When LIFE was equal to CRICKET - II

Hi guys, I am back !!! its almost a fortnight now since the last blog, well it has been a very good fortnight though. This one is going to be quite a long post i guess, lets see

To continue from where i left, at last we decided to shift to the famous ____ ground, in bhaktavatchalam street. We would be mostly 10 or 12 ppl, olli prasanna, ramesh, raghu, c balaji, ganesh prabhu, sindhuraj, anbazhagan, myself and few more. There would not be a weekend or a holiday without cricket. But you should be lucky enough to get a "pitch", as every possible inch would have been occupied by humans and cows!!

Many times i would return back home from ground with a severe headache ( yes i do have a problem with this) and get heavy scoldings from my parents, as usual i will say i wont go to play tomorrow, but that tomorrow never came !!

But, andru oru naal, i was getting ready to go to the ground when my father called me,

father: enga da pora? (where are u goin?)
me: ground uku dhan pa, seekirama vandhuduven (am goin to ground and will be back soon)
father: parava illa seekiram lam vara vendam, nalla velayaditu vaa, bathiram (its fine play well, no need to come early, take care)
me: !!! :-) :-)

well it was like having a cake and eating it too. Played to my heart content and returned to my paati's house.

me: paati, appa amma enge? (Where are my parents?)
paati : ava ellam "mudhalvan" paduthuku poiruka da, unaku theriyadha? (They have gone to a film dont u know?)

appa puriyala enaku ippo purinchudhu, en da enga appa enna "nalla" velayada sonnarnu !!

You will always here from people that " do something(good is what they mean) so that future generations will talk about you" Well I dono if its good, but if you enter the ground and see straight opposite, you ll see a house in the second floor, whose window has a protective shield, i was the reason for it, broke the window with a superb six !! off ramesh's bowling, aana adutha second all boys escape :-)

Cricket, cricket and only cricket and after that eating in bakya :-)... Olli Prasanna and i would be in the same end for the second run, he would have completed the 2nd run and i would'nt have started it !! and even worser than me, i have never seen raghuram come to the crease without a runner, dhadiyan !!

I moved to ahobila math for my 11th and 12th and so the home ground for the aho boys, was the bigger somasundaram in t.nagar. Those were the days of some serious cricket, we have played bet matches and each team would be of 11. I usually open the bowling or come first change and come at no 4 in the batting. Aho boys like deepak, suresh, madhu, ajay, vj, bharath, bharadwaj, kasi, me and 4 other in one team and R. S Bharadwaj's friends form the other team. We ll sledge them like hell, esp one guy called "Balli".

Vj is a big hitter, madhu and ajay are consistent scorers, deepak (captain) responsible player, suresh and me all rounders and rest all bat and bowl. So we would always post a good total and defend it. But one match i could vividly remember is, its the last over and we needed 5 runs, Vj was facing and deepak was at the non-striker, 5 balls Vj swatted the bat and created sandstorm. Last ball 6 runs needed, timber it was!! kuniya vechu avana kadhara kadhara podhu maathu potutom.

Murugan Idly shop, a famous restaurant was nearby the ground, full A/C, konjam high range ppl ll be eating , aana naanga fully sweating, dusty costumes, loud language oda apdi enter aavom, the entire restaurant will turn and see us.. but we never care about those, do we??

In college, playing cricket became a rarity, and we didn have proper bats also, during that time i had to adjust with a small sized bat and was not able to bend down ( you know why :-) ) and got out when the ball was yorked (podhumada balaji !!) .

Here I am now in Hyderabad, with a bat at my home, but none to play :-( Satisfying myself with seeing and talking cricket, missing those days and the guys :-(

Well this is quite a long post, but at the end it was my all about my LIFE (= CRICKET).

When LIFE was equal to CRICKET

Thank you all for your time for reading the previous blog (crap?)

As i said before, I am primarily writing blogs to look back at my life pre-2004, to rediscover myself.


Part - I

Oh my god, I was talking cricket, watching cricket and of course playing cricket all the time. Well, not the technically sound cricket at coaching nets, but "verithanamana" street cricket or gully cricket as you would call it, no doubt that "Chennai - 600028" was such a run away hit in chennai, cos most of them would easily identify them with the characters of the movie. But this is not Chennai - 600028 rather it is "Chennai - 600033" !!

Early days then, 96 world cup time I was not old enough to play in grounds, but we used to play in Patel Street, in West Mamabalam, my paati's hse was there, it was a very narrow street but long enough, with traffic almost non-existent. Raajkamal, Suresh, Naga(Murugan) , mani, vasanth, kumar, cheena, raja, vishnu, myself and few others divided ourself into team and played "maanga throw" cricket or overarms. The rules will be quite interesting, anga oru veedu irukum, andha veetla ball pona tharamaatanga, so andha veetukulla pona out.
When the older guys like guru, sriram, surendar anna joined us, we wud play bowling with stumps( no hifi stumps rendu kallu dhan :) ) 1 bat or 1.5 bats wide, with no runs, the primary aim is to survive the bowling. You should not play the ball with body more than twice and you cannot hit it into any house and especially that particular hse. Kandipa ball tholanju poidum, adhuku appuram andha ball owner poi avanga appa illa amma va kootindu varuvan, adhukulla naanga ellam escape! adutha nalaiku ellarum paisa potu oru ball vaangi avanuku kuduthuruvom.

