The surprise catch

I was just randomly surfing on TV and came across the highlights of a cricket match that I had seen as a kid. If I remember correctly, the TV we had at home was pretty new, the first time we got a color screen. We used to have VCR in those days. we didn't have cable and the only channels that we used to see was DD as that was the only thing that used to come for free on the antenna we had on the roof of our two storied building in which we used to stay on the ground floor. That was the year when I learnt about cricket. Though I have some memories about seeing others watching cricket before, I never really understood the game. I knew people used to talk about Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar etc. but i never really bothered with what it was. All I remember was the boost, palmolive, action shoes etc. ads that featured Kapil Dev. I was more than happy playing hide and seek, football, badminton etc. before that. Come 1996 and there was an extravagant event that took place in India. It was the cricket world cup. The whole country was talking about it. I remember there was a special supplement magazine that had come with the newspaper that had a lot of details about the event. It had details about all the teams that were participating in the event, list of all the players, interesting trivia facts and a lot more to read about cricket. I remember keeping that magazine with me for a long time even after the event was over. It included a big poster on the centerfold with the schedule. I had pasted it at the back of our main door and used to religiously update with the teams that won the matches. It was also the first time I heard about so many different countries. I used to think that these were the countries that were the major countries in the world as they had the privilege of playing in such an event. The opening ceremony was in Eden Gardens and we saw the live telecast of the event. There were laser lighting that was used and there were many performances, which fascinated us all. I remember also having a small plastic toy/replica of the official mascot of the tournament "Googly". It was fascinating to read about it all and talk about all that I learned with papa during the morning walks. I used to ask so many questions, but he was also interested in the game and answered about many of them. I wonder if it was the first common interest that we really talked about at length. :) In fact, over a period of time I realized that an interest in cricket helps you find something common to talk about with so many people in India. It is difficult to find people who have interest in music, arts, theatre, movies (beyond the over-marketed masala blockbusters), but if you know about cricket, you needn't worry about having a conversation with most of the men in the country. Somehow I thought that my mom would not know about cricket, as I thought it was a new game and I never saw her read about it. I disagreed when she said that Kapil Dev was an all rounder. When I finally had to agree, I had to listen to her teasing me about it for a long long time to come. It was very recently that I came to know from my grand-mom, that even my mother's grand-mom used to understand the game pretty well. (Consider this, I am talking about a lady who was well into her final years during the first half of the 20th century) Anyways, cricket captivated my attention for sure. There were some matches that were also held in Kolkata and I remember people pointing as some big AC buses with tinted glasses as the ones that were carrying players from the airport to their hotel or vice-versa. As I didn't know who played well and who didn't and considered it my duty to support Indian team just like everyone else did, so I was very disappointed when they lost out in the semi-finals. I remember I was at home that day and I remember papa too coming back early from office on that day to watch the match. It was such a shame that we lost an event that happens only once in 4 years and the only one where people where colored clothes while playing. :P 4 years seems like such a long time for a 10 year old. I remember reading Jhumpa Lahiri's novel as a teenager where she had written that children and adults perceive time so differently. For a child the time seems endless and for adults it is just never enough and passes by so quickly. Anyways, I then sparsely started following cricket every now and then. More importantly I started playing gully cricket. ;) Few months down the line there was another eruption of public interest in the game when Sourav Ganguly made his debut and scored a century. The bong pride all around swelled and the papers were again filled with a lots of coverage of cricket. It was then that I started following cricket on radio, as we didn't have cable connection and these matches were shown only on Star Sports and Espn. It was great fun to listen to the matches in Hindi commentary. I thought it was funny. Else, if I wanted to know about the scores, I had to wait till 9:20 PM in the night when DD used to show news. Well the news started at 9 but the sports was the second last thing that was covered on the program, the last being weather. Sometimes I remember watching the news for deaf and mute that was aired on weekends. Since we didn't have cable, we often had to twist the antenna on the roof and I used to keep experimenting with the wire. I don't recall what I did, but I think I did something due to which the TV, after some tuning, started catching a sports channel. The signal was not strong and there was a lot of disturbance. Audio was not legible, but I was able to make out what I saw. It was a sports channel that was streaming a cricket match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was chasing a score of 169 and was kinda comfortably heading towards the target. All of a sudden, in a span of a few overs, the wickets fell and they were all out on 169 and it was a tie. I remembered the name of NZ's skipper, Lee Germon and considered him to the be the mainstay of that team (just like Sachin was for India) till I learnt about other players of that team much later. I was really excited that I was able to see the match live and it was the first time I had seen any team tie in a ODI match and thus it was thrilling. And since I had found a novel way (which even I didn't understand), to watch the match, I was even more thrilled and filled with pride. When I told about this to my parents, they cautioned me, and told me not to talk about this to anyone as they know that we don't have cable connection and someone might think that we were using someone else's connection to watch the channel. Well, it was the highlights of the same match that I stumbled upon today, all these many years later, and it took me down the memory lane, as I saw the score of 169. Today I watched it in HD with clear audio, but it can never give me the trill that the weak signal with disturbance gave me almost two decades back. Back then i used to watch all the matches and tell papa about what happened. Even today papa likes to talk about the cricket matches that keep happening now, but somehow I have lost track/interest of who is playing whom these days and it is often him who gives me updates about what is happening. My interest in the game might have reignited his interest in the game back then, but now with my dwindling interest, he has lost a partner with whom he can talk about it.