A Momentous Journey

Last weekend, we had been to Chennai as a Cheer Squad for our Cricket team at the Cricnizent. The whole time was filled with wonderful memories.

The train journey

It all started with us leaving from Cognizant office to Chennai. The train was at 4 from Nampally. Vehicle had been booked for our sake. Ananth at the right moment had gone off on a team lunch! The time was already 2:40 pm and Ananth was nowhere in sight.

By the time he turned up, the weather was playing spoilsport. It started to drizzle and we were unable to find our taxi. Just started when it started to rain hard, we found our guys and left for the station. We reached the station well in time. Unfortunately, we had not got a complete cabin for ourselves. Two of the lower births had been allocated to an old couple. We thought, God help the couple!

The train journey began with a very pleasant event.. It had started to rain and the oppressive heat had given way to moist cool breeze. We had bought a stock of soft-drinks and bananas. We started to attack it almost immediately. We sent the old couple to another place. They were to return only for sleeping at night. They definitely wanted the lower births and we could not manage to get those for them.

We started with a game of cards. All together we played three different games, with at least 3 rounds of each game. All of us got bored of it soon. Everyone could easily look at others' cards! So, there was no fun in the game.

So, we started to play the game of "Yes/No/Maybe". Within 8 questions and three guesses, the others had to guess the personality. This was good fun. We played this for over 2 hours. Personalities ranged from Shankar Srinivasan, Osama bin Laden to Barkha Dutt.

By now, the old couple had returned. The time was 8:40 pm. They said, they wanted to sleep at 9 pm. So, we vacated the place and the births were put in place. The couple went off to sleep. All of us just stood there and started having our conversations.

At around 9:30 pm, all of us had given up hopes of food. Mani had said, food would be available at Guntur. We were worried that we had missed the place while we were playing. Luckily, this wasn't the case. We reached Guntur at around 9:40 pm. We got a lot of egg-oblates and dosas. Ate it while standing on the platform itself, as there was no place to sit and eat.

Then, started the real conspiracy. Ganesh and I were feeling sleepy. We pulled the birth and thought of sleeping at around 10:45. The rest of the gang had other ideas. They would not allow us to sleep. Every two minutes, Mani would tickle my feet and say, "Just in case you felt left out…. I have some updates: We are reaching Chennai in another 7 hours." Then, the update would be changed to 6 hours, 58 minutes and so on! Finally, I just gave up the idea of sleeping and sat up and chatted with the gang. At around 12 I could no longer sit and went off to sleep. The others were awake for some more time , it seems.

Next day morning, we reached Chennai. Mani's parents had sent the car to the station. Mani warned us all that we were in Chennai now. That meant, no more Chennai bashing. Talivar (Rajiini) was a Super-star here. Amma rules. Mani rocks. Any opinion against this was just not welcome; he said, it would result in dire results. We just accepted this. We had no options!

First day

The hotel booked for the Pune and Hyderabad team was the New Woodlands. The rooms were fabulous. It had a huge sitting room and an even bigger bedroom. I had to share the room with Niloy. The AC in the room and fan in the bathroom was really a boon. Otherwise surviving in oppressively hot city Chennai would have been an impossible task.

We went to the ground for our first match. It was Hyderabad versus Pune. We caught a place on the stands. Got some empty mineral water bottles, few whistles and posters and went on with out job. This was cheering our team like crazy. Obviously, our team won the match.

We then went back to the room, had a nap, got back to the stadium and cheered Pune which was now playing against Chennai A team. Unfortunately, Pune lost the match.

The Beach

Mani, Ananth, Shivani, Sai, Niloy, Supreeta and I decided to go for some outing in Chennai. We kidnapped our captain, Sriram from the ground. The plan was to go to the Eliott's beach. Mani, Sai, Shivani, Rowdur went off for the beach by the car. Ananth and Supreeta, Sriram and I were to go by an auto.

As luck would have it, our driver was a Tamil fanatic. On top of it, he was drunk. To top it all, he had an affinity to mobile phones! So, from the time we left, he'd drive sometime, and then ask me to call Ananth. Then, he'd take the phone from my hands, ask Ananth to hand to phone to the driver and they would speak. This happened some three times. Talk about technology and its misuse! By the time we got out of the auto, I'd lost some 50 bucks on the calls made by our driver.

