Tritiya - Choturthi

My 3rd and 4th published writings in 'Kothe to bolar jonyei'

http://kothatobolarjonyei.blogspot.in/2012/05/blog-post_10.html#.UA2oHbQnwvY

http://kothatobolarjonyei.blogspot.in/2012/07/borshamongol.html#more

Thanks 'kotha to bolar jonneyi' team!! Feeling happy and proud.

Also my blog page views corssed 10,000 mark!! Another Yay  for that!! :-)

twentieth Century's Greatest Events... in 50 BC!!!

As a fan of the Asterix books for last 20 years there are countless numbers of times when I was greatly amused and had laughs of different degrees caused by the humor, wit, word play, pun and spoof created by the Great Goscinny and Uderzo in those books.

Obviously I have read the English and Bengali version of the Asterix books and not the original French version. Hence some of the humor and word play are lost in translation and also some of the English word play should be credited to Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge who did a tremendous job of translating these books in English.

But one aspect where Ms. Bell and Mr. Hockridge could not have much impact is the visual spoof in Asterix stories. Time and time again various contemporary events and personalities have made their appearance in Asterix books through the drawing of Albert Uderzo.

Let me discuss some of those spoofs which occurred in various Asterix books. Some of them are quite clear but some of them very subtle and nicely wrapped in the story. For example, Goscinny and Uderzo showed their respect to their great competitor Harge when in ‘Asterix the Legionary’, the person from Belgium in Asterix’s ranks have a small tuft of hair a-la Tintin who hailed from Belgium (More details is in this awesome blog ). It was a subtle one. Another rather simpler tribute to Tintin stories were seen later, in ‘Asterix in Belgium’ where the great detectives Thomson and Thompson made a cameo to announce the arrival of Julius Caesar, the great Roman Emperor to be precise.

(To be precise...)

In 60’s, The Beatles was a rage in Great Britain as well as the entire globe with their brand of music. They had huge fan following specially among girls and there are many stories about the love and frenzy showed by their fans in wherever they go. When Asterix and Obelix made a visit to Britain in their 1966 book ‘Asterix in Britain’ obviously they found the hysteria around an all-male 4 member music group topping the chart.

(Notice the hair...)

During those days except The Beatles, another most famous British personality, although fictional, was the secret service agent James Bond (with code name 007), portrayed by Shaun Connery in 7 official Bond movies during 1960-70. Hence in the 1981 book ‘Asterix and the Black Gold’ the Roman spy was aptly named Dubbelosix who had an uncanny resemblance with a slightly older Shaun Connery.

(006 ... 007)

 Let me take another example, this is from my most favourite Asterix adventure ‘Asterix and the Great Crossing’. The story is rather simple one, while trying to catch fresh fish from the sea, the super duo of Asterix and Obelix would meet with a great thunder and as a result end up being in the new continent of America. And after various events there including a marriage proposal for Obleix by the leader of red Indians they would try to run away from there. And while escaping they would get into another rather small island and then Asterix would do this:

(Not to forget this statue is a gift to the United States from the people of France)

It’s a simple one but with Oblix’s dialogue in the previous frame, this one is one of my all-time favourite spoofs in Asterix books.

Then I read ‘Asterix and the Great Divide’. It’s not a great story, obviously not a classic, it was also written by Uderzo only after the death of Goscinny. But one particular page of this book actually fascinated me a lot.

You can click on the above pic to expand it. The entire idea of Histrionix meeting Melodrama in her balcony reminds you of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and then Uderzo uses a parody of “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” spoken by Melodrama.

But that’s not it, in the same page, if you look at the last frame; this was clearly very much inspired by the movie posters and comics of Tarzan, especially with the knife hanging from the waist.

And then it struck me. It’s not only the spoof but also the huge range captured by these two geniuses through their books is what makes these books so memorable and lifelong treasure.

These are just a few instances; I know there are many more such spoofs spread around these 30-odd books and I do not count out the chance of a 2^nd part of this in near future, especially after buying two more Asterix books this evening. 

My first Hero

Being the only child in a small family of three people, I always felt lonely and often played alone. Hence I had to invent various games or ways to amuse myself and keep me busy. That's why I was an avid reader all my life because you do not need anyone else when you are reading a book.

My habit of playing alone has gone through various transition. From the days of playing book cricket and board games against myself to playing table tennis against a wall, and finally in 2005 I found the ultimate game for playing alone, FIFA against the computer (that would be a topic of one of my blogs someday).

But before I invented to individual sports (in true sense) I used to entertain myself by replicating certain things which was happening around. And as 3 years old during mid-late 80s the most interesting thing was those television shows. Grandest of all, off course Ramayan!!

Being a reader and fan of stories, I knew those stories even at that age and when those events were happening in front of my eyes that amazed my three year old self to no limit.

But Raam was never my hero, I still do not think highly of him. Laxman, Indrajit, Ravan (yeah, I am sure some people are fans of Bad man) no one was very impressive.

