A 'Reverse Lagaan'

We had a kinda 'Reverse Lagaan' setting today! Don't get confused - its just a stupid phrase coined by me for this blog post... (probably just bcos I could think of nothing better to describe the scene with :-) )

A gang of desis (all office colleagues) decide to gather together for a long-due round of Cricket on a lazy Sunday! After the people had gathered as per IST, the game began in a small ground amongst a quiet neighbourhood. The ground not being large enough, restrictions were made on long shots, lest every self-confessed Dhoni went on a window-pane breaking spree!

Now coming to the 'Reverse Lagaan' part - remember the scene in the movie where Bhuwan and his friends sneak in near a cricket ground boundary and begin wondering what the 15 goras were doing with 2 sticks and a ball? Thats what happened today with us - only that this time the desis were inside the ground and the goras were out, ha ha!
As our game went on, passerbys (all native Germans) began wondering what kinda silly game we were up to! Some found it quite interesting and paused for a while to have a closer look. Amused they were, yes!
Some tried chatting up with the boundary fielders, asking them:
1. What this funny game was called and if it was something they knew as Baseball?
2. How the hell was one supposed to play it?(now that none of the desis there spoke an acceptable level of German, is a different thing)

And it having rained the previous night, the ground was muddy and slippery, but who cared! A few hours of cacophonous cricket so far from Bharatvarsh - was just what the desis needed to feel happy! Clothes and hands were all dirty after the game... but who cared!
My long-unexercised arms still ache from the numerous wide/no/dead balls in an over - all due to the fact that I touched bowling after years!
(and my blue jeans looks like a 'before' piece from a 'before-after' commercial for a stain-removing detergent!)
But who cares, we had fun! :-)

Speaking of cricket and dirty clothes, here's something that I recently came across:
"I cannot for the life of me see why the umpires, the only two people on a cricket field who are not going to get grass stains on their knees, are the only two people allowed to wear dark trousers." ~Katharine Whitehorn
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