This is the first time I am writing for any blog. I am not a good writer but I still want to write. I am sure you won’t find it exciting but I just wonder how interesting it will be for me to read after 10 years from now. I am damn sure I will enjoy reading it.
Let me try writing about a small trip to my native, Mochemad for mahashivratri. This year it was on 22nd February. We have a Giroba (actually Mahadev) temple in our village. This is swayambhu which means the Ling (Pindi) has emerged on its own through ground. I may be wrong here. So on the occasion of Mahashivratri almost everyone, no matter where they work, comes back home for a couple of days. Typically people gather in the temple at night. At around 11 pm Rath (chariot) starts and completes a Pradakshina (rotation) around the temple. The Rath carries the god Giroba and interestingly different gods appear there but in the bodies of few selected people. I don’t expect you to believe it :)
We caught the bus at Vashi and as usual the bus was around 1.5 hrs late. Suman my sister was coming with me. I was in the bus and was already dreaming about what I would be doing next 3 days. First of all I
need to visit Varad 
and Viniya. Varad and Viniya are kids of my eldest sister Bai and are 7 and 3 years old respectively. They are upset with me because I didn’t go to their birthdays. They are too young to be upset for such reasons but they are. :) So I decided this time that I would surely go to Ozari: a small village in Goa where they stay. Then I had to go to Kerim: my mama's place. And of course I wanted to play a lot of cricket all 3 days. If I don’t get to play cricket its all waste for me. I was hoping that our team had advanced to next round in Wayangani's cricket tournament. But the first news i heard when i reached was we were out in the first round only. :(
I suffered a lot in the bus as it was very cold in the night and I had to give my wind cheater to Suman because as usual she had not carried anything for her. The bus was very late and finally we reached home at 11:30 in the morning. Fortunately I had booked a bus which goes via Vengurla.
I decided to go to Keri the very first day: Saturday. I wanted to come back be
fore 4:30 so that I ccould play cricket. So I left for Keri at 2:30 only. After changing her decision 100 times, Suman finally decided to come with me. I was excited to go to Keri as it is very beautiful place and I was meeting Kunal, Vishal, and Dattaraj: my mama's kids. I just wanted to see how they look in the jeans and T shirt which I got for Kunal and Vishal. The jeans and T shirt were fitting well on both so I was happy. I could not buy anything for Dattaraj and so I promised him that when I come next time, I would get him something. He asked for a school bag so I will get a school bag for him. Promise. :)
While leaving, we went to Aajoba's temple which is just on the beach. An amazing place.
I reached home just before 5; I was on time and was happy because of that. Missing even 5 minutes of cricket would have been disappointing. Now next challenge was to take few guys to beach to play cricket. Three four years back this would not be a problem. These days they don’t play cricket rather they spend their evening playing cards. Disappointing for Shyam, Santosh and me. Politics has divided our team Daryavardi into two parts. Once it was the strongest team in that area. The team doesn’t play together anymore. Anyway this can’t stop us from
playing cricket. We had already played a trick in the morning. Knowing tjis is the only way, we challenged the guys to beat us: Shyam, Santosh, Satish bhai and me. Rs 500 was the bet amount. You know it’s insulting for them if we beat them as we don’t play cricket much these days and they think they are the lords of the rings.
We start playing cricket on the beach. Initially only few guys turn up but later when we have around 15/16 players we decide to play a match. Can you believe we beat them? Nobody took it so seriously as the whole team was not present. We need to play a better trick tomorrow to get everybody on the ground (I mean beach) .
Bai invited me for lunch; she had planned to cook my favorite dish: chicken. Varad and Viniya were already waiting for us since yesterday. Suman and me left for Ozari at 9 in the morning. Viniya was so happy that finally we were at her new home. We spent a lot of time playing with Viniya and Varad. The lunch was very delicious. Viniya wanted to come with us. I was quite reluctant as she is just 3 and she would miss her mom in the night. But Viniya was not ready to listen. We had no option but to take her with us.
Now it was time for cricket again. So we challenged them again, "even if players from both the teams play together, you cant beat us". The trick worked. Mohan, Jaggi, Satya all big players of Daryavardi turnd up. We have enough players today at the beginning only so we decide to directly play a match. I told Santosh, Shyam and Satish bhai that we need to have a match of maximum possible overs. These days they play matches of 4 or 6 overs. So they generally go after the bowlers. And we are traditionally Rahul Dravids and Laxmns so if we play a match of 4 overs, we will surely lose. Everyone agrees with me. So we decide to play a match of 8 overs.