But Hanuman!! Yeah, now you are talking! Hanuman was a cult. Hanuman was the first super hero. He can jump over the ocean and fight to demons who captures his shadow, he can lift a mountain, he can say 'Jai Sree Raam' for countless number of times and still not bore you. Hanuman was cool. Even he used to come in an advertisement of asbestos sheet just before the Ramayan starts. 

I was in love with Hanuaan. I remember I used to have one of those kids' mace and with which I was always the Hanuman. Not Raam, not Ravan but Hanuman and being Hanuman (I always read that whenever I see one of those 'Being Human' T-shirts) my imagination could fly to no limit. He can get all the chocolates, can go and bring back dad early from the office and can do all the Dhisum-dhisum with demons.

And then one day I came to know from my dad that, Hanuman also had another name, Wow! I thought. Hanuman also had a 'daak naam' (we bengalis always have two names, remember 'Kahaani') and the name was Dara Singh! Now that's a cool name for Hanuman, I mean Dara Singh sounded much more warrior like than Arun Govil. And that day onwards Hanuman and Dara Singh became the same person for me. 

Had to grow up, did some more reading, study about Bollywood, came to know about Dara Singh the person, watched some of his old movies, a few new movies (Kal Ho Na Ho). His roles may be small but as long as he is in the screen my focus used to be always on him. That childhood liking, hero-worship continued even till today.

I think, on Monday I read about his illness and the news that he is hospitalized. My spirit was dampened which was some what lifted reading a few comments in ToI, where all the reader were writing about how good he was and praying for his speedy recovery.

The problem with God is that, if something going to happen then how much prayer you do, how much tears you drop nothing can stop that event. And today, when I logged in to Facebook, I started seeing the condolence messages for Dara Singh, I still did not believe and checked ToI, but Dara Singh is really dead. 

My first Idol, my first hero is gone. According to Indian mythology Hanuman is eternal, he can not be dead. Thank you, Dara Singh Ji, for making Hanuman eternal in my mind's eye too. Whenever I will think about Hanuman, about my childhood, your face will come in my mind. Rest in peace Sir. Be Good wherever you are.

PS. This is the 50th post of my blog. Even till late last night I was thinking of a suitable topic to write and somewhat came to a structure. But after this news I thought it would be important to save a memorable part of my childhood in the webspace as a tribute to great Dara Singh.

When Asterix Meets Das Kapital

There are in total 33 books of Asterix. I am sad to accept that I have not read all of them yet. I do have all the PDFs but I prefer to read actual books and till now I could have collected only two-third of those books. And yes I am a big fan of them. I read these books time and time again and absolutely love the pun, wit, humour and parody created by Goscinny and Uderzo in these books. With the multiple readings and re-readings of these Asterix comics I have noticed how various contemporary events made their appearance with a different guise. May it be Neil Armstrong’s famous quote after landing on the moon (Asterix and the Great Crossing) or the name of Hindu gods and reference of cricket (Asterix and the magic Carpet), sometimes I wonder how could they even did their thorough research in those days of no google and Wikipedia.

But the one I read recently took that banter into a completely different level. The book I am referring to is ‘Obelix and Co.’ and the subject of their banter, Capitalism!! Now that is something you don’t easily get in a comics. Tintin did touch various political issues and even try to highlight a global conspiracy to increase the oil price in ‘Land of Black Gold’ but this Asterix book is in a completely different level.

The story started in a typical fashion in Totorum, one of four Roman camps near the Gaulish village. But unlike the other stories, the legionaries are not following much discipline. The reason is simple, they have decided not to go out of their own camp from the fear of getting beaten by those indomitable Gauls. The only thing they do was to wait for their relief. The relief party did come which brought great excitement in the Gaulish village who decided to gift that entire Roman army to Obelix on the occasion of his birthday!! And after a few painful moments when Obelix was enjoying his birthday present and the other villagers singing “Happy Birthday to you” this Roman army group also asked for their relief.

All these events made Julias Caesar an unhappy man in Rome. And to add the misery all his experienced officers has now become corrupt and only interested in maintaining protocol. This has been pointed out by Preposterus (who incidentally was a pass out of LSE, Latin School of Economics), and it was him who came up with the idea of corrupting Gauls by introducing capitalism in their mind. And his target is none other than Obelix and his menhir delivery business.

And there starts all the craziness! With the sheer mastery of their art, Goscinny and Uderzo touched all the various aspect of consumer market and corporates. The business lunch, the circle of money, the production of useless fancy products, the meaningless campaign strategy to attract buyers by making them envious to their neighbours, over production, menhir graveyards (to keep useless old menhirs ala car graveyard) nothing was missed. That’s not the end, those big sugar-quoted advertisements on the bill boards, a competition from home grown businesses as well as foreign makers, free gifts with menhirs and even a road block (common tactic by French/Bengali strikers) made their occurrence in the book.

But finally the bubble had busted and all the sestertius given by the Romans were devalued and our Gaulish village went back to their normal way of thrashing Romans. This time it was a gift from Obelix to the villagers who showed great resilientof his character by not touching a single Roman during the attack.

On the outside this is another simple, funny Asterix adventure but if you can dig deep you will get the true meaning. Although it is happening around us all the time but the complexity of these strategies are rooted far deeper. But the effortless way this book has touched the actual problem is mind blowing.

