A memorable bliss

It was fifteen Years ago when I was doing my first year B.A Corp in Gurunanak College.  One of the beautiful things which will capture your spectacle as you enter our college, specially, if you are a cricket fan, is our college ground maintained by India Cements.

Little did I know as I joined the college that I awaited a thrilling moment in my life.  Unlike school, college was not all about studies only. It was something different where you surpassed that phase of your life in which you were controlled by the intimidating looks of the teachers. You were free to be choosy about remaining or not remaining in the class.

So, with this preference purely in your hands, where you were free to wander anywhere inside your college, especially when your professors took leave, the rest was all yours. As far as I was concerned, I always used to go the cricket ground as I could not resist having a knock or two over there. Touching a cricket bat was such an emotional moment for me whenever I take guard on the field even if it was a tennis ball cricket.

In such a scenario, anyone could imagine how you would have felt hard done by when you were forbidden to play the game with such a picturesque ground in your college. Such situation arose as I was told that there was going to be a “Buchi Babu” trophy match in our cricket ground and all we could do was to watch it live, if at all we loved to. When you get addicted to a thing and you are deprived of it even for a day it really hurts and so were my emotions on that day.

But I and cricket were rather inseparable during those days and so I decided to watch the match between two less known teams though I could not play that day. Something is better than nothing. Right? I hardly had any clue as to what I was going to witness that day. The match resumed and the team that was batting was Vijay Cricket Club. A wicket gone and it was then I found an unexpected entrant, much to my amazement.

OMG! fresh from the stint that he had in SouthAfrica and WestIndies, scoring runs after runs in test series over there and more fresh from a fighting century that he had in the Independence Cup 1997 against Pakistan as Indians were chasing a mammoth target, there entered the greatest wall of India, Rahul Dravid with his pads on.  Imagine could there be any better moment for me to rejoice?

A guy, who debuted for India just a year ago then, walked past me in his cricket attire, carrying a bat to take his guard in the middle. I could hardly believe my eyes. With intensity and utter disbelief, as I watched on, the first ball was whacked with an utter disdain for four. That shot was resulted from a square cut as the ball flew past the backward point region.

On one hand, I was enjoying his batting and on the other hand I was awaiting the lunch time to come so that I could be able to get his precious autograph. The moment finally came. Immdiately, I took a small note book and rushed to the players’ resting room. As I went to meet RD, I saw three more legends on the way. L.S. Sir, Robin Singh and Venkatapathy Raju were the three.

I thought it would be bad if I ignore them and so got their names too inked on my note book. Finally, as I reached the players’ dressing room, there was a big queue and right in front of the autograph hunters was a relaxing Rahul Dravid. A real down to earth person he was, I should say.

I showed my notebook to him and as he was penning his name in it I sported a petrified look with still no belief in what I was experiencing then. He acknowledged all of us with his autographs and I returned to watch his batting with the thoughts still fresh on my mind.

Later, after the match, I was filled with sorrow as I was unsure as to when I would have this opportunity of meeting this great man again. But, I was quickly told by my college seniors that RD had been a regular visitor to my college and every now and then he used to come for net practice and those types of matches, where he played for a club called Vijay CC, were always regular and in fact it was the case.

As they said, I always had this opportunity of catching hold of RD from thereon in our college and during each of his visits I and my friends used to get his autographs and he never hesitated to oblige. Even during weekly offs, we had been to our college only to see RD in person scoring with the same elegance. Now I feel how good it would have been if I had a “camera mobile” with me then. I would have got a snap with him every time and now would have had my FB profile flooded with those photographs.

Anyway such a situation is far from over now, as RD has already announced his retirement from ODI and T20.

So, as his true fan, at his age of 38, I only wish that this unselfish team man plays for three more years and plays more match winning knocks abroad.