Picnic-3

Its been a long time since I wrote my previous post about our picnic. Its been busy 2 weeks in office, so I did not have enough time to write the picnic. But now here I am and last time I had stopped my post with Kiran and Vishwajeet coming to our room in Lonavala with something interesting. Well that special thing was 2 bats, 2 balls, and 3 stumps. It was perfect time for cricket, though not so perfect place. 

Most of us had not played cricket for more than 2 years. Even though I played a couple of matches in the College ground, my contribution in the 2 matches was zero. I mean I scored one more of those ducks. So when they got the kit, I was really excited. Everyone was. Since the place was not large enough, we decided to bowl underarm. Since, there was a another Bungalow right of the ground, we decided that if the ball goes in that compound full toss, the batsman would be given out. So rules were set, and then came the teams. On the first day, the teams were Kiran, Nik, Harshad, Battery, Viraj and Susmit against Vishwajeet, Aditya, Nabar, Vikram and Myself. It was 6 overs match. We lost the first one but won the second match. In the first one we had to chase a decent target and our innings fell like a pack of cards. I got out on zero(again!!), only change was that this was a first ball duck. Interestingly, I batted left handed thinking that it will be easier to hit on my leg side. Also there was less possibility of hitting it in the other compound. All these calculations proved to be useless on the second day. If you ask me about what was my contribution in the 2 matches on first day, well.... I can say that produced the ball of the day... It was first over, second ball, right arm, over the wicket, bowling to Nik who is a leftie, the ball pitched way outside his leg stump, thinking that it will be a big wide he just left the ball but the ball hit his leg stump. You should have seen the joy on my team mates' faces. Why just them... you should have seen me shouting in joy after a long long time. At that point I realized, I needed this break.

Due to fading lights, I avoided playing any further. After everyone was back there was a small video shooting which at that time felt creative, but when I think about it now, it feels like I had gone mad. I have not seen that video again, so more comments. At around 7 in the evening, we thought we could spend some time playing a game or so. What can we play... we thought. Oh ya... Dumb charades!!! Till that day I had never played that game with my school friends. It was the VJTI people who thought me "Dumb Charades".  Special thanks to Maddy, Anup and Tha for that, as I along Jeetu,battery and Nik deciphered all the movies given to us, within minutes. Though we thought of making Vikram a Bakra by not guessing his enacts correctly, a stiff opposition from Nabar saved him. Susmit and Kiran tried really hard to beat us but I think we were too good for them. I still remember one of the movies given to me by Susmit- Reshma ki Jawani. Jeetu guessed it within 1 minute... And what about Apocalypto? Nik "guessed" (yea he made a wile guess) it in 10 sec.

Learning from our previous experience in the Udipi hotel, we went to much bigger and better hotel, and we had great dinner and great time also. Well we have a bad habit of talking(read it as debating) while eating. There were a lot of topics discussed, right from Veg-Nonveg debate to drinking and Smoking habits. Actually it all started from a small question of mine to my friend as "Can you describe the incident or the situation in which you had your first drink?". Well, I never got that answer but I started the whole debate on why one smokes or drinks......

When we returned back, we had a big discussion on how can we help our school financially. I cant explain the stuff discussed there but I happy with the kind of input we received. Before we slept we asked puzzles to each other. Some of them were really good. I asked them a problem from Discrete Structures by Kolman-Busby (yea, yea.. I wont change.. I loved those books and the subjects). It was based on simple principle of Mathematical Induction. In fact, most of the puzzles are based on simple principles, its just that our mind thinks in a complex manner to apply them. After listening to Susmit and Vikram's PJs when I went to sleep it was 2:30 in the night...

Second day was even more exciting as Jeetu and Kiran got up early, went to buy newspaper. Well, they didn't get any newspaper since it was 27th Jan, but they got a damn lascivious magazine full of lewd stories. Not that I have an objection to such stuff - its their life they can do whatever they want, but my only question to them will be- Is this the reason why you came here? I didn't read a single article in that rubbish magazine, but was unfortunate to see others reading them like hell. Only good thing that happened was, since everyone was busy reading the stuff, I despite getting up late after everyone else, was the first person to have a bath. By the time everyone else was ready, I had decided my plan for the cricket matches to come: Try playing leftie for one more match, if doesn't work well then switch to my old Dravidian Style(!!!).

