Bowled Over!

"Arey ball pakad thik sey " ( gather ball properly ),"Out ho gaya (that is out)"... These and few more are the lines which my sister used to tell me that i used to shout while sleeping. My subconcious mind followed and fulfiled my dream, in my dream, which i would have loved to make through in reality. I still remember those nights when a cricket match would be scheduled for next day and i would sleep with a hope that I will close my eyes and puff...it will be morning with blink of an eye, as i never liked waiting to watch Sachin Tendulkar bat. Reaching early home for a day night match, waking up early for matches in Australia and its Trans-Tasmania neighbours, burning mid night oil for ODIs in Toronto and West Indies and even leaving home early for Chemistry class with actual motive of watching an hour of Sachin's batting at a mechanic's shop ( my mother had sent television in hibernation as i had my board exams). I have done all these things and much more to see ' God of Cricket' bat. These are few things that each fan of Sachin has done. I remember praying for your century, i remember watching match at neighbour's hous when you had hit Caddick for a six over deep mid wicket, off a sizzling pull shot, i remember crying profusely when you were dismissed twice or thrice in nineties, within a month. I remember all the beautiful moments that you gave to millions of your followers. What I don't remember is whether I had ever imagined you taking retirement from Cricket. Such questions regarding retirement always seemed usless to me. But now it is one reality we all have to accept in 2013. The reality that there will be ODIs but there will be no Sachin Tendulkar. Even after waking up on 25th December, i was hoping that Santa will give me one gift and Sachin would confirm about continuing to play ODIs too. But that was something which didn't happen. Retirements are usually very emotional moments, for players as well as for their fans. Today morning, Mr Cricket a.k.a Mike Hussey retired from international cricket. He was lucky to have such a well scripted end for his career, as him team went on to win 3rd test while he was on crease, thus completing 3-0 white wash over Sri Lankans. However, this is something which Sachin's fans could not witness. He rightly judged that euphoria around his last ODI would have been too huge, which may be he did not want at this moment. Thus deciding to hang his boots without playing any more ODIs. Only hope that keeps all such fans going is that may be he will play lot many Test Matches for India and this decision of his would help prolong his career. Once again, his retirement from Test Cricket is something which cannot even be thought about and god willing, he will not take a decision which would leave all his fans ' bowled over'.

We blinked our eyes and poof,we were in Srinagar. It sounds like some magic, isn't it? I will explain in details. I am talking about our Amarnath yatra. As they say, "darshan unkey hi nasseb mein hotey hain, jinhey bulawa aata hai" and I guess we have had really good naseeb(luck).

Chapter One( And the adventure began): There were six of us(all of different & unique nature) who started this trip from Delhi, on 30th June,2011. On a lazy Thursday afternoon, we landed in Srinagar. As someone has beautiful said about Delhiites and I quote, " Everyone is something in Delhi & no one is alone", one of our friend too had his high profile contacts ready. He made a phone call, though importance of that call be revealed a bit later. We booked a cab for our next stop, that was Pahalgaon. There are two places from where yatra begins. One is Pahalgaon and the other one is called Baal Taal. Holy cave is 50kms from Pahalgaon. We boarded our cab and moved towards our next stop. Excitement could be sensed from our breath as we slowly moved towards some most panoramic views which we would be witnessing over next few days. On our way we crossed huge mountains, farms of world 's best and most expensive saffron, a silent Jhelum river and highly energetic Sindh river, whose water seamed as white as milk. We passed through villages and reached our first stop, Pahalgaon.
Another call was made by our friend and the voice on the other side asked us to reach Chandanwaari, 16kms ahead of Pahalgaon. After some confusion and discussion, we decided to follow that voice and reached Chandanwaari. We reached army base camp at Chandanwaari and met the body of that voice. He was Lieutenant Agnihotri. A young man of almost our age, Lieutenant welcomed us into the camp. Oh! Among all this excitement, I forgot to tell you that how dramatically weather had changed from Srinagar to Chandanwaari. Our jackets and pull overs were out and we were consistently rubbing our hands. We were offered hot coffee by our hosts, which would calm us down. We were shown our rooms( highly comfortable tents) where we could now relax. It was 07:30 in the evening. We were standing outside the camp and were hearing a constant noise(though it sounded sweet). We were told that at a distance of about 100 meters , there was a river flowing and above it was a small glacier.We couldn't control our excitement and immediately moved towards that river. We had seen
glacier for the first time in life and it was just so amazing. We touched the water of the river which was really cold. We enjoyed the view till around 8:15pm (as sun would not set before that time) and then we came back to our camp. We were served with some delicious food and also had conversation with soldiers who had been part of UNO's peace keeping team in Africa. Their description of the area in which they were sent made us realize that we were standing in front of real heroes.