This one will always remain one of my favourites in the Asterix series.

For the love of Selecaos

"God created me to delight people with goals." Romario (Brazil, Barcelona and 9 other clubs)

I will go ahead and say God created the Brazilian football team to delight people with football.

XXX---------------------XXX

When I started understanding various sports in late 1980s India was a different country. No open economy, no internet, not even foreign sports channels. And hence like many of the Indian kids of that time I got familiar with names like Kapil Dev, Srikanth and Azharuddin pretty quickly. I loved cricket as a kid and that’s the very first sports which I adopt.

But then football has its global presence and own appeal. It’s difficult to ignore it and being a bong I started remembering names like Chima Okery, Subrata Bhatttacharya, Krishanu Dey and Bikash Pnaji and I still remember the evening when while watching a live match in the television my father explained why I should support the Mohun Bagan club and keep a constant dislike towards those red and gold players playing against them. But International football, what’s that? It’s only a few clips in the Sunday afternoon sports show in DD with Kishore Bhimani’s baritone.

Then came Italia’90 with its peculiar looking logo and a bubble gum which would give one free card with the picture of a world cup star and being the eternal fighter I get into a fierce rivalry with many of my friends to collect more cards than others. I remember having cards of Walter Zenga, Robarto Donadoni, Juregen Klinsmann, Careca and Roger Milla. I also went great length for collecting the card with Diego Maradona’s photo but not because I liked him because it was difficult to get.

And why I did not like him? Instead which player I supported? That’s the topic of this blog post.

During late 80s and early 90s there was a popular weekly magazine called ‘Saptahik Bartaman’, I think it’s still available but not sure whether it’s equally popular. My parents had a regular subscription of that and just before the 1990 FIFA world cup; the magazine started a feature where every week they had one page describing some key highlights of one previous world cup with hand drawn black & white pictures. I remember reading all of them from 1930 to 1986. I remember reading about ‘Battle of Santiago’, ‘The rise (8-3) and fall (2-3) of Hungary’, ‘The 1974 final where Netherlands took the lead before even a single German player touching the ball’ and ‘The hand of God’.

But the ones I remembered the most at that age was Maracana stadium and the heartbreak of 1950, Pele and the little bird mesmerizing the world in 1958, then again in 1962, and greatest Brazilian team of 1970. And I started having a soft corner for the Selecaos and knew that Argentina is the name of the arch enemy when I was just 6 years old.

Then came the actual world cup, I was in my Masimoni’s place, she was a big time fan of Maradona and I remember the party atmosphere on the opening day of world cup. I remember my mother saying, Argentina might lose! But no one took her seriously, why should they? Argentina, the remaining champs were playing with Cameroon, just another African country making up the numbers. But my mother’s strong intuition worked again when Cameroon gate crashed Argentina’s party thanks to a goal from Omam Biyik. I remember that I started watching the match but slept midway and next morning woke with news of the upset. I do not remember many matches of that world cup but I remember reading in the same ‘Saptahik Bartaman’ in the World cup final special issue about how Brazil was beaten by Argentina in the second round by the solitary goal from Cannigia. I read about the tears of Brazil supporters and my dislike towards Argentina just grew more.

Although I did not remember any other matches but I do remember names like Schillaci, Goycochea and Gascoigne and that was my short memory of international football for time being.

4 years passed and another FIFA world cup comes with a lot of hype because it’s happening in USA, the land of hope and dream. In those last four years I was busy with Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Anil Kumble and Hero cup win and India’s spin trio and home test wins but as the world cup came I have started rooting for my favourite yellow jersey. But that time I am 11 years old, read the newspapers and magazines in more details. I knew about the teams, their stars and the groups. The world cup being in US, the matches were really really late, and I remember lots of matches where I was scolded by my parents for sleeping with TV on. But I did make a point to watch all the Brazil matches staying up as late as possible. Romario was the hero who scored 5 goals to take Brazil in the final. The up-front partnership of Romario and Bebeto was lethal. And then Bebeto become the most popular player of that world cup with his baby rocking celebration after scoring against Netherlands in the quarter final just after few days of the birth of his 3^rd children. In the same match, Brazil very typically from a 2-0 score line managed to allow Netherlands to come back at 2-2 but then Branco converted a direct free kick from around 30 yards to take Brazil into the semis.

The final between Brazil and Italy started around 1 o’clock in the night and with 120 minutes of goal less draw and penalty kicks when it was finally over with Roberto Baggio’s missed penalty kick it was close to 4 o’clock. Never before I was awake so late in my 11 years of life. I was much tensed during the tie-breaker and remember spending some of it in the room and some of it in the balcony as I could not watch it out of nervousness.

The real transition happened from 94 to 98. Mind you, no internet and not much ESPN yet but the sports page of newspapers and magazines like ‘Sportstar’, ‘Khela’ and sports section of ‘Anandamela’ taught me a lot about football. I started knowing about the club football. I came to know about AC Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Barcelona. I came to know about Copa America and UEFA Cup. Cricket was still my sports of choice but I was not as oblivious about football as in the first half of 90s.