While driving, he gave us a sermon on the great language that Tamil is. He asked us where we were from. We replied that we were from Hyderabad. Then he asked, what languages were spoken in Hyderabad. We told, Telugu, Hindi and English. He asked why people in Hyderabad did not speak Tamil. We did not answer. He then said, that Tamil is the oldest, the sweetest and the most beautiful language that is there. Sriram was seething beside me and I was getting ready to get my hands on this driver's neck. Finally, Sriram and I got bored of the loquacious driver and asked him to dump us at some point where we saw the beach! Luckily, it turned out to be the correct spot.

One by one, all the gang started to trickle in. We were all very hungry and a nice bajji stall was inviting us with the tantalizing chillis. So, we decided to have them. We ate Mirchi bajji, Banana bajji, Potato bajji, Onion bajji and Gobi bajji. The chutney tasted heavenly. Then, Ananth said that masala channa is too good. So, we got that and ate that too.

The sea was inviting. So, we decided to just get our feet into the water. The moment I hit water, I could not contain myself. I just wanted to get totally wet! The waves were strong and the tide was good. All of us had a good fun.

Then, a hawker came selling a sweet that is Indianized version of Cotton Candy. We had that too. By then, Niloy realized that his mobile was missing. All of got into a massive hunt for the mobile. We coaxed a hawker to help us in the search with his petromax lamp. Despite this, we never recovered the phone. It seems, this was Niloy's third phone. He'd lost two of them before! It was then that Mani told us that he too was almost going to loose his mobile in the train.

In the morning, while brushing his teeth, Mani had put the mobile on the wash-basin sill. He had forgot to take it back. He'd realized it only on reaching Chennai. That too, when he wanted to call for the driver and could not find the mobile. With a sinking heart, he went to the exit door. Amazingly, his mobile was still sitting pretty on the sill. How nobody noticed it is a real mystery.

Coming back to the beach. Niloy's phone was lost. We could do nothing about it. There was still one thing that we'd not done: eating the totapuri mango. So, we fulfilled this need/greed too. We were gobbling it so fast that the hawker had a great difficulty in matching upto to our speed in cutting the mangos!

We then came back to hotel, had a bath and had dinner. The thali was delicious. Then, we all crashed. The first day in Chennai had come to an end.

Day Two

Sunday morning seemed to be pleasant. Either the weather had cooled down or we had got adjusted to Chennai.

Anyway, we all got ready with a great sense of time. Hyderabad was supposed to play Chennai A at 9 am. People in the hotel managed to get ready by 9:30. Then, we had a heavy breakfast. After this, we left for the stadium. The time was 10. We thought at least one innings would have completed.

Only on reaching the ground, we realized that it had rained the previous night. The pitch had to dry. So, the match was postponed to 10:45 am. We weren't late after all!

We went back to our place to watch the match. This time, Chennai had a lot more supporters. So, we ensured not to bait the crowd. No point in it. They tried to bait us a lot. But, being the genteel group that we are, we took it all in stride and never fought back. We never needed it. Our team won the match in great style. We won by 5 wickets and 3 overs to spare!

We went back to the hotel. Ananth and gang went to some shop and got a dirty colored yellow T-Shirt. We were to make the team shirts. We started our artistic job at 4:30 while the match was supposed to start at 5! Rushing through it, we managed to print "Team Hyd" on the front and "Rocks" on the back of all the 11 shirts. The best thing was, no two team T-Shirts looked alike!

Wearing it, we all rushed to the road to find our team aboard the bus, about to leave for the stadium! Again, we were right on time! It seems a last minute match for the managers had been decided and was going on. The finals were to start only at 7.

Superstition

This time, the team was extremely careful. They did not want to upset any of the Gods! They had been visiting a temple before every match. This time too, they did it. The conditions were many though. Every action performed or not performed in the morning had to be repeated exactly. People who had left their shoes in the bus had to leave the shoes in the bus. People who had gone in to the temple late, had to go in late. We were not present in the morning at the temple. So, we were not allowed to go. {We were actually not in the bus in the morning. Why did the team allow us to accompany them? This is a big mystery still!} People were wearing the same T-Shirt, same trousers and same socks (at this point Swaroop stopped the team to list the similarities.)

We too were not behind the team in our beliefs. On every match before, we had gone to first floor only after the game commenced. After the opponent's batting, we had gone to meet the team. We had come up only when the game had begun, missing the first over in transit. We repeated all of it for the finals too!

The match

The match was about to begin. The ground looked bathed in light. The sheer brightness was unbelievable! From the ground floor, the view of the stadium would deceive anyone about the time. It looked like the time was something like 6 in the evening. It felt like the evening was about the being and the twilight was fast approaching. Yet, if you looked around it would be dark! The only give away was the shadow. Instead of one, there were now 4!

