day 108

I was a school going child. And I remember we were a cricket crazy family. I remember sneaking in transistors to school to listen to the cricket commentary. The girls were divided over Ravi Shastri and Sandeep Patil and Kapil Dev. I kinda belonged to all the camps. Hey, I just loved my cricketers to death.

During test matches, I would return home as fast as I could so that I could catch the commentary on radio. I still remember clearly, it was an England-India test match. I was a huge fan of Ian Botham. My parents knew about my craze. They were equally crazy about cricket and Botham. I know what a strange family!

I came home and discovered to my joy that my father was back home early. Very early indeed. Something was up. As soon as I entered the house, he came out smiling ear-to-ear, followed by my mother who had a very mischievous look on her face. So I asked them what happened. Mom took my hand in hers, asked me to close my eyes, and led me to the living room. And there in the corner was a small black and white television and India was batting and England was fielding. Ah, I almost died and went to heaven. It was one of the most happiest days in my life.

All my growing up years, it was my dream to go to chepauk stadium in Chennai and watch a match, to meet our cricketers, especially Ravi Shastri and Kapil Dev. I remember once a group of shashtri fans decided to write to him. It was the cheesiest of fan mails one could ever imagine. We wrote individual letters to him. And the only person who got a reply from him was a girl named Carol. And we decided that Ravi Shastri wrote to her because she had such a hip sounding name, while ours were very traditional. Oh those were such innocent days.

Life came fast and furious at us. We went our separate ways. During the course of my career I got to meet the cricketers and yesterday I finally got to see the chepauk stadium in Madras, up close and personal. I stayed at the MCC club. Had lunch at the Club, overlooking the stadium and watching players getting ready for their net practice. And all I could think of was, `This stadium is so small...I always thought it was a big stadium. When I watched it on television as a little child, with the crowds roaring in the stands, the stadium looked huge, the players looked larger than life.'

Now that I was up-close and personal -nothing seemed larger than life.

I guess, nothing ever is larger than life -until we make it out to be.