The new megastar of Brazilian football was coming up. The shaved headed Ronaldo Luis Nazario De Lima came along with the group of superstars like Roberto Carlos, Dunga, Rivaldo and Denilson. By that time it’s not any more just watching your favourite team play, it was the whole hearted crazy support of the team. Fighting with friends in the school and memorizing history to use them in the argument. The prayers have started before the game and all the superstitions about what to wear and where to sit during a Brazil game in world cup has started.

That fanatism just increased in all these years, from the heart break of 1998 final to the ecstasy of the 2002 and then again the heart breaks of last two world cups it was a wonderful journey. I have a special feeling for world cup 2002, it was amazing to see how could one single man, in this case Ronaldo, came back like phoenix from the ashes of his mysterious illness to ’98 final to became the main architect of Brazil’s world cup triumph of 2002.

In the meantime another dimension of world football was opening to me. I came to know about David Beckham and the great man Sir Alex Farguson. I watched the highlights of their breath taking win over Bayern Munich in the Champions league final and became an instant fan of the Baby-faced Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Slowly my love towards Manchester United grew and with the advancement of internet I started following Man Utd religiously but I never stopped keeping track of my Brazilian heroes.

I do get upset about the fact that the most of the Brazilian players choose Italy and Spain as their preferred country for playing club football and hardly any big name of Brazilian team came to play in Manchester but I never stopped keeping track of Kaka, Ronaldinho, Pato and Fabiano and always wish them to do well whenever they are playing any match for their club side (except against United). I also have a special feeling for Jose Ramirez Barreto who is represents that awesome and rare combination of my love towards Brazil and Mohun Bagan. And when it comes to their match for the Selecaos, be it Copa America, Friendlies or World Cup qualifier I try to follow it and support them with as much passion as possible.

The world cup is going back to Brazil after 64 years in 2014 and although I have made plans with Kanad and Madhumitadi to visit Brazil to watch 2014 world cup but I do not know how realistic this would be but be it in India or be it in Brazil, in my mind I will be there with my heroes as strongly as possible, may be more closely as I know that this team is not as strong as the team of 90s or early 2000s. And that’s how I see a fan’s role become important. Everyone can support their team at the time of success but a true fan is who stays with his team even at the time of difficulty and heartbreaks. The life keeps moving and you never know the glory days may be just round the corner.

So, my beloved Brazilian team, keep playing well and keep entertaining people. Trust me, no other team makes football as beautiful and graceful as you can do and I do believe you know how to win trophies through your beautiful style. I will be always there to cheer you and cheer those mesmerizing moments you create on field.

                                                                                    XXX--------------------XXX 

My most favourite Top Five Brazilian player (In order or preference)

Ronaldo

Kaka

Ronaldinho

Romario

Cafu

My Most favourite Brazilian moment on a football field

Ronaldo’s two goals in 2002 World Cup final

Bebeto’s celebration in 1994 quarter final

Ronaldinho’s free kick against England in quarterfinal 2002

Roberto Carlos’world famous free kick against France

From a Moving Train

In my home back in Kolkata, we used to have 9 coconut trees. There are many a time when I boasted in front of my friends about having so many coconut trees together. But for last couple of hours I am passing through one coconut jungle after another. And if you wonder what I mean by coconut jungle, it is a continuous stretch of coconut trees with total number of trees in the region of few thousands!!

Well I am writing this blog on a moving train (one of my long time wish to write real time blog during a journey, so tick!) from Bangalore to Chennai and trust me I do not have much idea about the route. My cell phone service provider did inform me that the train entered Andhra Pradesh before entering Tamil Nadu. The journey is smooth in AC chair car and the view from the window is mostly green with coconut trees (a lot!!) and hills in the far distance. I wonder whether those are Eastern Ghats and will check in google once I get my internet working. (update: Kind of confirmed it’s a part of Eastern Ghat only)

Train journeys are always fascinating, for example now I am in Katpadi Junction, never heard of it and don’t think will ever come here but this train took me here and will pass through it. These near empty railway stations, the chayewallas with their South Indian accented shouts and the non-stop talking kid in the next row add to the charm of an Indian rail journey.

It is 49 days since I reached Bangalore. A new city, a new office, a new place to stay, new furniture to buy, it was a hectic 7 weeks. Still me and a group of my friends found time to visit Pondicherry for a weekend trip. Improvement in my cooking skills and FIFA12 PS3 skills along with that trip are the highlights till now. (I am in Mukundarayapuram by the way)

I like cooking. And I am pretty serious about it, at least till now. I got an induction cooker and my biggest concern every day is not to have too long power cut to hamper my cooking. Power cuts are very regular in Bangalore and once I moved my new place on 13^th May, there is no single day without power cuts. And there are days with 3-4 power cuts.