We win the toss and elect to bat. Who cares about the result of the match, we just wanted to play cricket. But the opponents were damn serious about the match. After all it was matter of their pride. He he he... We start very well; I go for the batting at number four and we put a descent score of 80 runs. Considering our batting style, 80 runs were too much more than our capacity especially against regular bowlers. They were not at all worried about 80 runs as they had to face bowlers like Santosh, Satish bhai and me. And they don’t think we are good bowlers by any angle. They begin the chase quite confidently but lose some wickets intermittently. We drop few catches as we don’t have regular players in our teams. But still we manage to come to a stage where they need 10 runs from 6 balls. Thanks to good bowling performance by Santosh, Satish Bhai and me. I happen to be the bowler. Normally this would have been easy but this time we have Jaggi in front of us and he is known pinch hitter of the area. As expected Jaggi hits me to a six and so they just need 4 runs now. I remove Jaggi on the next ball only. A big wicket! They get one more run and need 3 runs from 3 balls now. I bowl this delivery properly and ball goes to the third man. A good fielder would have definitely had a run out wicket for us. But unfortunately we have Satish (not Satish bhai) on the third man. Who runs after the ball making sure the mobile in his hand doesn’t fall down. Oops we give them 2 runs. Now the match is almost over for us and they level the score and they need just 1 run from 2 ball.
I bowl the ball on the off stump. This happens to be a dot ball. I ask Satish to throw his mobile if ball comes his way. I bowl the ball again on the off stump and to our surprise it was a dot ball. Can you imagine we don’t lose the match against a very strong team? So what if we don’t win the match. Its a great achievement. Heeeeeeeeeeeeee ..........
We still have some sunlight left so we decide to have one more match. But this time it was just 3 overs. They bat first and score 36 runs. We started chase and don’t make enough runs in the first over. When I come to bat we had almost lost the match. Still I decide to give a try. Afterall there was nothing to lose. I hit few fours and sixes. I got out in the third over. We finally needed 6 runs on the last ball. Shyam was on strike. Nobody can expect a six from Shyam. Once he had hit a six and he waved his bat as if he scored a century. So hitting six is near to impossible for Shyam. I thought, if he gets the ball on half alley, he can do something. And yes he gets the ball just under his bat the way I was hoping. He applies all the force he has....but they catch him on long on....they start celebrating. We console each other saying 3 overs match is not our cup of tea. Suddenly, Pandu, a guy from our team start shouting "This is not a catch". We go to the boundary and find that, the fielder has actually touched the boundary line. Can you believe...We win the match....heeeeeeeeeeee But nobody from their team accepts this. Who cares :) A typical gully cricket....I mean beach cricket!
I was in the mandir the whole night and enjoyed a lot there. I was back home at 3 in the morning. Next day I woke the very late. Quite obvious. I was supposed to leave for Mumbai in the evening. As usual there was problem with the return ticket. I had booked tickets of Matsyagandha because of its late timing. It arrives kudal at 10 in night so I thought I could play cricket one more day. But unfortunately the tickets were not confirmed till 10 in the morning. So I booked bus tickets worth Rs 700.
Suman and I then went to Redi for Ganpati. This is very famous
Ganpati temple. The Ganpati idol was found under the ground in 70s and since then the place is very famous.
While I was having lunch, I got an sms from Ranjana that the train tickets have confirmed. What to do now....I immediately went to Vengurla to cancel the bus tickets. As expected the agent was not ready to cancel. Finally he was ready and I had to pay Rs 200 as cancellation charges. Too bad... :( but no matter I was happy because I would go by train so I could sleep and more importantly I could play cricket in the evening.
As Shyam had already left for Mumbai, we didn’t have enough players to play over arm cricket on beach today. So we played under arm cricket.
