while taking swigs out of my water bottle pretending it was rum.
So I found out what held me from writing this post, why I didn't get back on it for the next three years to write the post I should have written then. I thought it would be cool if I wrote it like I saw the future; only I didn't realize that only the draft will be dated September 2007, when I finally published it last week it duly noted June 2010 so that was a facepalm moment. Nevertheless, here it is.
19th September 2007
Tonight, India will revive their T20 World Cup campaign. Spectacularly, Yuvraj Singh will hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over as India post 218. My friend calls me from Lalit's (a bar with cable tv) and tells me I should be there. I follow the match on Cricinfo because of my ongoing prelims. England go on to make some 200 but it's just not enough. Tomorrow we meet South Africa who are unbeaten till now and chased down 200+ in the opening match of the tournament. Anticipating an ass-kicking, I decide not to go watch it.
20th September 2007
But tomorrow I say, "What the heck, it's India playing well in a World Cup!" and go to the bar. En route we meet juniors who tell us that Lalit won't have us because we sit for too long and don't order much. We go across the street to another bar. Free starters with every bottle of beer! That’s a dealmaker if you’re an out of town student. Should've found this place earlier.
We watch India's batting, it seems to be going nowhere but then Rohit Sharma takes India to safety in his first international innings. We marvel at his batting. Then the first five South African wickets fall in a hurry with too little on the board. Justin Kemp is spectacularly run out, we marvel at Rohit Sharma's fielding. Forget winning this match, South Africa doesn't look like they'll make the minimum runs they need to qualify on the basis of NRR. Poor guys like they're gonna be eliminated after one loss despite having won every other match they played. Then we run back to the hostel to beat the deadline and rejoice our entry into the semi finals.
21st September 2007
The semi final is on the same day as the last prelim paper, a paper all of us from the hostel have decided to skip. Also a friend decides to take us out on a treat, his birthday treat was pending thanks to the aforementioned prelim exams. Plans are made to go get wasted but not totally wasted at a cheaper bar before heading on to the one with the TV.
All of us are excited by the possibilities of our chances in life and of the team's chances in the semis. Pumped on hope, I decide to write the paper. I skip dinner to study.
22nd September 2007
I wake up late, mug for 2 hours before going out to write the paper, I am the only one from the hostel and one of the only 10 people from class sitting for the exam. Then I go over to a friends place where we work on proposal for a freelance project we intend to take up during the Diwali break. I have not eaten all day.
I catch up with my friends just as they're about to leave for the cheaper bar (Gokul). One of them borrows the only belt I have. Since we're already on the way I decide against going to the hostel and borrowing one from someone else. Fuck fashion.
Everyones happy and pumped up, even the waiters. The booze arrives immediately, whiskey for some and beers for the rest. We wait for the starters and the mixes. It was too good to be true. I say fuck it and start doing whiskey shots. Second activity done alone that day. One evil friend cheers me on till I down a half in shots. Then the soda arrives with the chakna and the rest of my friends orders. Birthday boy has extinguished the whiskey budget so now I must settle for beer. The words headrush and brainfreeze cannot touch with a long pole euphemisms for what I felt after mixing those two.
By the time we're on our way to Panchratna of cable tv, free starters with beer & allows young people to sit for long hours without ordering much fame, I'm smashed. So's a friend. We're in different cabs but seek each other out every time we stop at a signal to slap each other. Saved from being ran over by the comparatively sober ones.
70% of the hostel junta is already at Panchratna. High fives all around. Classmates ask me how my paper went. They joke till this day of the hearty, slurred replies I gave then.
Luckily we had a teetotaler from the group go there much in advance to reserve the biggest table he could find which had a good view of the tv. He does what he is told.
The match begins. The hothead of the group who unfortunately also happens to be the beefiest is getting buzzed when he spots a white guy in the bar. The white guy is on the way to the loo when he stops him and asks him if he's Australian. He says fuck the Aussies I'm English. Hothead breaks out into a smile because we've already pummeled the English.
Sehwag goes out pretty early. So does my liver. I very bravely make my way to the loo when my pant falls down. Thankfully most eyes were on the match, I recover quickly and by now am escorted to the loo. Two friends facilitate the retching, then one takes me back to the hostel.
23rd September 2007
I'm up at 5 because I DON'T KNOW THE FUCKING RESULT! I grab my roomie's phone from his hands (he sleeps with it in his hand, in an embryo position, he's 5'5" and a 100kgs, it's fucken weird) and connected it to the laptop and connected to Cricinfo. HALLELUJAH!