So, most of the days, cooking is the first thing I do after waking up and even before having breakfast. I started with burning my first day’s rice, trying to cook it in 2000 watts, the max power. Now I know 800 watts is enough and I cook my rice every day in less than 10 minutes. I have also cooked Daal and Cauliflower with a few failed attempts, especially because in Bangalore, things take more time to get boiled. So, either you cook with the water you are buying to drink, or use tap water and ready to spend more time trying to boil your daal and vegetables. And obviously I cooked my favourite Egg Curry or ‘Dimer Dalna’ with near perfection from the first day. That’s my staple diet and I had to learn it as soon as possible. My mother came up with a pretty good line regarding my love towards egg when she told my girlfriend, “He will eat only two types of food, Dimer Dalna in the day and egg curry in the night!!” I also tried making Tomato chatni with my first attempt resulting in a salty chatni (It supposed to be sweet!) but added more sugar to it next day to make it taste really nice and chatni-like!

It’s close to 12.30 and some of my co-passengers are having card-rice (I am getting the smell), also quite a few vendors are selling the railway food, so let me take bite of the cake and fruits I have before finishing this part. Expected time to reach Chennai is 3 o’clock.

Done with my lunch and let me resume writing in Arakkonam station. The new office is a cool place and with an existing group of friends it’s fun to be in office. And also, due to some strategic change I am not much occupied now days and utilizing my time by playing a lot of FIFA12 in the office PS3. I started playing FIFA in 2006, I was in IITK, and I will be ever grateful to Suddha Prasad Bagchi to teach me how to play FIFA and telling me about the wonderful thing called ‘career mode’ in FIFA. Since then, I kept playing its different versions in my home computer but playing in PS3 is much more different than playing in computer and playing against other players and also play with 2/3 members in same team is a completely different ball game than playing alone against the computer. It’s much more fun playing in PS3 with lot more real like moves and tricks. Still need to improve a lot. Need to learn how to head properly, how to take penalties and free kicks and how to use some of the tricks to baffle the opponents like Budha, Ashwini and Sayantan. Already contemplating buying a PS3 in home but with its price tag of around 15k to 19k it’s not an easy decision to make.

Having the usual sweet and sour romance with Shreya with calls, sms , Facebook chats and YM chats. It’s always fun to be around her and although I miss those evenings in Karunamayee and City Center and Princep Ghat we try to be in touch as much as possible by sharing everything, can’t wait to meet her again in August.

The Pondicherry trip was nice. It was hot and humid and also I particularly did not like the meal in Aurobindo Ashram but it was an experience and there are plenty of options for food of my taste. We had octopus in one of our meals and prawns aplenty. I absolutely loved the French style structures of buildings and the beautiful churches they have, the road in front of the beach is also wonderful. The plan of cycle ride through a whole city was an awesome idea which four of us (Sayantan, Soumyabrata, Tushar and me) did.

The only flaw in our Pondicherry plan was that we did not consider the possibility that KKR could reach the final of IPL and when they did we realized that we will miss the final as we will be in Pondicherry and will be traveling in a bus from 10.30 PM. Missed the match, but following the score in the cell phone when KKR won and then celebrating the whole night in Facebook and being in a call with Shreya is an experience I will remember forever.

This pretty much sums up my first 49 days in Bangalore, have not travelled much inside the city although went to MG Road couple of times but it’s not enough to know everything about the city. I have planned to go out for a full day city tour in one of these weekends. Also, I won a quiz competition in the office, it was good one and liked the experience, the questions were intelligent and learnt quite a few things along with answering some of them.

I just passed Tiruvalla, It’s 1.30. I don’t think I have anything much to write so let me stop here and get back to the ‘Ghanada Samagra Part 2’. Ghanada stories are wonderful and I would love to write a blog about the great man someday.

The KKR Story: Their Road map to IPL Triumph

In most of the action-revenge dramas which comes out of Bollywood, it is the most common theme to see the hero going through pain, heartbreak and as much distress as possible (parents getting killed, sister getting raped, friends betraying and so on) before coming as triumphed after an intense battle with the villain.

For last 5 years Kolkata Knight Riders was the team with mostly filmy mashala as two of its owners are Bollywood stars and despite not performing up to the mark there was no lack glamour, money and hype around this team. But this year the way they have turned the table and their transition from a loser and subject to infinite jokes in Facebook and real life to a deservingly champion team is nothing short of a film script!

 All the controversies and misfortune of previous seasons, from John Buchanan’s multiple captaincy theory to Fake IPL blogger to the decision of not picking Sourav Ganguly in 2011 auction the list of controversies is as big as the number of sixes scored by Chris Gayle, add to it the number of player unavailability and close last ball losses made KKR the weeping boys of first 3 IPL. Things started to change in 2011 but still some parts were missing. But in those 7 weeks of April-May 2012, along with the countless hours of training and planning before that KKR finally did what their captain Gautam Gambhir described as ‘Mission Accomplish’.

What I am trying to do here is to rewind some may be small but key milestones in their journey to 27^th May when sometime close to midnight, Manoj Tiwari’s two consecutive pull shots give them their maiden IPL trophy.

Match 10 - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders 

Balaji’s Magic Spell

Knight Riders started their campaign with two losses and when they came to Bangalore to play Royal Challengers, they knew that they have to turn their fortunes pretty soon, otherwise another season would pass with them not seriously challenging for the title.

