“Sir, I want leave to go to Bombay”.

While this used to be a normal request and also I had no problem in saying ‘yes’, I used to have problem when more than ten officers wanted leave during the same period that too to go to Bombay during the same time. I was in Surat and the requests used to be to watch cricket matches.

Amazing but true that people used to book tickets in the train in advance, apply for leave and keep fingers crossed till a ‘yes’ reply comes for their request. Cricket matches were rare, matches in Bombay also rare and getting tickets to watch the match was equally rare. Yet people used to make a full try to achieve the end result of watching a match. The second best option was to go to Bombay and watch the match in the Television, if the relative/friend had a TV set. Surat, Baroda and a couple of other cities in Gujarat did have homes that had TV sets, but the antenna most often used to fail to catch the transmission that used to travel between metros and all that they could manage was traces of what was originally beamed.

India reached the world cup final in 1983 with this backdrop of technological competence and consequently the trains to Bombay from most parts of Southern Gujarat were jam-packed. Houses in Bombay were full of visitors to watch the finals and the ones who could not travel for want of relative or friend chose the transistor for company. West Indies lost six wickets and Dujon and Roberts were adamant at the crease. After lot of deliberations between Kapil Dev, Gavaskar and Amarnath, it was decided that Jimmy will go for his hopping jogging bowling. Dujon was bowled with the very first ball of that over and the sense of victory smelt more and Jimmy was back in action when the end came.

People travelled back from Bombay to various parts of Gujarat after the victory. The trains that used to be up to the brim on weekdays and relaxing on Sundays had a strangulating time that Sunday as the crowd sang and danced notwithstanding the jam-packed position. At every station they got down to dance and got back with seats getting exchanged in friendly mutual gesture. All the sweat and toil of the journey were worth it most felt as they saw live an Indian victory. In the days when TV was rare also rare were Indian victories that too against the Windies. Watching it live was an icing in the cake for the TV starved audience.

Today the soul is satisfied by watching an Indian victory and a Sachin’s century any number of times in any number of channels that are repeated with varied nomenclature as current news, news review, hourly news, news highlights etc. But in the days when a VCR ruled more than the TV, the finals was recorded and the copy sneaked into various colonies as if it is a CD of Dasavadharam movie and was displayed in selected drawing rooms with invited guests. People whistled when they knew the over when Kapil was to catch Richards or Amarnath was to get Dujon out. After watching the highlights that used to run for a couple of hours with breaks for snacks with the courtesy of the host, people used to leave as if they watched a favourite movie. They would watch again in another colony and talk of it as proudly as a film fanatic would say that I watched Rajni movie ten times.

India, let us hope and pray would win the world cup again. The country may celebrate euphorically no doubt, but whether the people of Gujarat would travel to Bombay to watch the finals even if it were to be held there, only time will tell.

                               **************************