Cricket Climax

The crazy build-up to the World Cup clash in the city this afternoon has finally caught up with us. All those who had declared last Wednesday that beating Pakistan in the semi-final at Mohali was as good as winning the final are now, once again fully charged. Like everybody else, they want India to defeat Sri Lanka also and actually lift the Cup.
Srichand Arora (below, left) announced that should India win, he would treat everybody to phapda-jalebi on Monday morning when we assemble next. “Chai meri taraf se,” Santosh Tyagi (below, right) volunteered. Promptly, Hari Singh Shekhawat (bottom, left) offered to bring crispy hot samosas to the Garden to celebrate. But should India not win the final, “party cancelled”, Arora clarified.
Earlier, Bapu Rane narrated how he tried to pick up a ticket at Wankhede Stadium yesterday, only to discover that the lowest-priced, Rs1,500 seats for the upper stands were being hawked for Rs100,000 in black. Till the day-before, Shekhawat’s son was being offered the same tickets for Rs60,000… and he was game for it, just that he arrived a day late. By then the price had shot up to Rs125,000!
Everybody had a story to tell, of the madness surrounding the event and how people (including family members) were prepared to splurge mindlessly… if nothing else, on Team India jerseys. There were jokes galore, the best one being an SMS forward: “India (Ram) married the World Cup (Sita) in 1983, but in 1996 Sri Lanka (Ravan) took Sita away. Now after 14 years of vanvaas, Ram meets Ravan and we all know the result.”
Then there were moments of rethinking with factors like no team ever winning the World Cup on home ground coming up. The fact remains, all our members have become cricket experts in the past few days. And true to their optimistic spirit, they raised an extra (fourth) laugh, loud enough to be heard at Wankhede, 25kms away.
Dan Sharma says:
Congratulations, India did win! The vanvaas was for 28 years, but the Ram-Ravan episode has relevance, in cricketing terms. Laaf a lot.
--Dan