KKR, put into bat, started strongly and reached 125 for 1 in the 14th over. A score around 180 looked quite possible but a middle order collapse where 7 of their batsmen got out for single digit scores resulted them scoring just 40 runs in last 40 deliveries of the innings and end up scoring 165.

With the Chinnaswami batting condition and the RCB’s batting line up in mind, 165 was gettable but what follows was the first of many great team bowling performance by KKR, where every bowler played their part efficiently. Where Kallis gave KKR a great start by removing both the openers of RCB including the super dangerous Gayle and Shakib took care of the death overs, it was the middle overs of Laxmipati Balaji, which makes the difference. Balaji bowled 4 overs in a trot (6th, 8th, 10th and 12th) and took one wicket in each of his 4 overs to dent RCB’s chase. The one which took care of AB De Villiers was the special one; it was bowled with an in-swinging angle and got straightened after pitching to take the off stump of the talented South African.

The win showed the first signs of KKR’s class against teams with such big names.

Match 17 - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kings XI Punjab

 Knight’s New Weapon

When KKR bought Sunil Narine after intense bidding for $700,000, which was 14 times his base price, in the 2012 IPL auctions, most of the headlines had words like, surprize, unexpected and gamble. Narine impressed once and all in the 2011 Champions Trophy while playing for T&T including his spell against CSK where he spellbound players like Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni with his tricks. An off spinner with a high arm action and plenty of varities, Narine looked to be a smart purchase by Kolkata.

But come IPL, it turned out to be the buy of the season, when Narine ended the tournament with 24 wickets at an average of 13.50 and economy rate of 5.47. He was the second highest wicket taker and the player of the series.

Kolkata did not play Narine in their first match against Delhi. He played the second and the third match, both against Royals with moderate success to be dropped in the 4th match against the Royal Challengers. In the fifth match in home, KKR decided to play Narine against KXIP and in his comeback, Narine produced a wonderful display of spin bowling. Coming to bowl as early as third over to take the wicket of Adam Gilchrist, one of the greats of the game, and then taken care of the death overs by taking 3 wickets in 18th and 20th over, Narine was unplayble. 14 of his 24 deliveries were dot balls and his analysis 19 for 5 was as impressive as you can get in a T-20 match. 

Kolkata could not pull off the win by messing up their chase in last two overs, but the buzz about Sunil Narine’s mystery started to take momentum which was in show for almost all of the remaining matches of Kolkata.

Match 41 - Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders

 Challenge in Chennai

Chennai Super Kings are the most successful and consistent side in first five years of IPL. Not only they were the champions of last two years, they never finished the tournament without being in Top Four in the points table. Captained by MS Dhoni and consisting of players like Michel Hussey, Albie Morkel, Suresh Raina and Ravi Ashwin, CSK is the team to beat in IPL.

KKR had a poor 2-5 win-loss ratio against them and never won a match in their fortress M. A. Chidambaram Stadium. But when the bowling unit restricted the Super Kings for 139, a required rate of just 7 runs per over looked manageable. KKR lost McCullum early but like many occasions in last two years, Gambhir and Kallis steadied the ship and added 70 runs in the second wicket with a run rate, at per of the require rate. But few overs later when Gambhir got out in the first ball of the 19th over KKR still required 16 of 11 balls. Things were getting tight when Yusuf Pathan was joined by Debabrata Das, an interesting little player who is playing in IPL since its very first edition without playing even a single first class match. He is a fearless heater who had only few innings of note in the previous IPL seasons. He started with converting a full toss on his pads to a four and KKR entered Ashwin’s last over requiring six for win.

Pathan cut the first ball to deep point for two, the second was a dot ball and when Pathan got out trying to slog sweep the third ball of the over, pressure came on KKR. And that’s when Das showed his metal by hitting the next delivery of Ashwin through the mid-wicket boundary to give KKR an important win. It not only strengthens their position in the points table, the win over the current champions also gave them lots of self-belief which they carried forward in the next games.

Das only faced 4 balls to get those 11 runs, but that thumping boundary was a real key moment in Knight Rider’s IPL journey. Gautam Gambhir, who by that time had shown significant glimpse of his captaincy skill, recognized the effort and was ready to give away his ‘Man-of-the-match’ award to Das.

Match 47 - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Pune Warriors

Away match in Home ground

Sourav Ganguly may be one of the most controversial characters of world cricket but Kolkata is his land and for most of Kolkatans like me he can’t do any wrong. Hence, during the failure of first 3 seasons Kolkata was unhappy but never even thought that there could be a team from Kolkata without Sourav. Then came the IPL auction of 2011 and Sourav was not picked by any of the franchise, not even by Kolkata. As expected huge uproar was followed and conspiracy theories were put into place. But a big part of Kolkata became more heart broken as their beloved Dada was not any more part of Kolkata Knight Riders. At the beginning of 4th season, KKR experienced empty stands in their home matches in Eden gardens but slowly the public turned back towards the team and Home matches again become well attendant.

In the meantime Ganguly was also picked by Pune Warriors as their key bowler Ashish Nehra was injured and Sourav played the second half of IPL-4 with moderate success. Came IPL season 5 and Sourav was given the captaincy role as Yuvraj Singh was out recovering from his cancer treatment.

