A word of encouragement can do wonders

Early to bed and early to rise makes man healthy, wealthy and wise. Crap! I woke up at four in the evening today. Now I needed to hunt to bring peace to my thundering intestine. Avoid junk food - they say. Washed up the utensils and cooked the most delicious species of ready-to-eats, the atta maggi. It wasn’t exactly the two minutes of course that has been so hyped about, but nevertheless, my lunch was ready in less than ten minutes. Dining without a company is like singing a romantic song – solo. I turned on the TV and there it was my friend in the time of loneliness. I scanned the channels and found out Mithunda dancing like a rock star maniac – at least he thought so. There was Big B with his frenchie (I am talking only about his beard, you naughty fellow!) cannoning his voice at the lover of his dead daughter. Then in another, I caught a boy, not thicker than a stick, kicking off tens of gundas defying what we call logic. The couple from the early sixties dancing to the tunes of Lata-Kishore around the trees, with the lady looking so shy while the man tries to woo her. Now imagine that to be enacted in today’s Bollywood. There would be just one difference – the viewers would be shy even to look at the screen! Scrolling a hundred channels down, I came to the boring free to air channel. As expected, an India England hockey match from CWG New Delhi. My remote malfunctioned and I couldn’t change my channel for the next couple of minutes. And so it was – I became a part of history.

The score line read 1-1 with the second half just starting. From the commentary, I learnt that it was a Semi-final match. The Major Dhyan Chand National Hockey Stadium was packed to its capacity and the spectators sung the ‘Chakh de India’. At least the song came to where it belonged. (Remember Chakh de is being used to popularize the already dominant cricket). Out of nowhere, England converted two penalty corners and the match was ill poised at 1-3 with team India sailing down. I wanted to change the channel now as if blaming myself being the ill luck that I have brought to our team. But when I saw that the mad public had even got madder, I decided against it.

That was the encouragement which turned this team into a single unit shifting gears from defensive to attacking within a few moments. Still the English were playing out time. Time that was just too short – only eighteen minutes to go. A marathon short along with a fatal deflection drew first blood for India in the second half. The supporters screamed with joy and that made team India attack the British defences even more.  A second goal for India in the next five minutes levelled the score. India kept on attacking but some how they couldn’t hit the nail in the coffin. The bugle meant that it was time for the golden goal round. Fifteen minutes of play time and the English looked like they were completely outplayed by their Indian counterparts. There were quite a hit and a miss and the match was destined to be even more nerve crackling.

It was time for a tie breaker. Indian sealed its fate with a save from our Goal keeper in the second penalty shot and the others made no mistake of it. India fought into the finals like gladiators, rising from the dead. We made history by making sure of winning the first CWG medal in hockey. With this form, India would want nothing less than the sparkling gold.