The Magnificent EDEN GARDENS

The past couple of days have been awesome in terms of eating out; from Kim Ling in Tangra to Momo Palace on Elgin Road, have had it all.

But the high point of this weekend was my very first visit to Eden Gardens. What can I say? It is all that I’ve heard about it and much, much more. I remember the last stadium I had gone to was the Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium for one of the world cup matches. But that is nowhere close to the majestic Eden Gardens.

I got a call from a friend who asked me if I wanted to go to watch a match at Eden Gardens. I was like sure why not. This Indian Premier League Cricket is catching on and after watching my home team Kolkata Knight Riders pulverize the Bangalore Royal Challengers, I was totally game to go to the Mecca of cricket and cheer them on in their second outing. The Kolkata Knight Riders were playing the Deccan Chargers.

I was on my way there and already running a bit behind my original schedule of getting there by 3 pm for the 4 pm start of game but got caught in traffic. People were just getting off their cars, cabs and whatever means of transportation they had taken and we were still about a kilometre away from The Eden Gardens. I waited on in the comfort of the air-conditioning as we moved a centimetre an hour and finally could wait and as we crossed the red light on Red Road, I just had to get off and join those thousands of people heading to what seemed like war.

As I walked through the assigned bamboo barricade towards gate no 14, I could hear the stadium come to life with the Kolkata Knight Riders battle cry “Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo Re”. There was thunderous cheering and I started running towards the entrance. Past security (I mean they did check my ticket and frisk me) and up the stairs around twice and voila I alighted to the stands and all I could see was the backs of people. I showed my ticket and one of the staffers showed me to the section where my seat would be. Once in that section, I actually looked up and saw the majestic ground and then stopped and took a long hard look around the stadium. Sheer magnificence! The stands were packed the field was a brilliant lush green. I’m not going to write much about the match, as most of you must’ve caught it live on Sony MAX. But here’s the ironic tragedy. I walked out of the stadium when the lights on two of the floodlight stands went of and thought the game would get called off. I walked down to Esplanade and just before I was getting into the Metro to head to Park Street I looked back to see that the lights were back on. By the time I reached Park Street and had got out of the metro and was on my way to Music World did I hear that the Kolkata Knight Riders had pulled off a nail biting victory. King Khan danced and jumped with joy. His team had won their second match and was leading in the tournament.

Later I headed to Elgin Road to celebrate the win with some thukpa and momos.