Warriors started strongly and even were at the top of the standings at one point thanks to win over big teams like CSK and DD but their form was on the decline and they came to Kolkata with 4 consecutive losses. 

No one knew how Kolkata would behave, are they going to root for their team or are they going to support their man. The opinions were divided and may be slightly tending towards the man. Specially with KKR in a strong position people may had more sympathy towards Pune in the match which was termed as ‘Dada vs Khan’, pointing towards KKR’s one of the owners Shah Rukh Khan.

But, as always Gambhir was completely away from all these hype and tension of the big match. He won the toss and started with a blistering pace to take KKR to 68 runs in the powerplays at a run rate above 11. He played another little gem to score 56 of 36 and took KKR to 113 in the 13th over. But his departure was again followed by mediocre batting by the middle order and they end their innings with 150 on the board, at least 20 short of what to be expected after that opening stand.

If KKR’s middle order batting failure was a regular thing another regular sight was to see Kolkata bowling attack performing considerably well to put a up a great show. Young Marchant De Lange came to the party and gave Knight Riders a great start by removing big guns like Michel Clarke and Robin Uthappa in his first two overs. And when Narine trapped Steven Smith, Pune’s most dangerous batsman in the 9th over, Pune was reeling at 55 for 5. 

In his home ground, Sourav came at number 7 and built a partnership with Angelo Mathews , who suddenly gave Pune a glimmer of hope with 3 consecutive sixes of Yusuf Pathan but the required rate was increasing and when Ganguly got caught at deep mid-wicket, trying to hit Rajat Bhatia for a six, Pune needed 23 of 14. And with Narine bowling the 19th over for just 4 runs, even Mathews could not get the 18 runs required in the last over and KKR won by 7 runs.

The fans who were supporting Pune in the beginning were found to shout at top of their voice for KKR after a good well-fought T-20 match. KKR again found his home among their most passionate of fans.

Match 65 - Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders 

Mesmerizing the Master

Going back to the film analogy, which I gave at the beginning of this article, for KKR supporters Mumbai Indians is that terrifying villain whom they hate the most. Not only KKR had a 1-7 IPL win-loss ratio before this year’s IPL, this is the team who gave KKR some of its most humiliating and heart breaking defeats. From their lowest score of 67 in the first IPL to the Rayadu’s last ball six in IPL-4, it was only the story of failure and despair. Even in the home match in the Eden Gardens MI won quite comfortably thanks to Rohit Sharma’s century.

When Knight Riders went to Mumbai to play the return leg, they knew a win is absolute necessary to keep their chance of finishing in top two alive. Finishing in top two was important as that would give them two chances in the knockouts to reach the final.

Put into bat, KKR started badly, RP Singh’s double strike made them tottering at 6 for 2, and at 96 for 6 in the 16th over, another familiar loss was well on cards. KKR recovered somewhat to add 40 runs in last 4 overs to reach 140 and had at least something for their bowlers to bowl at. But as it turned out, it was more than enough for KKR bowlers to restrict MI batsmen.

Gibbs scored a painstaking 13 of 24 balls to leave MI scoring only 26 runs in the powerplays. Tendulkar kept batting till the eleventh over and his battle against Narine was fascinating to see. But the last delivery of the 11th over was a vicious off break from Narine which hit Tendulkar on thigh and then crashed on to off stump. Once he was gone, KKR bowlers ran through the MI batting line up to bowl them out for 108. Narine finished with 15 for 4 and another Man-of-the-match award.

The Mumbai Indians were also humbled in their home ground and KKR started looking really dominating and a well-balanced unit at this point.

1st Qualifier - Delhi Daredevils vs Kolkata Knight Riders

The Four over Madness

72 group matches are completed and here are they, two most dangerous and consistent teams of IPL-5 met in the first qualifier for a place in the final. The venue was Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium in Pune where the pitch was slow, low and one of the most difficult ones to bat on. Despite the slow nature of the pitch Delhi continued to go with their strategy of Four-pace bowling attack with Yadav, Aaron, Pathan and Morne Morkel, who was IPL’s highest wicket taker. Like Delhi, KKR also go with their strength, the spin bowling attack consists of Narine, Abdulla and Shakib with Yusuf as another potential spin bowling option.

Gautam Gambhir won a very important toss and decided to bat first. KKR started briskly but lost the momentum in the middle overs to lose 3 wickets for 19 runs and at the end of 16th over KKR were 106 for 4, looking at a potential score close to 140. 

That’s when Laxmi Ratan Shukla Waled out of KKR dug out. Laxmi Shukla is another fringe player for KKR, he had experience of first class cricket for more than 12 years and once used to be considered as a potential India all-rounder, but he never got his proper chance and never fulfilled his aspirations. Shukla also played for KKR in all 5 seasons with limited opportunities and even considered moving to Pune Warriors before beginning of the season. KKR team management had different plans and convinced him not to leave.