God bless you whoever you are Joginder Sharma!
Then I go for that proposal I told you about. It was for the launch of a restaurant so the owner invited us to the tasting. After a fucken awesome multiple course lunch, we make the presentation. He loves it but thinks we're quoting too much. We agree to take some time to decide. He never called after that. That was the last time I tasted Kashmiri cuisine. Not missing it though, what's up with eating lotus stems people?
The finals are on a Monday afternoon. The hostel general secretary and the common room secretary run pillar to post getting quotations, permissions and all that jazz to set up cable for an evening in the common room. We've got DD in the common room and all India ODI matches are to be screened on DD according to a government order. But a T20 match is not the same as a ODI match, DD should have the terminology changed to LOI so that T20s fall under the category. Meanwhile, an emergency meeting is held where all the hostelites unanimously agree to pay a hundred bucks each to set up cable just for a day.
24th September 2007
Everything falls in place half an hour before the match is to start.
Public pooper, a guy from the hostel cheers Pakistan very vocally and draws the wrath a lot of people. We learn that he's their unlucky charm, they fail miserably when he supports them. We back off him and yell at the tv instead. College guys who wouldn't have made it home on time sneak into the hostel. The warden doesn't shoo them away and let's them watch with everyone else.
People try to outdo the witticisms as the match begins. Sehwag is out with an injury. Yusuf Pathan, unknown quantity earns our respect first with the near run out then with the six in the first over. We cheer all the big hitters while Gambhir silently makes runs at the other end. Uthappa goes early, Yuvraj is planned well against, he goes early, so does Dhoni. Rohit Sharma gets a few runs in the end to take us to a respectable score.
What a start RP gives us, but it's only Hafeez not the dangerous Imran Nazir thats gone. Nazir takes apart Sreesanth. Then Pakistan consolidate when suddenly, Uthappa runs out Nazir. But they again consolidate, For a while, Then a wicket falls and soon another as Shahid Afridi walks in. Irfan Pathan, sends him back almost immediately. Uproar. Bedlam.
But this Misbah guy is still there. The equation seems out of reach then. One over later it isn't. Another bad over could totally fucking turn this match. The bad over comes as if on cue, Sreesanth gets hammered by their fucking bowler. But Appam has the last laugh when he gets him out with the last ball of the over.
Wickets have fallen but it's getting too close for comfort.
RP bowls a tight penultimate over and gets a wicket but concedes a four off the last ball. Some 13-14 needed off the last over and it's Joginder fuckin Sharma who comes on.
WC 2003 Final reminders as he sprays it all over the place and gets hit for a six on the second ball. Just some 6 required with 4 balls to go. Then Misbah lifts the mood of the wrong nation. b Joginder c Sreesanth. Champions by 5 runs. Shoaib Malik gets called a lot of shit for apologizing to all the Muslims all over the world. Bharat ki shaan Irfan Pathan is man of the match. Suck on that, Shoaib! There's jumping (I jumped), high fives (I high fived), yelling (truly guttural screams of pleasure) and hugging (I dodged ones which came my way) in the common room.
It's time to go celebrate! Hit a bar! Drink like mad!
We tell the bartenders we're related to Rohit Sharma. Doesn't work but who cares, we are the champions. Marine Drive is one big party zone.
25th September 2007
The next day is a dream. I love reading all the newspapers I can get my hands the day after a good win. I spend the whole afternoon after class in the common room going through every article about the win in every English daily. I even try going through the Hindi and Marathi papers but abandoned he idea to play TT.
26th September 2007
It's raining slightly and lectures have been cancelled. My sister calls to ask if I'll be going to see the open top bus parade. So does a professor. Who knows when they will win something again I think and decide to go.
Prelims for the other folks have started so details of where we meet are smsed. We go take up position right on the flyover at Marine Drive, fought off photographers who wanted to set up equipment there. Pros should have come earlier. There’s a slight drizzle and the sea’s choppy but the place fills up. Down below are huge crowds on both sides of the road, the flyover is choc-a-bloc. People who’ve left someone watching over their shops, people on an indefinite break from their offices, people stuck because the traffic wasn’t moving and college kids from everywhere. Young teachers get their nursery school children and ask us if we’d be kind enough to move and not swear in front of the children. We give them two spots, ask em to keep rotating the kids and tell em to cover the fucking ears of the fucking kids of they don’t want them to hear the fucking swearing.
