Victory at Lords -- 25 Years Ago
During the Second World War, the Allies had D-Day ! We in India were never so fortunate but the closest we could have come to that event was when we won the the World Cup at Lords -- exactly 25 years ago.
India as a nation had been around for a long time, but India as a state had arrived ! It was our beachhead in the Global Arena ... yes there will be miles to go, but nevertheless this was where we planted our flag and showed -- not so much to the world, but to ourselves -- that, yes, we could do it. No one had yet thought of offshoring, outsourcing or that the world was flat ! Mittals acquisition of Arcellor or Tata's acquisition of Corus and JLR was inconceivable .. but even though we did not any of this -- nor did most of us suspect that it would turn out this way -- yet it was a defining moment : Yes we could, we would, and we DID it !!
Where was I on that day ? At Goa, in the restaurant of Hotel Zuari having a single plate of biryani for the entire duration of the match ! Why ? Because that was the ONLY place where we could see a TV and all I could afford was just one plate of biriyani with the Rs 400 stipend that I had just received from TELCO ( not yet Tata Motors ) for summer training !
Those pictures of India winning were burnt into my brain but thanks to Star Ananda, I relived those moments again today -- in replayed BBC footage -- which I saw an hour ago !
And I realised how far the world has moved when I grabbed these images of my colour TV with my Sony Ericcson phone and immediately uploaded them to this blogsite for the world to see. A far cry when one had to go a hotel to see a black and white TV !!
Jai Hind
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