This time also the teams were more or less same. Nikhil was in our team this time, so Kiran's team had a "last man". We lost the first 8 over match very badly. We could manage just 13 which they overcome in no time. I managed to score a single which meant no more of my leftie stand. In the next match, they could score only 14 and we won that match with superb performances from our bowlers including me. In the 3rd match we batted first and were left with last 2 batsman at crease and only 10 on the board. The 2 were Nabar and myself. We had around 5 overs to play with and I decided that I will play my natural game, that was to bat till the opposition is frustrated. Since in doing this I played a maiden over, instead of the opposition my own teammates were irritated. So when I scored a single finally, they actually clapped. So much for "building" an innings!!! It was a slow delivery from Kiran which I played on that broke this partnership, but the damage was done as we had already reached 24. Hey, I must have top scored with that boundary of battery's bowling. Their reply was no worse than we expected, taking fast singles after taping the bowl to off side. It all went down to the penultimate over which was bowled by Jeetu with one wicket to go. Susmit trying to hit him for 4, hit the ball out of ground which meant he was declared out. We won the match. In the fourth match we again lost early wickets.  Nikhil had become Kiran's bunny.  He was easily deceived by the slow delivery. When I came to bat along with Aditya, the game was in a critical situation. We decided on a simple approach - I would take the singles and Aditya will do all the hitting. For the first time a team was able to complete its quota of 8 overs and scored 39. Kiran's team had to score 40 to win but we bowled them out in no time to take the series 3-1.  When we looked at the watch it was already 3 PM and we still had to go for lunch!!!

Few observations before I go ahead with the story.  To be honest, our team had 2 bowlers who were certainly bowling much better than others-Nabar and myself. Personally, I felt that Jeetu should have given us our full quota of overs and match would have been over much earlier. Of course, we wanted everyone to enjoy, Jeetu gave bowling to Nik n Aditya. But then why wasn't Vikram given a single over? Oh yea, from Vikram, I remember the way he batted. It was as if he knew only one shot - a flick to mid wicket with a jump. He got out most number of times because he hit the ball in the other compound. Hey, but you also need to credit him for his fielding at the boundary line. Not that he was brilliant, but he fielded there - alone and hardly came into picture in the match. In way it was good, as most of us were relieved of his PJs. And for all those who feel I am test player, I proved a point - ..... that I am indeed a test player :P

After the exhilarating cricket session we went to lunch at a Konkani Restaurant, where most of the non-veggies had Kombadi-Vade: an excellent Nonveg dish from Konkan region. I had never spent so much money in 2 days in my life on eating but really it was worth it. By the time we came out of the hotel, it was already 5:15. So there was no question of visiting any other place. So after buying the famous "chikki", we headed to our room for final pack up.  We left the place at around 6 o'clock. Unfortunately, due to less number of people we not only had to charge all Mumbai people Rs. 10 extra but also took Rs. 400 from Kiran and Jeetu. I know they had traveled on their own from Pune to Lonavala and most our traveling expenses were due to Mumbai to Lonavala and vice versa traveling. Sorry guys, but We had no choice.

One thing I need to mention is Siddhesh Kadam's Uncle via whom Viraj had made our arrangement in Lonavala. For most time when he was with us, he was irritating and everyone felt the same way including Viraj.

We did have a small photo session before we left(Battery and Harshad have still not uploaded the photos). The return journey was better than the earlier one, Viraj was in form with some really good songs. I still wonder how they (Viraj and Nikhil) can think of such spoof songs. It was also good to hear Vikram and Susmit singing "Dooba Dooba". And Viraj, when you sang "that" song for me, for a moment I was shocked, but then realize the truth(I am listening to the same song now).

Finally, I reached home at around 10 totally exhausted. I had spent one of the best times of my life. The lines from Summer of 69 say it all....

.......those were the best days of life.........