The TimePass of India

I remember that day. It was a Sunday or was it? When you have 25 lectures a week, you kinda lose track of time. I got a call in the morning. It must have been a Sunday, I think, coz I was fast asleep at 8 am. On weekdays, we leave our rooms by that time. I think it was Sulabh.

"Oye? Match hai! Ready ho ke aa ja."

"Huh? Match? aaj? Rohit hamessha Sunday ko hi matches kyun rakhta hai bey?"

You can understand my sense of frustation if you have slept for only 5 hours on average through the week and the only day that you get for yourself is taken up by a cricket match you are not even gonna win.

I exibit the kinda of pessimism coz we had already lost the first match. Infact, we had lost by a huge margin. We even gave away the bonus point. This team was team PGPM D.

Now let me give you a tour of my degree course at MDI. I am in the International Management course at MDI. The course is truly international coz I get to study at MDI for 1 year then for 1 year at Paris/Berlin campus. Its a dual degree course. I get one degree from MDI and the other from ESCP France/Germany. International management is by far the toughest course in the country.(This is my blog and I can say whatever I want) It has to be, coz we cover the same syllabus as other Bschools cover in 2 years in 1 year! The result - jam packed schedules, frequent exams, quizzes by the dozen, sleep deprivation and stuff. All programmes all over India have 14 lectures per week. We have 25! For me, IIM and Co are for sissies and little kids. Men come here.

The batch comprises of 30 students. 21 Indians and 9 Foreigners(No, they are not exchange students, they are actually a part of the batch)

Out of 21 Indians, we have 19 boys. So we effectively have like 19 members to make a team, in contrast to other teams who have around 60 guys.

So on this particular day, out of the 19 boys, 10 had left for their homes(cant blame them, they didnt know about the match). We had 9 guys on the campus, out of which a few werent too used to playing cricket. (Cumon, you dont get into MDI if you spend all your childhood playing cricket.. being a nerd pays, I tell you).

So we had 9 guys. But you obviously cant play with 9 players in cricket. You need 11. We searched and finally got hold of Philip, a German classmate who hadnt played cricket ever. But he jumped in and now we had a makeshift team of 10 guys against a team of 11 who beat PGPM D a few days ago.

To stay in the tournament we needed to win this match. Not only win it, we were supposed to win it comprehensively to earn the bonus point. We had to win with a bonus point with a team of 10 players out of which 3 were debutants!

As we entered the field, we started joking that we had great chance to win this. A nervous team always does that. I said to my team mate -

"What if we win today? With the bonus point...!"

"Yeah.. majja aayega na?"

"Main toh bacchon ko kahaniyaan sunaunga iss match ki"

"Kisske bacchon ko?"

"Apanne bachnon ko... unko toh sunni hi padengi na kahaniyaan"

"Oh.. I see.. majboori hai.."

"Saale... "

"We will win this match, then the next , then the semis"

"uske baad finals bhi"

"bas bhai, mazak mat kar"

"shuru kisne kiya?"

hehehheheehheheeh

But you know what? We won that match... with a bonus point! A small miracle of sorts!

We beat every team after that and kept advancing to the next rounds.

Today we had our finals!

We had our midterms till the afternoon. We give one exam ever month, its slowly turning into a hobby. In the evening, we had the match. I had slept for 3 and a half hours the night before. In fact, as I write this, in the last 48 hours, I have slept only for 3 and a half hours. I have no idea how I am I writing this.

A tired but upbeat team- tired beacuse of the numerous lectures we have to attend and the exams we have to give, upbeat coz we were slowly getting used to winning.

We were up against PGPM D. The team that we had lost our only match against. Their team was well rested. They had practiced all week long. We had given mid terms all week long.

We lost the toss and were put to bat. Rohit made sure things were on track right after a slow start. Everybody chipped in and we posted a humongous total of 143 in 15 overs. The total wasnt that humongous we realised later.

We were on to them in the starting over, only to be clobbered in the middle overs. They required 47 in the last 5 overs ith their best batsman on the crease. The last over required them to make 12. An easy task on this ground I would say. Thankfully the bowler and the fielders kept their cool to skew the run to ball ratio to 4 runs in the last ball.

As Ankur ran in to bowl the last bowl, I could sense that he knew we were gonna win this. A bowler has this intution - just before he leaps into his stride - it reveals all. The batsmen missed the ball.

I didnt count, but for like 3 seconds, we didnt celebrate. No yessss, no shouting, yelling etc. We just looked at each other to make sure that we had won. We had to make sure that the cherry on the cake was firmly in place. Small grins exploded into full blown celebrations. The team went beserk. Nobody knew what to do when you with the championships. I went on to grab a stump. I have seen cricketers do it on TV. Then you go hug your team-mates. It takes time to sink in - till someone says - "We are the champions!" And then it kicks in.. like a lightening jolt... Thats what we will be known as for the next one year - no one can take it away from us - WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

About the nervous-funny chat we had before that match, I asked that guy(you know who you are) if he remembered what we thought about winning the tournament a few weeks ago. He said he did. No one gave us a chance... not even us. But we all need our share of miracles to help us believe in ourselves. We got ours... and how!

About the sharing this story with my children, I sure intend to do that.