I have a bizarre memory association paradigm. A. R. Rahman conjures up images of Pataliputra colony in Patna, where I first heard
Rukkumani Rukkumani. The music of
Dil Chahta Hai fills my nose with the odour of turpentine, as we had our flat whitewashed around the time the movie was released. And watching Jerome Taylor bowl the other day was a throwback to a small eatery at the Bangalore City railway station.
It is the First law of Engineering that study vacations are anything but. Well, maybe except for the Electronics guys. The study break preceding the 7th semester exams was a milestone. It was to be the last time we would be required to pretend to study together;
feelaaya weinn... sorry Gary, just could not resist! A bunch of us decided to immortalise this seminal occasion with an experience without which no Engineering education is complete – a holiday in Goa. It seemed the ideal way to bust stress from the said studying.... okay, pretending, before we diverged on our individual
Satya ki Khoj to change the world, or a more earthly quest for
naukri,
chhokri and a higher degree (In case anybody is keeping score, yours truly is barely holding down the first, zilch on the other two).
First stop on our trip to hedonistic heaven: Bangalore. We trooped into the Comesum restaurant located on the landing just off the footbridge between platforms 1 & 2 to tackle hypoglycemia. The TV set above the cash counter was tuned to the Champions Trophy 2006 Australia-West Indies game. Gilly had just departed for a workmanlike 92, leaving the Aussies 5 down & 50 odd to get at about run-a-ball. With Michael Clarke & Mike Hussey in the middle, the smart money was on them. But Australia was a side we loved to hate.
Funnily enough, Clarke & Hussey could never get out of jail against some clever bowling by Chris Gayle & Marlon Samuels. After 4 overs of classic cat-and-mouse, with 29 required off 24, Dwayne Bravo was brought on. The gay abandon in his cricket always makes for compelling watching. The lukewarm
paraanthe,
raajma &
daal chaawal on our plates all but forgotten as Bravo-to-Clarke had our undivided attention. Bravo’s repertoire of slower balls had already assumed a celebrity of its own, but would he give Clarke one when it was so painfully obvious? The first ball of his spell had loosener written all over it, or so we thought! Even as the batsman prodded forward (SUCKER!), Bravo had already moved to his left in anticipation, to take a fine return catch and complete a dismissal that stood out for its chimera. We didn’t know it then, but the best was yet to come.
Jerome Taylor resumed duty at the other end. A barrage of full wide deliveries kept the Aussies down to singles. Then Hussey banged into Taylor and they exchanged malicious stares. Murder in the air! Taylor looked like he was going to wipe the floor clean with Hussey. Straight & full on off stump. Bull’s eye! Cya later Hussey! I don’t remember how the bowler reacted but there certainly was some high octane fist-pumping and backslapping at Comesum. New man was Brett Lee, so the Aussies weren’t out of it yet, but the Windies definitely had their nose in front. Taylor charged in for the final delivery of the over with all eyes riveted on the TV. If we wanted to sneak out without paying, this had to be the moment! Straight, good length, frrrreaking fast, it was the thunderbolt from hell. Lee rapped on the pads even before he could jam his bat down. The Windies went up in appeal but a sense of theatre wasn’t lost on umpire Rudi Koertzen. We unleashed a torrent of profanity. An orgasmic delay followed, before the finger went up. The ten of us let out a roar ever so primal, and shook the dumbstruck proprietor out of his reverie. He recovered enough to realise that we had abused his hospitality well beyond business hours and proceeded to shoo us out. That Taylor would come back and finish off the hat-trick by cleaning up Brad Hogg in the first ball of the 50thover seemed almost pre-ordained. For the record, Australia fell short by 10 runs.
We walked out of the station with enough inspiration to persuade the impossibly lazy auto-
wallahs of Bangalore out of inertia. Over the next week though, that exhilarating hour spent at Comesum would be forgotten in a hotchpotch of sun & sand, beach football, Goan seafood, Bacardi breezers and millions of goofy photographs.
Tusky
