The Moment

[Nirvanam]

It may be fair to say that most of us Cricket fans are nostalgic and have a special place for nostalgia in our hearts. It does not matter whether the moment reminisced is an important one or a trivial one. What matters is that we cherish these moments and some of these moments will be given the privilege of "before-after" events: the axial point from which events before and after are viewed. While our general lives may include events such as graduation, Wedding, Parenthood, etc as key axial points, as cricket fans I am sure many of you will also have an axial point of your metamorphosis into a full blown cricket fan. I thought we could share those moments when we gave up the cocoon of cricket being just another interest and flew into the world as a fan. And as the initiator of this thread, which I am sure will make all of us indulge with nostalgia, I'll start by sharing with you my moment of fan-reckoning. It was early 1985, I was about 8 years old. I had been playing cricket for a year or so by that time although did not know about any players. The first name in cricket I heard was that of a cricketer who has remained my hero ever since...Kapil Dev. And it all happened on one fine day when my friends and I were playing near my house. I was batting and my Mother came out excitedly and declared to the kids that Kapil Dev was batting. All the kids ran into the house leaving me standing alone with bat in hand. After frowning a bit I made my way into the Living Room where we had the TV. It was a new TV set we had purchased. Since my Mother was working at ECIL, we got a Rs.200/- discount on the Color TV Set which had 8 channels! IIRC the TV cost 8000/- retail but since mom was an employee of ECIL, we had our EC TV for 7800/-. Since ours was the newest TV in the neighborhood, the kids would usually group at our house for such "social" TV viewing events. Now, our house in Secunderabad had a portico kinda room where my Dad would park his Ind Suzuki at night. Leading from the portico we get into the Living Room and as I tried to make my way through pretending as if I was least bothered about what the other kids were so excited about...my batting chance was just ruined by this Kapil Dev fellow. The expression on my face was that of someone telling the crowd that is blocking his way to make way coz I am the King and their excitement be damned. The idea was to ignore everyone (until they would pester me to come and watch) and go directly to my room to show them that I was least interested in what they were excited about. The kids sat wherever they could find place...on the sofa, on the floor, everywhere. So I had to jump over and tip toe my way ahead. As I entered the Living Room I lost my balance and in that moment I looked towards the TV. The image that I saw meant it was Game Over for the rest of my life. The image was that of Richard Hadlee delivering one a bit short and wide and this Chiranjeevi-type looking fellow wearing a white helmet square cutting for four. Game Over! Trapped here ever since and I reckon will remain trapped till the time I breathe my last.