A Rendezvous with Baroda

When you desire something, ever so desperately, and after much deliberations and twists and turns and angles like a typical Bollywood movie of the yonder years, you actually manage to achieve that objective, it invariably ends in shattered dreams. Kaput. Broken Heart. And a few bones. Almost

No, I ain't talking of a relationship gone sour. I was alluding to a cricket match. A cricket match that I wanted so much, a match that I actually got, a match that messed up the deep recesses of mind, and eroded the enthusiasm factor I possess so badly that...that nothing, just a few bloody frustrated moments for me, and I was back to normal.

India took on the might of the Aussies, a team raring to go after being beaten by a resurgent Team India, at the IPCL ground in Baroda. And I had the (mis)fortune of landing up with the tickets and visiting this city. This venue. The match was almost as good as over in the first three quarters of an hour, we were back home in three.



The Aussies thrashed the living daylights of the Indian team, and for all it's worth, the Baroda crowd made it's displeasure felt, in a way that has been patented so well by the Indian audience. Throwing plastic bottles. Onto the playing arena.

The only positive that came out of this was that we managed to get out early (before the crowd trouble started), and check out a few places in the city. Had a sumptuos lunch with the guys. Oops, in the whole sad affair of the match description, I managed to forget those other four, who battled with their emotions gallantly, like me. Samarth (the guy who got us the tickets, and a wonderful room in an equally wonderful hotel), Nitin Mohan Srivastava (like calling out his full name, a sense of vintage like Amitabh Bacchan say, Vijay Dinanaath Chauhan...haaain!), Aditya (with his muscles hanging out of his shoulder sockets like none other) and Ayush (Samarth's relation)



The above picture was taken in the room, after the frustration of the day almost meant that we could do everything. Err...almost. However, the match was not the only talking point of that day, there were a few others as well. For starters, the train journey that took us to Baroda, where we had the privilege of encountering an old guy, who seemed almost ready to displace Lalchand Rajput from his current post of the Indian Team's manager, he knew where Kapil Dev set up his first hotel, and what does he import from Australia, to st up his business. He had the knowledge of Lawrence Rowe's eye defect and allergy to grass, and Evan Chatfield's car registration number. Alrite, I made the last one up, but you get the gist? Even when we needed to discuss something amongst ourselves, he would make his presence felt with some heart-felt and 'useful' advise, that we could do without.

Then came the 'shot of the match', figuratively speaking that is. Aditya, as his wont, had his biceps bulging out of his sleeveless tee, when a man...err...woman...err...dunno...entered, and asked Addy for a note or two. Our man refused. The result was something like this, verbatim, translated into English, for the benefit of those non-Hindi audiences.

"Aye...body toh aisi, aur pocket may paisa nahi hai...!"

"Heyy...the physique's like Arnold and Salman Khan, and the pocket's as full as a Roadside Romeo."

For a minute, or probably a little more than that, Aditya was too stunned to speak. The point to be noted here was, we were three (Nitin, Addy and me), and all of us were equally distant from 'him', but, it was only Addy who bore the brunt (fruit?) of 'his' glaze!

The return journey was not as eventful, though we did come across an utterly honest Ticket Collector in our train, almost out of nowhere, just when we were struggling to get home. A pleasant surprise. A definite first.



As India kept losing wickets, my disappointment only got worse.

Some of the other pictures, during the cricket match...


A Pensive looking Addy and a confident Nitin. Addy's worst fears came true.


At the hotel corridor, while checking out.


A kid with expectations penned down. Loads of them. All Shattered.


Look at the guy in the left. He almost shook that same hand with me. Eeeks.