We went up to cheer for our team, wearing the T-Shirts. We were getting looks from one and all. There were various types of looks: surprise, fascination, disgust, curiosity, ridicule and a lot more. Braving all this, we majestically went and occupied our seats.

The previous evening, when Pune was playing Chennai A, we'd supported them. Also, when Bangalore was playing Chennai B, we had supported them. So, these guys all decided to support us! All the telugu gang from Chennai offices came to our support. On the finals, the strength of Hyderabad supporters was no less than that of the Chennai gang. We could match them in sheer noise and loudness. And we actually out did them!

Nishant played a magnificent innings in the finals. Despite being the wicket-keeper, he showed no fatigue while running between the wickets. The Chennai team played badly scoring just 106 runs in 20 overs for 9 wickets. This was a big achievement for them. Their score was something like, 1 wicket at end of over 1 to 4 wickets at end of 4 overs! Our guys had the trade-mark four catch miss. Once, we dropped the Chennai captain's catch. Someone said, we just dropped the cup. Himani retorted saying, this was the first catch. We had three more to go! This was because, in all the matches, we had dropped exactly four catches! And in the finals too, we repeated the performance!

Playing solidly, we were easily poised to win the match. We were 96 for 3 in 17 overs. By then, the guys on the field shouted and asked us all to be present on the boundary line. We were reluctant. Superstition mandated us to be at our seats until we completed the innings. But, we decided to go ahead anyway. This was a major turning point. In this over, we lost three wickets for just 2 runs!

All of us were sitting with the hearts in the mouth when the Chennai team started to field badly and gave away three runs by just overthrows. Ritanshu finally scored the winning shot. He had also done some amazing fielding, which got a special mention from our Chief Guest, Mr. Gundappa Vishwanath.

The after match ceremony was sheer ecstasy! We all could barely stand on the boundary line! Shankar had urged us not to cross this at any time! And we were managing to stick on to our promise. Finally, while our team was receiving the trophy, Sriram said, "We are a team of 25 and not of 11." That was the ultimate tribute we got.

First Flight

That night, we had dinner at Savera and slept only till 4 am. We had to reach the airport by 5 am. Somehow all of us managed to drag ourselves! There we had a great time looking at some good looking females. In fact, Mani fooled us all by saying there was Sania Mirza at the checking counter. There was a female with the glasses that looked like hers' but, she was a totally different person! Still all of us sat gawking at her!

The flight, my first ever one was not all that glamorous. I'd thought the plane would be huge and airhostesses would be incredibly beautiful. The Airbus A 320 is the bigger of the planes, but on the inside, it looked like a railway coach. In the extreme fatigue, the airhostesses did not look appealing. Still they were beautiful! I managed to get the very last window seat. This was a real experience!

As taxied, I thought, it was really boring. But, the take was fabulous. From a mere 16 km per hour, it seems the plane accelerated to over 100 km per hour in under 15 seconds! The thrill was amazing. The plane stopped on the runway. The propeller noise rose steadily. The brakes were released. Like a wild beast on a chase, the plane just leapt off and before even I could realize, the wheels were off the ground.

All the while I was busily watching the wings. The flaps being opened, closed, adjusted and controlled. This was a real humbling moment. One wrong move on the flaps and we could all plunge down to earth!

After taking off, the plane took a turn. It felt like a Tora-tora ride! The way the plane bends while turning really gives a thrill! All of a sudden the wings seem to bank. The horizon gets tilted and the massive plane will be making a change in direction.

Once it reached the cruising altitude, everything was quiet. Since there were clouds, initially looking out of window felt very exciting. We initially flew through the smoky plumes and before we knew it, we were flying above them.

There were various types of clouds: the little abandoned small ones, hovering aimlessly, the small group ones, which looked like small balls of cotton floating over each other and the big bad group which looked like a churning mass of white stuck together and stretched miles and miles across the sky.

By then, one hour was up and it was time to land. I tried to figure out Tank Bund. But, never managed to locate it. The landing too was a great experience. All of a sudden the plane slowed down. The flaps were moved down and suddenly the giant mass seemed to just halt in mid-air. I was getting tense that it would stall and fall down! Yet, it did not. The braking mechanism is truly frightening! When the plane did land, the flaps were completely opened like a flower blossoming out. Only, the internals of the wings are not as beautiful.

After deplaning, we all took our autos home and thus ended the great Chennai trip!