April 2nd 2011

It was this day 2nd of April, year 2011 - a day none of us Indians will ever forget. It was the day Dhoni and his men got home the most coveted cup in cricket, the world cup. Few of us Aditians were lucky enough to be there in the stadium to watch it live. Yes - we were there @ Whakende stadium that day.

Our journey of getting to the world cup final began a month in advance when we realized that tickets would be sold through a ballot. My grandfather often bought lottery tickets and I had never seen him in his lifetime - and I knew that winning a ticket to World cup final  through ballot system was a distant dream. Keeping our hopes alive, we registered in the online ballot system and we also requested 100 Aditians to register online on our behalf - this was a dirty(or smart) way to put your network to best use #crowdsourcing. Days went by, weeks went by - we got no response from the ticket provider. Just as we thought we will not make it - we got an e-mail of having won tickets for the world cup finals. In fact 3 of us won in the ballot system and we had 6 tickets.

Each ticket was priced at 11,000 INR and it was not a big deal to convince cricket enthusiasts at Aditi to make them buy it. We reserved our match tickets and also booked our flight tickets - but India had just reached quarter finals  and had to defeat Australia and Pakistan to reach the finals. We were in no mood to watch Pakistan vs SriLanka finals after having spent our month's income on this one world cup ticket. 

The cricket fever had reached its peak - and the day India played Pakistan, Aditi management put up a big screen in cafeteria. Not one person was at desk, no calls, no e-mails. With 500+ people having the Indian tricolor flag painted on their face, Bharath Mata ki jai chants followed by sachin sachin…  It was a stadium like environment in office [don’t believe me?- check out the video]

                                   

Yeah - We defeated Pakistan.

We packed our bags that night and the next morning we were in Mumbai . The big day was here - SriLanka stood between us and the world cup. The scenes at whakende stadium are still very vivid in my memory. It was that moment late in the evening at 10 PM when Dhoni hit that winning shot for a six and the entire nation went up with joy - the joy of being the world champions. It did not matter where you were, in the stadium or outside, up north in delhi, down south in Bangalore - it was a one big party.. All traffic rules were broken, cops just kept watching and joined the fun.  You did not think twice before hugging the person standing next to you and jumping up and down with joy.

That day sports really showed that it had the power to unite people beyond religion, race, color or gender. The joy of celebrating with a billion people together is something that I had not experienced in the past. It was one of the few times I saw the entire nation come together - it was something special.

Till date, remains the best experience of my life - April 2nd 2011 

Where you watching the match with your friends, family or neighbors - share you memories of that day when India were crowned world champions of cricket !!!