Finally it was time to leave for Mumbai. We reached station at 9 and the train was 30 mins late L. No problem, anyway I didn’t want to reach Mumbai very early in the morning. I had a very good sleep in the train planning when to come back again next time. I did almost everything as planned. Just could not do one thing. I had promised Ranjana that I would meet her on Saturday. She wanted to show me Navnath temple in Kudal. But sorry Ranjana, some other time….Promise :)
Let me try writing about a small trip to my native, Mochemad for mahashivratri. This year it was on 22nd February. We have a Giroba (actually Mahadev) temple in our village. This is swayambhu which means the Ling (Pindi) has emerged on its own through ground. I may be wrong here. So on the occasion of Mahashivratri almost everyone, no matter where they work, comes back home for a couple of days. Typically people gather in the temple at night. At around 11 pm Rath (chariot) starts and completes a Pradakshina (rotation) around the temple. The Rath carries the god Giroba and interestingly different gods appear there but in the bodies of few selected people. I don’t expect you to believe it :)We caught the bus at Vashi and as usual the bus was around 1.5 hrs late. Suman my sister was coming with me. I was in the bus and was already dreaming about what I would be doing next 3 days. First of all I
need to visit Varad 
and Viniya. Varad and Viniya are kids of my eldest sister Bai and are 7 and 3 years old respectively. They are upset with me because I didn’t go to their birthdays. They are too young to be upset for such reasons but they are. :) So I decided this time that I would surely go to Ozari: a small village in Goa where they stay. Then I had to go to Kerim: my mama's place. And of course I wanted to play a lot of cricket all 3 days. If I don’t get to play cricket its all waste for me. I was hoping that our team had advanced to next round in Wayangani's cricket tournament. But the first news i heard when i reached was we were out in the first round only. :(I suffered a lot in the bus as it was very cold in the night and I had to give my wind cheater to Suman because as usual she had not carried anything for her. The bus was very late and finally we reached home at 11:30 in the morning. Fortunately I had booked a bus which goes via Vengurla.
I decided to go to Keri the very first day: Saturday. I wanted to come back be
fore 4:30 so that I ccould play cricket. So I left for Keri at 2:30 only. After changing her decision 100 times, Suman finally decided to come with me. I was excited to go to Keri as it is very beautiful place and I was meeting Kunal, Vishal, and Dattaraj: my mama's kids. I just wanted to see how they look in the jeans and T shirt which I got for Kunal and Vishal. The jeans and T shirt were fitting well on both so I was happy. I could not buy anything for Dattaraj and so I promised him that when I come next time, I would get him something. He asked for a school bag so I will get a school bag for him. Promise. :) While leaving, we went to Aajoba's temple which is just on the beach. An amazing place.
I reached home just before 5; I was on time and was happy because of that. Missing even 5 minutes of cricket would have been disappointing. Now next challenge was to take few guys to beach to play cricket. Three four years back this would not be a problem. These days they don’t play cricket rather they spend their evening playing cards. Disappointing for Shyam, Santosh and me. Politics has divided our team Daryavardi into two parts. Once it was the strongest team in that area. The team doesn’t play together anymore. Anyway this can’t stop us from
playing cricket. We had already played a trick in the morning. Knowing tjis is the only way, we challenged the guys to beat us: Shyam, Santosh, Satish bhai and me. Rs 500 was the bet amount. You know it’s insulting for them if we beat them as we don’t play cricket much these days and they think they are the lords of the rings. We start playing cricket on the beach. Initially only few guys turn up but later when we have around 15/16 players we decide to play a match. Can you believe we beat them? Nobody took it so seriously as the whole team was not present. We need to play a better trick tomorrow to get everybody on the ground (I mean beach) .
Bai invited me for lunch; she had planned to cook my favorite dish: chicken. Varad and Viniya were already waiting for us since yesterday. Suman and me left for Ozari at 9 in the morning. Viniya was so happy that finally we were at her new home. We spent a lot of time playing with Viniya and Varad. The lunch was very delicious. Viniya wanted to come with us. I was quite reluctant as she is just 3 and she would miss her mom in the night. But Viniya was not ready to listen. We had no option but to take her with us.
Now it was time for cricket again. So we challenged them again, "even if players from both the teams play together, you cant beat us". The trick worked. Mohan, Jaggi, Satya all big players of Daryavardi turnd up. We have enough players today at the beginning only so we decide to directly play a match. I told Santosh, Shyam and Satish bhai that we need to have a match of maximum possible overs. These days they play matches of 4 or 6 overs. So they generally go after the bowlers. And we are traditionally Rahul Dravids and Laxmns so if we play a match of 4 overs, we will surely lose. Everyone agrees with me. So we decide to play a match of 8 overs.
