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 !!!
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