I used to love watching cricket growing up. My friends and I made it a point to promise Ganpathi a coconut and writing God's name 108 times among other crazy stuff. But then the whole match-fixing event disillusioned me. I mean what was the point? Every one seemed to be involved in it. Even Azhar? It shook me out of whack because I used to like Azhar a lotttttttt. Things changed and interest waned but still the love for a good Indo-Pak game always remained unfazed. On the other hand I married a sports crazy dude. G loves watching any sort of competitive sport. "If two people are competing over throwing eggs at each other, we will watch it," my husband and his friend R declared it over India's World Cup victory lunch. And I did not doubt it.
So here we were, Cricket World Cup 2011, hosted in homeland, India played Pak and we won! Beautifully. That day many of my friends including hubby dearest declared that after this win a World Cup win will just be a bonus. I think they were all scared to jinx it. But un-thought of to all cricket lovers, a new set of superstitions began on the same day. G and his friend R, R's wife T and their dog Roger all started doing the exact same things. G, woke up at the same time, wore the same tee shirt, did not tell me bye (the last time he said bye to me India lost to South Africa) and left without a noise. They ate the same breakfast they picked up at the exact same time from McD's. While the men picked up breakfast T had to walk Roger. T sat in the same place with the same pose on the couch and poor Roger had to sit and watch the entire match. Apparently he was their lucky charm.
Then there was T who refused to keep up her hair appointment and A who did not want to cut her nails. A friend of mine stayed in a different room the whole time because that was her lucky place. Everyone made up their own lucky spots or lucky deeds to work their World Cup charm. And with more than one billion praying for the team with the team, from around the world, it is not a matter of wonder that India won the World Cup after 28 years! We had the goods and the luck to deliver it on time. We kicked Ass! and for the next four years...we are the Champions!
And you ask me what I did for my part? I only saw two second innings. The first one was India Vs England and we tied it. The second one was India vs South Africa and we lost it. I considered myself unlucky and stopped watching cricket. I followed it on cricinfo.com, ball by ball and jumped in joy in the middle of a museum when Dhoni finished it off. Babs and I had to be calmed down by security and we ran out to the garden shouting in the peak of our voices jumping and dancing. I am sure a bunch of people thought we were crazy! But that is the least we could do, I could not keep my voice down or my happiness muted. We left after that to join our friends at lunch! There was more and more cricket thought and I saw a jubilant G there. He was so happy and that made me even more happy.
I really want to know what other crazy customs were followed. Please follow up!
To INDIA,
To Cricket
To the World Cup Champions!
ART
PS: In other related news...Rafa lost to Djoker in Miami ATP1000. Real sad.