My house was in Kavitha flats, Lakeview road, anga engala cricket bat ooda paarthale terror aiduvaanga, we have broken enuf no of glasses, lampshades in both my flat and adjoining coral glade with nishanth and bharadwaj. Then we shifted base to Mahalakshmi flats, angeyum oru kannadi odanjudhukappuram all escape !

Seri ennadhan panradhunu theriyama irundhapo dhan.. neighbouring susil flats construction got over and new guys sriram, kiran and one more guy (forgot his name) came to the rescue. Shifted our base to susil flats, everything was going smooth, one fine day.. kiran edho vithyasama try panna(in underarms only), sriram adha "palar" nu adika, "dabal" nu oru satham, ennadu nu paarhta putham pudhu lamp shade govinda !! Watchman ramaswamy ooda ooda veratitar adhoda yen "flat cricket" sahaptham mudinju poachu atleast in mambalam!! To add about kiran, appo enaku avan "dei kiran" dhan, ippo "ivur, avar aiytaru" cos I never knew he will be my senior at PSG Tech, after 9th std (he was in 11th) i shifted to K K Nagar and lost touch with him and never imagined he would be the Student's Union Chairman(05-06) and to others who are wondering who is this kiran, he is none other than our own Viswanath!!


Then we narayana mission guys decided to shift our home ground to, bhaktavatchalam street ground(better known as _______ !), so finally a promotion from "flat and street" cricket to ground cricket!! Will play about that in the part 2 soon !!!

Week That Was!!!

Well this is my first blog and this is about the past week (from Feb 28 - Mar 8) I spent at home in chennai, I was on vacation, after the grueling 3 months for my product release.

March 11

Today morning @ 6, as usual, prepared my filter coffee and switched on the television for the pre-match show of the India vs New Zealand 4th ODI at hamilton, while sipping the coffee a plenty of thoughts of crossed my mind as of how life changes quickly!!

Pause!!

rewind a week back, 6 am it was and I was in chennai, in a small 800 square foot apartment in west k.k.nagar. After a long thought i woke up, only to hear my grandmother say, "seekiram pallu thechutu vaa, coffee potu tharen". 6.15 am: with "The Hindu" in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, comfortably settled down in the balcony to read the headlines. 7 am : Stretched out to snatch the "Dinamalar", from my mother sitting opposite to me, cos by then my younger brother was up and snatched Hindu from me, then my grandmother came, "enna tiffin seiradhu karthala, illa sadham vechudatuma?", and after a long fight between me and my mother, cos i like tiffin and she likes rice, i won and at 8 am, hot dosas with tomato chutney came to the dining table. After devouring on the dosas and i got a large tumbler of tea to wash them down. And it is 8.45 am now.

Back to reality! NZ have won the toss and elected to bat first on a not so flat wicket, thought this decision augured well for India's batting, as they can chase any target!

Back to my thoughts, lazed around the whole morning and at around 11 went with mom to pay property tax and water tax. She took the driver's seat in the car and said she ll never ever give the car to me, after the accident i caused few months ago! Finished the chores and was back at home, just at the right time for some delicious lunch, courtesy grandmother! then a long afternoon nap, just to be woken up my mother for evening tea and tiffin. And then a discussion on where to go out that evening, finally we decided to go to SMS in udhayam complex, only god knows for how many days the theatre will exist, for its up for sale now. The movie was good and back home again, had dinner and slept.

Well, jesse ryder and mcCullum have taken NZ to a good start here now, lets see all india need is to remove those two at the earliest!

Phew, That was a day's work, I thought. The next few days went in cleaning the house, supervising the electrician who came to replace few electrical fittings.

Visited temples, Padmanabhaswamy temple in adayar with my family.

Dined at Saravana Bhavan, Ratna Cafe and Data Udipi hotels. Spent the whole week with my family, did not even venture into any of my friend's house in mambalam for that matter. And the day arrived finally, at 3.30 pm on mar 8 left my home with 5kgs of sugar that my mother had packed in my bag and some more provisions, increasing the luggage count to 2 from 1. My mother dropped me @ central and left at 4.55 when the train finally started.

Here I am now, NZ have lost two wickets, but mcCullum is still at the crease! Now I have to start preparing my breakfast, no I am not taking lunch today, have to manage with horrible lunch @ office or i ll have noodles for lunch, that's better, will sit and see the match and start to office at around 10.45 am.

A Week that was, still lingering in my thoughts, think my next long vacation will be during deepavali.