We win the toss and elect to bat. Who cares about the result of the match, we just wanted to play cricket. But the opponents were damn serious about the match. After all it was matter of their pride. He he he... We start very well; I go for the batting at number four and we put a descent score of 80 runs. Considering our batting style, 80 runs were too much more than our capacity especially against regular bowlers. They were not at all worried about 80 runs as they had to face bowlers like Santosh, Satish bhai and me. And they don’t think we are good bowlers by any angle. They begin the chase quite confidently but lose some wickets intermittently. We drop few catches as we don’t have regular players in our teams. But still we manage to come to a stage where they need 10 runs from 6 balls. Thanks to good bowling performance by Santosh, Satish Bhai and me. I happen to be the bowler. Normally this would have been easy but this time we have Jaggi in front of us and he is known pinch hitter of the area. As expected Jaggi hits me to a six and so they just need 4 runs now. I remove Jaggi on the next ball only. A big wicket! They get one more run and need 3 runs from 3 balls now. I bowl this delivery properly and ball goes to the third man. A good fielder would have definitely had a run out wicket for us. But unfortunately we have Satish (not Satish bhai) on the third man. Who runs after the ball making sure the mobile in his hand doesn’t fall down. Oops we give them 2 runs. Now the match is almost over for us and they level the score and they need just 1 run from 2 ball.
I bowl the ball on the off stump. This happens to be a dot ball. I ask Satish to throw his mobile if ball comes his way. I bowl the ball again on the off stump and to our surprise it was a dot ball. Can you imagine we don’t lose the match against a very strong team? So what if we don’t win the match. Its a great achievement. Heeeeeeeeeeeeee ..........
We still have some sunlight left so we decide to have one more match. But this time it was just 3 overs. They bat first and score 36 runs. We started chase and don’t make enough runs in the first over. When I come to bat we had almost lost the match. Still I decide to give a try. Afterall there was nothing to lose. I hit few fours and sixes. I got out in the third over. We finally needed 6 runs on the last ball. Shyam was on strike. Nobody can expect a six from Shyam. Once he had hit a six and he waved his bat as if he scored a century. So hitting six is near to impossible for Shyam. I thought, if he gets the ball on half alley, he can do something. And yes he gets the ball just under his bat the way I was hoping. He applies all the force he has....but they catch him on long on....they start celebrating. We console each other saying 3 overs match is not our cup of tea. Suddenly, Pandu, a guy from our team start shouting "This is not a catch". We go to the boundary and find that, the fielder has actually touched the boundary line. Can you believe...We win the match....heeeeeeeeeeee But nobody from their team accepts this. Who cares :) A typical gully cricket....I mean beach cricket!
I was in the mandir the whole night and enjoyed a lot there. I was back home at 3 in the morning. Next day I woke the very late. Quite obvious. I was supposed to leave for Mumbai in the evening. As usual there was problem with the return ticket. I had booked tickets of Matsyagandha because of its late timing. It arrives kudal at 10 in night so I thought I could play cricket one more day. But unfortunately the tickets were not confirmed till 10 in the morning. So I booked bus tickets worth Rs 700.
Suman and I then went to Redi for Ganpati. This is very famous
Ganpati temple. The Ganpati idol was found under the ground in 70s and since then the place is very famous. While I was having lunch, I got an sms from Ranjana that the train tickets have confirmed. What to do now....I immediately went to Vengurla to cancel the bus tickets. As expected the agent was not ready to cancel. Finally he was ready and I had to pay Rs 200 as cancellation charges. Too bad... :( but no matter I was happy because I would go by train so I could sleep and more importantly I could play cricket in the evening.
As Shyam had already left for Mumbai, we didn’t have enough players to play over arm cricket on beach today. So we played under arm cricket.
Finally it was time to leave for Mumbai. We reached station at 9 and the train was 30 mins late L. No problem, anyway I didn’t want to reach Mumbai very early in the morning. I had a very good sleep in the train planning when to come back again next time. I did almost everything as planned. Just could not do one thing. I had promised Ranjana that I would meet her on Saturday. She wanted to show me Navnath temple in Kudal. But sorry Ranjana, some other time….Promise :)
Kamlesh, it is a nice blog. You should keep updating your blog regularly. Have your dream on the blog as well!
ReplyDeletei am subscribing to your blog!