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This meant that while millions of cricket fans would be glued to their TV screens, I would be negotiating heavy traffic on the dark hilly terrain from Gurgaon to Faridabad, totally missing out this possible chance to be a part of the history in making.
Wading through these dire straits, where do you think my help came from? From the most unexpected quarters - the AIR radio commentary!
For most of us urban dwellers, radio commentary is a forgotten, poor cousin of the TV telecasts. Radio commentaries it seems can never capture the ball-by-ball excitement and ensure audience's vicarious participation in the game as a TV telecast does.
That evening, when I drove back from Faridabad through a light drizzle and admittedly light traffic, with darkness of the Aravallis punctured by only the headlights of my car, I switched on the 106.4MW FM radio in a desperate move to at least keep abreast of the score.
My hopelessness and prejudices were however instantly washed away by a superb commentary from AIR, which was in a manner as convincing as that of Dhoni & Co. The commentators in both Hindi (Sudip Banerjee and probably Kuldeep Singh Kang) and English (Suresh Saraiya) were simply excellent, bringing to me all the excitement & technical details without once going overboard. As India cruised towards victory, I never once missed the TV, being almost transported to the scene of action, my heartbeats pulsating with millions of others.
A part of me also remembered those forgotten moments of my childhood, when in the sleepy after-school afternoons of my dusty hometown, we used to listen to the transistor, lying down on the cool floors of our home. The technical details were sometimes quite obtuse for us children but the excitement in the commentators' voices rising above the din of the stadium made it all worthwhile.
When Dhoni struck the final six, I leaped in joy, losing the control of my car for a moment. This shot had brought the cup (and me) home, riding safely on the airwaves.