K and the two secretaries join us and they wonder if it would be a better idea to go to the stadium instead. They wonder. K, as always, is hyper. The dude weaves his way to the stadium through the rain, through the thousands of people everywhere, through the stadium security and back in 45 minutes. His inputs are no good, we still can’t decide which place is better to see the team so we decide to stay put.
Photographers have managed to wiggle into good spots. They’re prepared for hurricanes, with their tripods, fastening cables, thick fucken rain protection stuff for the cameras and all. People go past in jeeps, playing loud music and waving flags while the crowds try to see if they’re famous folks. We’ve been on the bridge, in the rain for an hour and a half now. Then we see the colour breakout at Girgaum Chowpatty from our vantage point.
We see it inching forward and suddenly it’s not drizzling anymore. In half an hour the procession is close enough for us to differentiate between the tiny figures partying on it.
First come the two-three layers of security. The irritating song playing stereo system on wheels is next, a motorcade follows that and finally we have the team in the open top bus. Followed by more layers of security courtesy the various organizations which make up our many lines of defence.
Yuvraj was the first person we could recognize, dancing a stupid dance and having fun. Everyone looked fucken tired but Yuvraj, Sreesanth and Uthappa were the only guys dancing. We could make out Dinesh Karthik, the Pathans, Venkatesh Prasad, RP Singh, Sehwag and Dhoni on top and we yelled out to the captain to hold aloft the trophy. We were disappointed that he didn’t bring it out. Probably kept it downstairs to keep it safe from the rain.
One guy had the bright idea of taking up a spot on the other side of the flyover so that he could wave the team goodbye and hopefully see them for just that little bit longer. So we ran over when the bus passed under the bridge.
We yelled at the top of our lungs hoping someone would wave back. Sreesanth looked at us did the fist-on-heart solidarity thing; Irfan Pathan gave us a thumbs up, it made the waiting worth it. The bus moved on, the public continued.
Would’ve been great to have pictures or videos to show for it but then that's what this post is for.
I found this post as a draft from September 19th, 2007 in my dashboard. This was a draft for the Conjunctivitis post that follows this one. I didn't even spell the word right the first time but I make the changes once I find out.
I was wondering why I abandoned this post that night suddenly. It was about the good fun I had the previous weeks when I wore an eye patch to class, spoke like a pirate to everyone and pretended that I had a parrot on my shoulder while taking swigs out of my water bottle pretending it was rum.
So I found out what held me from writing this post, why I didn't get back on it for the next three years to write the post I should have written then. I thought it would be cool if I wrote it like I saw the future; only I didn't realize that only the draft will be dated September 2007, when I finally published it last week it duly noted June 2010 so that was a facepalm moment. Nevertheless, here it is.
19th September 2007
Tonight, India will revive their T20 World Cup campaign. Spectacularly, Yuvraj Singh will hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over as India post 218. My friend calls me from Lalit's (a bar with cable tv) and tells me I should be there. I follow the match on Cricinfo because of my ongoing prelims. England go on to make some 200 but it's just not enough. Tomorrow we meet South Africa who are unbeaten till now and chased down 200+ in the opening match of the tournament. Anticipating an ass-kicking, I decide not to go watch it.
20th September 2007
But tomorrow I say, "What the heck, it's India playing well in a World Cup!" and go to the bar. En route we meet juniors who tell us that Lalit won't have us because we sit for too long and don't order much. We go across the street to another bar. Free starters with every bottle of beer! That’s a dealmaker if you’re an out of town student. Should've found this place earlier.
We watch India's batting, it seems to be going nowhere but then Rohit Sharma takes India to safety in his first international innings. We marvel at his batting. Then the first five South African wickets fall in a hurry with too little on the board. Justin Kemp is spectacularly run out, we marvel at Rohit Sharma's fielding. Forget winning this match, South Africa doesn't look like they'll make the minimum runs they need to qualify on the basis of NRR. Poor guys like they're gonna be eliminated after one loss despite having won every other match they played. Then we run back to the hostel to beat the deadline and rejoice our entry into the semi finals.
21st September 2007
The semi final is on the same day as the last prelim paper, a paper all of us from the hostel have decided to skip. Also a friend decides to take us out on a treat, his birthday treat was pending thanks to the aforementioned prelim exams. Plans are made to go get wasted but not totally wasted at a cheaper bar before heading on to the one with the TV.
