“Wow, that is great Raghav, how did you get these VIP passes?”

“Hey Abhijeet, that is a secret, good thing is that, we have passes for all of us”

“This would be the first time; I’ll be watching the Great Sachin on ground rather than the TV set. Thanks Raghav!”

“Come on Gaurav, it would be the first time for all of us” said Ashu.

Peeyush pitched in and said “But, I am supporting Delhi because this is where I belong”

In his usual casualness, Abhijeet interrupted Peeyush, and said “who is bothered about supporting this or that team, let us chill out there. That should be our sole motive”.

During the discussion, I started feeling very much acknowledged by my dear devil friends. Taking advantage of the moment, I wittingly asked my pals “So, it means all of us are coming for the match today?”

“You mean to say, you can go without us. Dare not Raghav! Or else you will regret it hard” said Gaurav with lot of conviction.

“Ohh, I am scared, don’t kill me Gaurav”. I knew that this would be a great treat for him, as I was aware of his craziness and love for cricket and Sachin Tendulkar, in particular.

Abhijeet said “Ahhh Gaurav, cease it. Raghav cannot dare to go alone now after sharing this with us, he has no choice left. So you relax and stop making fun Raghav!”

“Ok, chill dear friends, so today after college gets over we are heading towards “Firoze Shah Kotla” to watch the action between the Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils; it will be fun.”

A loud “Hurraaaaaaaaaay”….. Librarian asked five of us to immediately leave from the library.

It hardly mattered to us, making notes and hiding books has never been our trait…. we are just not ‘so studious types’.

Now, we were on our way to the canteen when Ashu raised a very important question— “How are we going to reach the stadium?”

“Opps, that is a very valid question” said Abhijeet and asked me “Raghav have you made any arrangement for this”

I replied mockingly “Yeah, why not! It is my marriage. So right from the passes to your food, all will be sponsored by me” – I took a pause and said “No dear, we need to make some quick arrangement because traffic is going to be tough and DTC buses can’t help us.”

“I have an idea” – said Gaurav, so all of us asked at once “What?”

“Raghav, since there are five of us, but we have three passes and each pass is for two persons, so we have one vacancy with us. Let us find somebody with in our class who has a four wheeler”.

“Good Idea, I can suggest one person” shouted Ashutosh and we all reciprocated with even louder response – “Who?” It was so loud that everyone in the canteen gazed at us as if we had planted bomb in the college.

He said – “Ajay Kumar, his father has gifted him a brand new Hyundai I10 and nowadays he is busy finding reasons to drive it. May be we can catch hold of him.”

Gaurav said “thanks Ashu, how could I forget that just yesterday he dropped me home. Peeyush you seem to be the most innocent of us, so why don’t you invite him for this? But it has to be quick; we have only three hours left.”

“Okay” – said Peeyush and was on his mission to appease and praise Ajay to get him in the gang.

Peeyush came back with Ajay in just 15 minutes – we were surprised and looked at each other. Abhijeet grabbed Peeyushe’s hand and took him to the other corner of canteen. He asked him – “How come he agreed so soon?

Peeyush told him “I did nothing; in fact he was coming to us with the same purpose”. “What do you mean by that?” asked Abhijeet again.

“He has one pass for today’s game and was looking for me to accompany him. I told him, we are already going, if you want to come then join us. He agreed and without saying anything the job was done” told Peeyush.

We all thanked God, as everything was on track. At around 7:00 pm we started for Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium from North campus. We were seven people into one tiny I10, five of us, Ajay and his friend Ankur.

Traffic was crawling on the ring road. It was 7:45 pm and we were waiting for our turn to park the car. The toss had already occurred by then, and Mumbai Indians were put on to bat by Delhi Daredevils.

Ashu said… “I hope we don’t end up listening to this commentary on FM.”

Now, our nerves started ticking, especially Gaurav’s. We were cursing Delhi’s traffic but it was of no use.

Then suddenly, our wicked mind worked and we were ready to ditch Ajay.

I said…. “Ajay, do you mind if you park the car and come, we will grab a seat for you and Ankur inside. Call me once you are done.”

Ajay said “Of- course, done.”

All the monsters smiled got down of the car and ran towards the entry gate. There was this news that Sachin is blazing guns and crowd outside was restless to get inside, so was our dear friend Gaurav.

“Oh man! We are going to miss it.”

“Neah Gaurav, we will make it”… said Abhijeet.

Suddenly, I had a look of shock on my face. We were almost at the entry gate.

I didn’t move an inch… poor Gaurav pushed me “Move Raghav, Sachin has scored some 30 runs in no time, we need to hurry.”

I turned back; behind me were all my dear pals in the queue. I gathered my courage and said “Tickets are …..”

“What tickets are….?” asked Peeyush.

“They are not with me, I realised it just now, they were in my college bag and that is in College library.”

Everyone went mad on me; Gaurav screamed “Are you nuts.”

“Sorry… I don’t know how I missed them but in excitement and in the hurry to reach here (with a pause) I forgot to keep them with me. It was in my mind till the last moment, though..”

“Ohh, Raghav tell me you are joking” said Gaurav

“I am really sorry Gaurav, I didn’t mean to do it.”

In the middle of all chaos and noise outside the stadium, there was a deep silence between five of us. Four of my friends were thirsty for my blood; I could see that clearly in their frozen red eyes. Slowly, we moved away from the main queue.

Insult to an injury was to see Ajay and his friend Ankur getting inside the stadium. It was around 9:15 pm. We dispersed to our respective directions and headed to our homes.

Next day in the morning, I received a message from Gaurav, it said –

“Sachin scored awesome 63 runs, we could not watch. The home team lost, that was too depressing. We had tickets but we forgot to carry and all courtesy to you, what a FIASCO! Come to college, we are eagerly waiting for you” – Gaurav, Peeyush, Abhijeet and Ashutosh.

Have you read adventures of Raghav Part 1 and Part 2…… if no, then you have missed out something really interesting…..below are the links.

Part 1 – Sky Diving – short adventure story

Part 2 – Rafting Adventure – a short story with more adventure.

Raghav's IPL adventure - Part 3 - Short adventure story, 6.7 out of 10 based on 9 ratings