A nation so full of contradictions that its hard to imagine the existence of an adhesive that could ever bring 17.5 % of the entire universe’s population together.

As this day dawned on me this morning, the tears from the night before were still fresh, albeit tears of joy, beautiful and bashful.

I finally slept after months, insomnia was passé. The ever-enduring pain was irrelevant; life after eons seemed beautiful.

I come from a family of cricket lovers and none more stauncher than my late father. The year was 1986, I was a wee six year old, still dabbling with my first bat and wondering what the fuss was all about, then came that dreadful evening when Javed Miandad hit Chetan Sharma for a six of the last ball to win the Australasia Cup, what followed next was pure pandemonium, unadulterated and pure, my father in a fit of un paralleled fury smashed the tele with a green marble ashtray (that (in)famous ashtray still rests on his study back home).

I had never seen my father more depressed more broken but its only now, that I can truly understand his pain. It was that autumn evening I realized what cricket was all about, what it meant to that man, a simple man, what it meant to a nation and an entire subcontinent. It meant the World to them and I had just joined that coveted group of fans. Life would never be the same.

It’s a well documented fact that I am nuts about cricket, I have stood outside T.V showrooms for hours at ends watching India play, I have sat in the same positions for what seemed like light years, coz any movement from my end could result in a catastrophic turn of events for the Indian Team, crammed and dying to use the loo, I have endured that pain, Why? There is no ‘why’ to it, it just had to be done, not for myself, but for the team. I once even asked my granny to knit me a powder blue jumper, the color of the Indian jersey. When I grew up I went a step further and painted my room blue, saved my meager pocket money every month so that I could buy a Sportsstar magazine which always carried a poster of a cricketer every month and all those posters were neatly put up in my room, only to be torn that fateful night in 1999 when we unceremoniously lost to Zimbabwe in the World cup.

And now we are at the threshold of History, so magnanimous, so great that words to describe it still haven’t been reduced to the English Dictionary. Most people around me weren’t born in 1983 or were still sucking a thumb, I was barely 3 and don’t remember much, but I do remember by dad running on the streets with me on his shoulders, high on euphoria, high on life, high on the fact that he was a World Champion, could you believe it, every Indian that evening was a World Champion (Goosebumps!!!)

If he was still alive, the old man would have driven himself and the entire neighborhood crazy, but to ensure the tradition isn’t broken I do it all the time here on my blog (how times have changed right?)

Come 2nd April, I for the very first time in the history of my existence will not be watching the final, I will be in a hospital bed hopefully recovering from a much needed surgery, but my thoughts and prayers will be with the Indian team. Despite my absence, I will ensure I play my part, Vikram and Nikhil ill make sure you get a call from my phone before the match and ill request the docs at the hospital to ensure I am wearing blue even in that state of forced comatose, my thoughts will be with the team.

Finally I would like to apologise to my family for making them miss the finals (if I was them I wont have, but thankfully there is only one me in my family), I hope they can catch it live on a tele at the hospital and come the 3rd of April when I finally wake up from my forced slumber I want my hand to be held and told  that we won the World Cup. I will cry I know, I will break down with joy, I will wail, I will never be the same again.

All the Best people…..

Signing off.