All of us are excited by the possibilities of our chances in life and of the team's chances in the semis. Pumped on hope, I decide to write the paper. I skip dinner to study.
22nd September 2007
I wake up late, mug for 2 hours before going out to write the paper, I am the only one from the hostel and one of the only 10 people from class sitting for the exam. Then I go over to a friends place where we work on proposal for a freelance project we intend to take up during the Diwali break. I have not eaten all day.
I catch up with my friends just as they're about to leave for the cheaper bar (Gokul). One of them borrows the only belt I have. Since we're already on the way I decide against going to the hostel and borrowing one from someone else. Fuck fashion.
Everyones happy and pumped up, even the waiters. The booze arrives immediately, whiskey for some and beers for the rest. We wait for the starters and the mixes. It was too good to be true. I say fuck it and start doing whiskey shots. Second activity done alone that day. One evil friend cheers me on till I down a half in shots. Then the soda arrives with the chakna and the rest of my friends orders. Birthday boy has extinguished the whiskey budget so now I must settle for beer. The words headrush and brainfreeze cannot touch with a long pole euphemisms for what I felt after mixing those two.
By the time we're on our way to Panchratna of cable tv, free starters with beer & allows young people to sit for long hours without ordering much fame, I'm smashed. So's a friend. We're in different cabs but seek each other out every time we stop at a signal to slap each other. Saved from being ran over by the comparatively sober ones.
70% of the hostel junta is already at Panchratna. High fives all around. Classmates ask me how my paper went. They joke till this day of the hearty, slurred replies I gave then.
Luckily we had a teetotaler from the group go there much in advance to reserve the biggest table he could find which had a good view of the tv. He does what he is told.
The match begins. The hothead of the group who unfortunately also happens to be the beefiest is getting buzzed when he spots a white guy in the bar. The white guy is on the way to the loo when he stops him and asks him if he's Australian. He says fuck the Aussies I'm English. Hothead breaks out into a smile because we've already pummeled the English.
Sehwag goes out pretty early. So does my liver. I very bravely make my way to the loo when my pant falls down. Thankfully most eyes were on the match, I recover quickly and by now am escorted to the loo. Two friends facilitate the retching, then one takes me back to the hostel.
23rd September 2007
I'm up at 5 because I DON'T KNOW THE FUCKING RESULT! I grab my roomie's phone from his hands (he sleeps with it in his hand, in an embryo position, he's 5'5" and a 100kgs, it's fucken weird) and connected it to the laptop and connected to Cricinfo. HALLELUJAH!
God bless you whoever you are Joginder Sharma!
Then I go for that proposal I told you about. It was for the launch of a restaurant so the owner invited us to the tasting. After a fucken awesome multiple course lunch, we make the presentation. He loves it but thinks we're quoting too much. We agree to take some time to decide. He never called after that. That was the last time I tasted Kashmiri cuisine. Not missing it though, what's up with eating lotus stems people?
The finals are on a Monday afternoon. The hostel general secretary and the common room secretary run pillar to post getting quotations, permissions and all that jazz to set up cable for an evening in the common room. We've got DD in the common room and all India ODI matches are to be screened on DD according to a government order. But a T20 match is not the same as a ODI match, DD should have the terminology changed to LOI so that T20s fall under the category. Meanwhile, an emergency meeting is held where all the hostelites unanimously agree to pay a hundred bucks each to set up cable just for a day.
24th September 2007
Everything falls in place half an hour before the match is to start.
Public pooper, a guy from the hostel cheers Pakistan very vocally and draws the wrath a lot of people. We learn that he's their unlucky charm, they fail miserably when he supports them. We back off him and yell at the tv instead. College guys who wouldn't have made it home on time sneak into the hostel. The warden doesn't shoo them away and let's them watch with everyone else.
People try to outdo the witticisms as the match begins. Sehwag is out with an injury. Yusuf Pathan, unknown quantity earns our respect first with the near run out then with the six in the first over. We cheer all the big hitters while Gambhir silently makes runs at the other end. Uthappa goes early, Yuvraj is planned well against, he goes early, so does Dhoni. Rohit Sharma gets a few runs in the end to take us to a respectable score.
What a start RP gives us, but it's only Hafeez not the dangerous Imran Nazir thats gone. Nazir takes apart Sreesanth. Then Pakistan consolidate when suddenly, Uthappa runs out Nazir. But they again consolidate, For a while, Then a wicket falls and soon another as Shahid Afridi walks in. Irfan Pathan, sends him back almost immediately. Uproar. Bedlam.
