Chapter 11: We lost Cricket World cup finals, Damn it.

Third Semester started with a breaking news that Patti who was a day scholar till now have decided to move into the hostel . This was great news because now the back bench group could always be together in the hostel. Patti entered in the hostel with bursting enthusiasm. Patti was greeted in the hostel with ostentatious celebration.

Ummm not this majestic but we had an arrangement for him . All of us in the hostel had gone through extensive amount of agonizing ragging, thanks to the dementors like Chu Chu, Acharya and Dhar. They made us STRONG. Yes strong, we strongly hated them and we could not digest that someone tries to skip that and get into the hostel when all is ended. Anyways when he entered inside the hostel all dementors called him and took his introduction and assigned him a job to memorize the names of all the dementors. He was given me, Arnold and Mahajan to assist him with the names. He was unquestionably in excellent hands . We gave him all the accurate names apart from one. We told him that the name of one important dementor is Chaman (Means stupid). He wasn’t very sure because he sensed something was fishy but because he was new, he had to abide by what we say, so he committed the name to his memory.

Have you ever come across the situation when you took a tough method to face the trouble and your co-worker took a shortcut to face the same problem without any pain? And later He/She laughs on your face proving that you were a looser, look at me I accomplished the same with no dilemma. I am talking about the pleasure when their shortcut bites them in their ass . It was pleasurable to see Dementors molesting Patti just because of Chaman.

Cricket fever was going on because cricket world cup was happening and the exhilaration was there because India made it to the finals. The opponent was 2 time world cup victors Australia. But we were self-assured that India will come out clean and will overpower Australia to lift the cup . The match could only be watched at the hostel recreation room where a television set was kept. This television set showed only solitary channel, Doordarshan. It was ok until and unless match is on it. The recreation room was jam packed and those who did not get seats were standing and watching the game.

         Match began with a balanced Australia Batting. Srinath came to bowl 7th over and got hit for 16 runs, straight away people started relating themselves with his mother and sisters but this was just a start. India went on yielding easy runs and Australia kept on scoring until in 13th over Harbhajan claimed Gilchrist’s wicket. As Doordarshan showed Gilchrist walking back to pavilion, people in the hostel recreation room in fact started spitting on the television and showed Gilchrist their middle finger. Anyways then came the captain Ponting and rest became history, later in that complete Australian innings we heard things like,

Rest of the hostel to Bhutani (He is from Delhi), “Saale Nehra ko ghar pe baitha ke pakode banwa usse, bowling uske bas ki baat nahi hai” (Ask Nehra to cook pakodas n the house, he can’t bowl for nuts)

Rest of the hostel to Arnold and other kannadigas on each occasion when Srinath was hit for a boundary and he was hit A LOT, “Abay Srinath to spinner hai fir ye fast bowling karane ki koshish kyo kar raha hai, samjha na usko kannada me” (Why Srinath is trying to bowl fast, isn’t he a spinner ?? Go make him understand this in kannada)

Rest of the hostel to Shah (He is from Gujrat), “Ye Zaheer khan ko paisa de ke national team me bharti karwaye ho kya ??” (Have you guys bribed Indian cricket selection board to take Zaheer Khan ?)

Complete hostel to Ponting on his each boundary, I truly can’t write what all Ponting had to hear that day but think of this that on his each boundary he was gaining plenty of relatives from our hostel, particularly son-in-laws and fathers because weirdly that day each person was after his daughter and his mother !!!

But that was not it, people were still upbeat that even after posing a mammoth total Indian batsmen can still retaliate. Indian innings instigated with the plunge of Sachin Tendulkar in very first over. Abruptly there was a rampage in the recreation room, half the crowd instead of cursing Tendulkar and Mcgrath, cursed Tendulkar and Mcgrath’s mothers for no reason and left the scene. After a short time it looked like India is fighting back. People who were still expectant were motionless and people who left after Sachin’s wicket came back when they heard that India is recovering. But sooner it was evident that this is no contest, it’s just a one sided match .

As soon as last Indian wicket was chopped down each hostelite went wild , they broke all the stools and they tore out all the posters in the activity room. Some even tried assaulting the television but warden came for its rescue and little did he know that if not TV then it will be him, in fury crowd gave him respectable thrashings. All came to know about that when warden was frantically looking for the wrongdoers with a left black-and-blue eye and a puffed-up right cheek .

Well he did not get anyone because he could not recognize anyone that day but he kept looking for the grounds and circumstances to confront any of the hostelite. Atlast he got that opportunity, me, Arnold, Mahajan and Ghosh regularly fantasise about the wonderful coconuts on the coconut estate next to our college and one bright evening we decided to catch flavour of some. We made 2 teams of 2, me and Ghosh, Arnold and Mahajan. We entered into the estate and went in 2 separate directions and contracted to notify each other if someone comes by. The goal was to gather as many coconuts as possible and get out of there in no time, then relish them back inside the hostel the entire late afternoon. We arrived at our first stop where these 6 incredible green coconuts were inviting us like Smriti Virani used to invite inside her house in Kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi start off credits. 1 and 2 and 3, we picked 3 stunning coconuts. All of a sudden I heard a grave noise “THUD” and next moment I could sense a blinding pain on my left butt. The caretaker of the estate was standing right behind me and he caught us red handed, he spanked me with a long stick. Ghosh blocked him before he could give me any more blows. I was thinking what the hell, why didn’t they alert us!!! The caretaker was busy in shouting on us but me and Ghosh eye witnessed something extraordinary, I have seen Usain Bolt running and I have also seen Vampires run with a speed of light in English movies but I undoubtedly remember that, that day Arnold and Mahajan did not even come for our rescue but they ran, they ran for their existence . Even if there was a vampire there that day, that also could not have beaten them. Both of them were like “Jesse Mach” (The rider of Street Hawk), the only difference was that they needed no street hawk.