Write a letter to your friend telling him about your experience of your sudden and unexpected meeting and interaction with your idol M.S.Dhoni.
Answers
Explanation:
I knew MSD between 1994 and 1997. I had just moved schools and joined DAJVM in 1993. 1994 - Mahi and I were enrolled together in a summer cricket camp (coached by a gentleman named Jitendra Singh, who used to play for MECON's company team, and was the second keeper for Bihar State). That summer camp is where I got to know him. Realized he lived in the lane behind my house. We played for DAV together that same year and the year after. After that, I stopped playing and spent more time preparing for various entrance examinations! :) In that window, my elder brother and he used to play the equivalent of gully cricket together. Same team. They played many gully tournaments together.
So, on and off, as a teammate, as a senior in school (one year senior), and as someone who lived fairly close by, I knew him in bits and pieces.
He was a normal teenager. He liked keeping wickets because he wouldn't have to field. He was insanely talented as a batsman even then. He made snide jokes, comments about the girls in class or colony, laughed a lot, loved to take a single off the last ball of the over, wasn't interested much in the idea of studying, was atheletic (could play pretty much any game just like that -having seen him play soccer, badminton and TT). Back then, the real glimpse of his shrewdness/smartness were only visible when he was playing a sport. He wasn't expected to be a mature leader back then, and he didn't show any trait that could have shown what he would be capable of in future. He was a selfish batsman, like most gully cricketers are. Maybe a tad more. He did not really spend a lot of time with the elites (top rankers and blah) of the class or the colony. Came from a humble background, lived - talked- walked like one. No pretenses. Largely a bihari style hindi speaking guy who lived like an average joe that you'd miss unless he was hacking a bowling attack into pieces. I don't remember him sledging much from behind the wickets back then.
NONE OF US who knew him back then would have betted on him becoming the captain of the Indian team. It would just have seemed to be too much responsibility to handle. He was a street - smart alec (as is visible in his interviews at times). ALL OF US would have wanted to see him play for India. We did see his talent. MOST OF US would not have bet on that because Bihar did not have a history of producing national cricketers (and there is a lot of politics to it, not just an issue of talent).