"When Tendulkar goes out to bat, it is beyond chaos - it's a frantic appeal by a nation to one man"-- Mathew Hayden

Today was a day in which I learnt how to say 1 to 10 in Japanese, a stranger called me charming ( eew), I walked past a supposedly bomb blast, screamed my lungs out for RCB, saw God waving at me and to top it all I got wet in the rain :) , aaah April Showers.

At 4am, I got a call from GP ( no relation what-so-ever with Kevin Pietersen) asking me if I was interested in attending the RCB vs MI match ;) , I jumped at it but before that I had a lot of stuff to do including attend a training session, get the bike from service centre ,buy a memory card,eat some chicken wings, uff.

Yep I learnt how to say ek do teen, char paanch che saath in Japanese  its Ichy knee, san shee, GO rook, shichi haaaaachi kyuu juuuuu .

At 2.30pm, I ran to the stadium ( I can’t say I skipped and went tralalalala can I ? ). When I was a km away , I heard a blast very similar to a “lakshmi bomb” .l thought it was crackers and even stamped over the evidence I guess. Going ino the stadium was an adventure in itself, the colorfully painted RCB faces, the flags the zoozoooos, people asking if I had extra tickets uff.

The match was delayed for an hour and “you know why” and it was quite an experience sitting on those stone slabs. The atmosphere was amazing and the only thing I missed was the commentators saying the words, Karrbun kaaamaal catch and it’s a City moment of Successsss. I did get the local commentary” lo eee nan maaklu singles thogondu thogondu saitha idaare” and I could easily predict where Rahul would be hitting the next ball. At certain points of the match, I thought I was in a Chennai local train, vendors blocking my view while selling pepsi, samosa, something called cold coffee, ice creams and ofcourse lays lays lays.

The chants just kept on coming !!

RCB RCB , Rahul Rahul Sachin Sachin ..boss we can’t chant Uthaaaapaaaa Uthappppaa nor can we say Kaaaaaaaalis Kaaaalis..

A huge thank you to MC Rahul Kapoor and the local DJ’s who had the crowd dancing to the oldie goldie tapanguchiii songs and ofcourse for helping us get the Mexican Wave right  .

A paragraph on Sachin ? Naah.Earlier that day, I overheard a conversation in which a dude was proudly announcing that he thought Sachin was God and he drinks Pepcee because Sachin endorses it !!. Naresh enquired “ But you do realize that it is bad and that they use it as a toilet cleaner ?”. The fan’s answer was that it didn’t matter. Uff if that was duh !!, the fans in the stadium chanted his name continuously until he turned around and acknowledged them. ( hello ! I was compelled to do it, mass hysteria and all ;) …)

I felt I was in Tirupathi, waiting in line for the Lord’s darshan.Yep long queues and high security. Ofcourse the biggest difference is that Lord Venki won’t be waving back at you , will he ? ( wink wink).

The fans cheered for every four and six but the RCB cheer leaders were a class apart , the fans went berserk when they made an entrance and ironically it was the girls in the stadium who were more interested in them :) . Sachin’s son got a huge applause as well. And if you thought we cheered when Sachin got out you are mistaken, it was a cumulative sigh :) .

It was fun to see the superman of cricket (for his flying abilities) Johnty Rhodes cleaning the pitch (he picked up a couple of bottles that the players had left behind).

If you are wondering what they do during the breaks I have a snap which explains it all ;)

I am looking forward to the next match, yep I am hooked :) RCB RCB RCB