Being Blissfully Unaware:)

You know I would stand for hours sometimes and watch cricket being played Oval Maidan. I think I was the only "townie" chick who ever did that. And I'm proud of saying it. I knew I was different, I knew this since I was about 15, infact I even remember the phase in which I had this wonderful realisation. I was taking my tenth standard board exams, and as I was climbing the stairs in that very tense hallway, all I could think of was the match that was live on TV. My man was to play, Rahul Dravid...and My other main man Azhar was the Captain of the team then, and of course there was the third man, Ajay Jadeja who was the only sports person i looked at in a very girly way, which sometimes annoyed the hell out of me.

And as I headed upward on the stairs, I saw a classmate of mine tear down the hallway downstairs with this newspaper in her hands, and she waved it frantically at me. I turned to go back downward to see what the fuss was about. It was a huge giagntic write-up on Rahul Dravid. She was just so excited to show it to me. She didnt know anything about cricket, and never watched it but she knew who I was, she knew what it meant to me..hence her excitement.

That was a moment when i realised, I was very different from anyone in that room, atleast every woman in that room..and I couldn't let that realisation go to waste. I mean how many people have the luck and good fortune of such a realisation. Its all there, in every one of us...but to bring it out in the open and allow yrself to dream and be it, is totally different.

The hot sun never bothered me...the lack of water hardly mattered...the fact that i was surrounded by 40,000 stinky sweaty men didnt deter me..when I had to watch that match, I had to. I pushed when I had to, chanted when I had to..abused and behaved like the rest of them when i had to. Not to be accepted by them, but to get into the spirit of the true Indian spectator. The one that toils so hard, whose life is filled with cares and making ends meet, and he escapes through Hindi films, or over a glass of Desi daaru...or he watches Cricket...

So I stand and stare at Oval Maidan, after doing other strange things that the Townies do, like going to Cafe Mocha at Churchgate, watching a movie at Eros, or buying music at Groove...taking a stroll at the Oxford bookstore.... go to the footpaths of churchgate and buy old copies of National Geographic and Time Magazine...and stand there and stare at people play cricket...and I watch them laugh and enjoy the moment and I envied them, they were completely unaware of their surroundings, their eyes travelled to wherever the ball went. They were one with the game, and thoroughly enjoying the feeling. It was beautiful.

I always wanted to experience that feeling, being so involved with whatever I was doing that it left me completely unaware of what was happening around me..Music and sport allow you to do that..its like this moment..where 'Do Kadam' plays in the background, and I create this new post on the passion of sport..priceless.

There are somethings that money can buy, for the rest there's always a chance to experience happiness at Oval.