An Unfortunate Memorable Day

I call the day as unfortunate first as our primary objective was not achieved and memorable as it was the most fun-filled action packed day whose memories are still itched in our mind.

The day was Thursday 25^th September 2014 and it started as routine day with morning activities and office except one difference. The excitement was high within the mind and heart as I was going for Champions League T20 Match of Chennai Super Kings vs Lahore Lions in Chinnaswamy Stadium Bangalore. It was after long time I was going in stadium to watch the match with three of my friends Sagar, Dinesh and Roshni. Sagar, Dinesh and I work in the same company. Roshni was Dinesh’s wife who I and Sagar knew pretty well. They are happily married for past 5 years.

We all had planned to leave office early and meet at Dinesh’s House to go for match. Sagar and Roshni were particularly excited as this was going to be there first experience of watching match in stadium. The match starts at 20:00 hours and toss happens at 19:30. We started from Dinesh’s place at around 17:00 Hours considering the distance to stadium and waiting time in queue. We saw Lahore Lions bus on the way and even if we could sense some changes in weather, we were excited and hopeful. After All, “Hope is a word which god has written on brow of every man” and we were no different.

We reached the venue and as we reached the gate after being in queue for almost 45 minutes; Bang, we got a rude shock. Roshni was carrying a hand bag which was not allowed inside the stadium. All of us argued a lot with security person even showing him all bag contents but after all rules are created for this kind of moments. I literally had an amygdala hijack moment but tried to remain composed.

We all started to make calls to find out nearby place where bag can be kept as going back to our place was not an option. Dinesh was finally able to contact his friend who was staying near the stadium. Roshni wouldn’t let Dinesh go alone (Major Affection, Minor Guilt), so I decided to accompany Dinesh as this was first stadium experience for Roshni and Sagar.

We took an auto to go to Dinesh friend’s place and asked auto to wait, to go back to stadium as slight drizzle had started. By the time we came back the drizzle had changed to thunderous shower and streets had started flooding. This was just start of misery as Dinesh realized that we don’t have our tickets to enter stadium and misery became bigger when Roshni and Sagar both didn’t had our tickets. We all tried to rewind the entire scene in our brains and thought of every possible scenario but couldn’t found answer about lost tickets. As Sherlock says “there is nothing more deceptive than obvious fact”. In our case, the tickets got lost or stolen while we were exploring possibilities for the bag was an obvious fact masked with complete deception.

Amidst thunderous rain and no tickets Dinesh decided to stop at Brigade junction to do his favourite activity. Dinesh has been an ardent contributor to Mallya’s UB Group and we headed straight to Pub.
Without wasting time Dinesh decided to contribute to faltering UB group’s revenue by ordering 4 beers (Happy Hour). In the meantime, Interesting things were happening at stadium, someone overheard the conversation of Roshni about lost tickets and immediately offered him 1 Match ticket. He also assured Roshni to give 1 more ticket when the match begins. The angel stranger was from the match scorecard department and they had some good conversation.

When heavy rain and thunder storm was causing havoc and crowd of 35,000 and many others were praying mercy to “Indra”, there were two intelligent people in city who were enjoying their moments without cribbing about nature. After all there is no point being angry with the rain, it simply doesn’t know how to fall upwards. When “Indra” didn’t obliged to people prayers, match officials had to act and match was called off at 21:00 hours.

We decided to meet at brigade road junction and then decide further plan. It took some time for Roshni and Sagar to reach as they could not find transport. When all of us finally met, it felt like we are meeting after an eternity. The happiness and excitement was clearly visible on all of our faces even if match was cancelled. The road’s where completely jammed and it was almost impossible to get taxi in the area. We decided to have dinner nearby at Mocha’s to quench our hunger and give time for traffic clearance.

Sagar and Roshni narrated their first time on-stadium experience. The atmosphere in the ground, details about stranger who assisted in match tickets. An experience of watching players during warm-up sessions before rain started. Roshni’s excitement was similar to 7 Year old girl getting her first Barbie Doll while narrating about Dhoni. Sagar and Roshni had put all their efforts to convince us that they had better time. Eventually we reached home at around midnight after taking an auto from Mocha all thanks to Sagar. He was able to add final fun factor by arranging auto who agreed to take 4 people. As the tickets were booked online and not a single ball was bowled, we got complete refund within few days.

The evening was like a Bollywood drama with comedy, excitement, happiness, uncertainty, etc. It’s been more than 2 years but I still can vividly remember that night. It was night of uncertainties where we didn’t know what lies ahead in the next moment and taught me some valuable lessons.

Life is not about the perfect ending, it’s about adapting to change, living the moments and making the best out of it without worrying about the future to achieve true happiness of the soul.