But this Misbah guy is still there. The equation seems out of reach then. One over later it isn't. Another bad over could totally fucking turn this match. The bad over comes as if on cue, Sreesanth gets hammered by their fucking bowler. But Appam has the last laugh when he gets him out with the last ball of the over.
Wickets have fallen but it's getting too close for comfort.
RP bowls a tight penultimate over and gets a wicket but concedes a four off the last ball. Some 13-14 needed off the last over and it's Joginder fuckin Sharma who comes on.
WC 2003 Final reminders as he sprays it all over the place and gets hit for a six on the second ball. Just some 6 required with 4 balls to go. Then Misbah lifts the mood of the wrong nation. b Joginder c Sreesanth. Champions by 5 runs. Shoaib Malik gets called a lot of shit for apologizing to all the Muslims all over the world. Bharat ki shaan Irfan Pathan is man of the match. Suck on that, Shoaib! There's jumping (I jumped), high fives (I high fived), yelling (truly guttural screams of pleasure) and hugging (I dodged ones which came my way) in the common room.
It's time to go celebrate! Hit a bar! Drink like mad!
We tell the bartenders we're related to Rohit Sharma. Doesn't work but who cares, we are the champions. Marine Drive is one big party zone.
25th September 2007
The next day is a dream. I love reading all the newspapers I can get my hands the day after a good win. I spend the whole afternoon after class in the common room going through every article about the win in every English daily. I even try going through the Hindi and Marathi papers but abandoned he idea to play TT.
26th September 2007
It's raining slightly and lectures have been cancelled. My sister calls to ask if I'll be going to see the open top bus parade. So does a professor. Who knows when they will win something again I think and decide to go.
Prelims for the other folks have started so details of where we meet are smsed. We go take up position right on the flyover at Marine Drive, fought off photographers who wanted to set up equipment there. Pros should have come earlier. There’s a slight drizzle and the sea’s choppy but the place fills up. Down below are huge crowds on both sides of the road, the flyover is choc-a-bloc. People who’ve left someone watching over their shops, people on an indefinite break from their offices, people stuck because the traffic wasn’t moving and college kids from everywhere. Young teachers get their nursery school children and ask us if we’d be kind enough to move and not swear in front of the children. We give them two spots, ask em to keep rotating the kids and tell em to cover the fucking ears of the fucking kids of they don’t want them to hear the fucking swearing.
K and the two secretaries join us and they wonder if it would be a better idea to go to the stadium instead. They wonder. K, as always, is hyper. The dude weaves his way to the stadium through the rain, through the thousands of people everywhere, through the stadium security and back in 45 minutes. His inputs are no good, we still can’t decide which place is better to see the team so we decide to stay put.
Photographers have managed to wiggle into good spots. They’re prepared for hurricanes, with their tripods, fastening cables, thick fucken rain protection stuff for the cameras and all. People go past in jeeps, playing loud music and waving flags while the crowds try to see if they’re famous folks. We’ve been on the bridge, in the rain for an hour and a half now. Then we see the colour breakout at Girgaum Chowpatty from our vantage point.
We see it inching forward and suddenly it’s not drizzling anymore. In half an hour the procession is close enough for us to differentiate between the tiny figures partying on it.
First come the two-three layers of security. The irritating song playing stereo system on wheels is next, a motorcade follows that and finally we have the team in the open top bus. Followed by more layers of security courtesy the various organizations which make up our many lines of defence.
Yuvraj was the first person we could recognize, dancing a stupid dance and having fun. Everyone looked fucken tired but Yuvraj, Sreesanth and Uthappa were the only guys dancing. We could make out Dinesh Karthik, the Pathans, Venkatesh Prasad, RP Singh, Sehwag and Dhoni on top and we yelled out to the captain to hold aloft the trophy. We were disappointed that he didn’t bring it out. Probably kept it downstairs to keep it safe from the rain.
One guy had the bright idea of taking up a spot on the other side of the flyover so that he could wave the team goodbye and hopefully see them for just that little bit longer. So we ran over when the bus passed under the bridge.
We yelled at the top of our lungs hoping someone would wave back. Sreesanth looked at us did the fist-on-heart solidarity thing; Irfan Pathan gave us a thumbs up, it made the waiting worth it. The bus moved on, the public continued.
Would’ve been great to have pictures or videos to show for it but then that's what this post is for.