Shukla joined Yusuf Pathan, who has a different career graph but had a relatively quiet, non-significant IPL and people did raise a question over his price tag of $2.1 million. But somehow both these all-rounders decided to play their most significant parts in IPL 5 at that night and what followed was madness when these two amassed 56 runs in last four overs. There was a method in their madness as they scored 9, 11, 15 and 21 runs in those 4 overs respectively and scored runs through clean hitting in the gaps or shots out of the ground than mistimed edges and stricky boundaries. KKR ended with respectable 162 for 4 in their 20 overs.

Daredevils had a strong batting line up with two explosive batsmen at the top in David Warner and Virendra Sehwag. They also had lots of class in the middle order in Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor. But as many a times this season, all the KKR bowlers played their part and everyone ended with at least one wicket behind their name. 

Some of the Delhi’s strategy was baffling, specially sending Taylor at number seven after Rao and Negi lacks any sense. But the Knight Riders were not complaining. They have reached their maiden IPL final in the fifth attempt.

IPL Final - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings

Innings of a Life Time

So after 4 years of pain, embarrassment and heart break here are the Knight Riders, playing their most important match against the reigning champions Chennai Supper Kings in their home ground in Chennai. It can’t get bigger than this. 

But before that KKR had to deal with the massive blow of Balaji getting unfit for the final. Not Only Balaji was one of the meanest of KKR bowlers with an economy rate of 5.40, his absence would also mean that the team balance is disturbed and Kolkata needed to bring in Brett Lee by keeping one of their foreign players from last match out. Narine and Kallis are two players who were impossible to be dropped, so the choice was between McCullum and Shakib, either drop Shakib and play Das, by which KKR would lose one bowling option or drop McCullum to include Manvinder Bisla who played his last match 15 days ago. The recent strong showing of Shakib, especially with the ball, helped him to get the preference over McCullum and hence Bisla got a chance to play and keep wickets in KKR’s most important match of the season.

Super Kings had an indifferent IPL in 2012. In fact, compared to their high standards this season they performed pretty mediocre during the group stages and they only qualified for the play offs because some other teams, most notably Bangalore Royal Challengers threw their chance to qualify by losing their last matches. A devastating spell by Dale Steyn and some poor shot selection by RCB batsmen meant CSK held to its 4th position in the points table and qualified for the play offs.

And like any strong team, CSK got back to his best form in the knock outs, suddenly their batsmen started scoring runs and spinners started getting turns. They thrashed Mumbai and Delhi quite comfortably to reach their 4th final in IPL’s 5 year history. Everyone realized that KKR had a tough task in hand, facing the rampant Super Kings in their home of M.A. Chidambaram stadium. But KKR was silently confident, especially after their win in that venue during the group phase of the league.

MS Dhoni won the toss and while batting first CSK displayed an imposing batting display, only 4 batsmen were required. Mike Hussey and Murali Vijay gave them a good start before Suresh Raina, the most successful batsman in IPL history thumped 73 runs at a strike rate above 192. CSK ended their innings with 190 runs in board, much higher than the per score for big finals like this. KKR bowlers had an off day and none of them could put any control over CSK batsmen. Narine had his most expensive showing of the season and Brett Lee leaked 42 runs in his 4 overs.

KKR’s chase had poorest of starts when they lost their captain, most successful and only consistent batsman in the line-up, Gautam Gambhir in the last ball of the first over with just 3 runs on board. Bisla was joined by the great Jack Kallis and what followed was not in anyone’s wildest dream. With Kallis’ calm presence and solidity, Bisla found a new edge in his game and played a wonderfully free flowing innings and maintain the run rate close to 10, which was required. He scored 89 runs of 48 balls with 8 boundaries and 5 sixes. It was an awesome display of sensible stroke play which caught the entire CSK attack off guard. By the time Bisla got out he brought the equation to 52 runs required of 32 balls. Kallis showed his class to score a gritty 69 of 49. Although he got out with KKR needing 16 of 7 balls which was scored by some innovative and sensible hitting from two Bengal boys (may be from the different side of the border) Shakib Al Hasan and Manoj Tiwari. 

Tiwari later said that, he felt the fielding placement for him was wrong but he took full advantage of that to hit two consecutive fours of Dwayne Bravo though to square leg region. And with the second hit Kolkata Knight Rider’s story was complete. They achieved what they were playing for. They put a lot of sincere hard work and were ecstatic to get their reward. Their emotional story reaches a wonderful and happy ending, just like a successful Bollywood movie.

P.S.

 The above matches or those specific performances may be some of the key junctions in their journey to the triumph but to me this team’s journey started on 8th and 9th January 2011, in the IPL auction for season 4, when KKR management went with a specific plan. They wanted to get away from previous three years’ failure; they decided to have Gautam Gambhir to be their next captain and went all out for him. They did another major purchase in Yusuf Pathan within next 10 minutes and then throughout the next two days they did smart buys like Kallis, Lee, Shakib, Balaji, Tiwari, Morgan and Ryan Ten Doeschate. It showed the management had a proper plan and did a detailed analysis of their strength and weakness to decide on their requirement. 

To me, that was the day when the first seed of KKR’s 2012 IPL win was harvested.

[As always, a special note of thanks for my two most favorite websites:

i. www.cricinfo.com for providing all the stats, scorecard and photos.

ii. www.youtube.com for helping me reliving those great moments]