No Distance on 200

It was a rare day of hectic schedules in editing to meet Rakesh Sir’s deadline. I and Meenakshi were busy giving subtitles to the Coimbatore water scarcity news story. Despite of the fact that we both weren’t fluent in Tamil, we managed to translate the sound bytes to English.

When we were almost done with the editing, Anees came and switched on the TV. There was a one-day match between India and South Africa. I’m very crazy about cricket. I don’t have the patience to sit and watch five-day match. One-days and T20 are more exciting than Test series. Big-hitters like Virendar Sehwag and Shahid Afridi are my favorites.

Guys started gathering around the television. Sehwag couldn’t move to a double digit that day. Almost all the guys of my class knew my ‘love’ for Viru. When his wicket was gone, everyone began laughing at me. Ho! Poor guy… He doesn’t know how much I’d to bear that day.

Then came out master blaster Sachin Tendulkar! Similar to all other Indians, all the guys there were die-hard fans of Sachin. Meenakshi left; I decided to stay back as we can’t expect those ‘great wardens’ of Amrita’s Gargi Bhavan to allow girls watch a one-day cricket match.

I could see Rakesh Sir entering the room. He checked the score, gave a smile at me and left. Thank God... he loves cricket. Else he might come to me and with a naughty smile, he would advice, “Roopa, you are so lazy now a days. You are supposed to submit a news bulletin this week. You haven’t finished at least one story. This time I’m gona be very strict. Your internals for this month is zero. Tell your group members too. And that Sreelakshmi hasn’t even discussed her script with me. I don’t know what she is going to do!”… But we all know he is very kind to his students; that’s a different case.

I logged into my mailbox and saw a few friends online. Chatting with them can relieve me from the comments of ASCOM audience watching the match. Whenever Sachin gets a run, they hauled at me. Renjith said Sachin had a chance to score a double hundred. No one had made 200 runs in one-day.

My online friends started vanishing slowly to have tea and relax. The last person signed out when I informed Sachin is on 180. So that means I’ve to sit, watch and bear all the remarks of audience. There were around 20 guys along with me; both BAs and MAs.

Finally that moment came! SACHIN SCORED A DOUBLE CENTURY…. Wow, he is the greatest cricketer in earth though Sehwag is my favorite. Moments of joy and cheers… Balu Sir also joined the party. Truly, it was something to cherish!

I climbed down the stairs. I really enjoyed watching a match with a group of boys. To say in other words, a girl enjoyed yelling along with a group of guys till ‘late night’ without keeping Amrita Distance inside a department of AVV. (Amrita Distance is the distance you have to keep in Amrita institutions while mingling with others if they don’t belong to your gender!!!)