When I went to Calcutta on posting in November 1978 one day I visited the tent in the maidan at Esplanade.I played some table tennis.then i saw some players practising cricket.
I picked up the ball and bowled.Then when I was offered the bat I did practise batting.
It was a pleasant surprise for me when I found my name at the top of the list of sixteen players comprising the office team selected for the "B" Division cricket league matches in the city of Calcutta.
My first call came and I went and played against the Writer's Building team and our team won.
I got an over or two to bowl and gave away only a few runs.
The win came in the last alotted over when I got a four and a single and my partner too the winnning runs.

Even though I craved and yearned to go to the cricket field and play my beloved game of cricket I was always stuck to the office table with either a heap of files or some time bound work.

It was my first posting after training and I wanted to deliver the goods.
The four and a half years then passed by without my playing cricket even though I did watch the test matches even if for half a day.

Time passed by and I hardly ever saw the evenings as I was returning home late from work much after sunset.

My next posting was to Meerut and here I got an opportunity to organise cricket matches within the Divisions with the help of my senior colleague who was also an avid cricketer.

We had gone to a far off place called Cuttack in Orissa on the east coast of India on my father's posting there in 1963.It was a hot and humid place.The rains during the monsoons were torrential.

Children played football in muddy slushy conditions.The red soil gave colour to the splashes of wet mud on the clothes and bodies of the players.But I did not like to get all wet.

The school(Stewart) had options for games and sports of one's choice.

I played hockey for the school and house.

The coach for cricket took me in as I had already played it in the Hills of Himachal Pradesh.
With his coaching I picked up spin and googly bowling and perfected some batting shots.
I started playing in school and played with other children in the narrow lane of the first place I stayed in Chauliaganj.
I remember my classmate Mr. Sujit Kishore Das who was a good batsman for the school around the year 1964-65 and after studying at St.Stephen's Delhi later passed the IAS and joined the UP cadre in 1972-73.
On holidays we went to a ground somewhere near Naya Bazar. I remember having had a good time there with runs flowing from my bat all around and wickets tumbling to my spin bowling.
I also played in a club which had matches on the Railway Ground, OMP ground etc.
My "farm bulls" also played in the big ground in the farm-Vidyadharpur farm.We had also shifted to the bungalow in the CRRI farm.
I remember the pace bowler Mr. Murty and the Orissa schools opener Mr. Richharia,who stayed in the same campus of the farm and played with us.There were the Sandhu brothers one of whom was a left hand bowler.Another younger boy was Sharad Mathur who later got a short stint as a fast bowler for Orissa schools .

There were several players who came from the same college(Ravenshaw)e.g. Mr B.Das.
Some of them also played for the state in the Ranji Trophy and the East Zone e.g.Mr. Ramakant Mohanty.
I did play in the college/University and I think if I had continued I might have had a chance to get in to a bigger team but then I forsake the cricket ground for my B.Sc.Honours studies.
A big break from cricket from 1968 to 1978.
The only cricket coming in the form of a match at the IAS academy in Mussoorie when I went there for the foundational course training after joining the ICCES Group A service, on passing the IAS ETC Exam 1975.

In winter when the schools were closed in Simla and Solan we went to my father's place in the plains of Gangetic India or rather Yamuna plains.
It used to be very cold and we had children of other relatives all having holidays.
We had cricket amongst the cousins and nephews and neighbours.
I developed my batting and bowling accuracy in a narrow brick paved lane where there was no one staying.
It was our family's area where they had some godowns for grain and straw for the cows and buffalows.
Occasionally we would relish the freshly cut sugarcanes which came on bullock carts from our joint family's fields.

We were in Simla for a short period.
Shimla is the capital of Himachal Pradesh.
I was a student at Jesus & Mary convent for a few years.
We had no cricket here if I remember correctly.
When we moved to Solan further down in the Simla hills on way to Kalka we had cricket.
In the school we played cricket in the very small ground surrounded by valleys or "khuds".
Near the house there was another small ground and it too was surrounded by deep valleys.
We played enjoyable cricket here too.
The only problem was that if someone hit a good shot it would end up somewhere down the valley.
The fielding side would have a tough job clambering as fast down the valleys and then clambering up as fast as possible huffing and puffing.
The reason being that due to the rules made the batting side would not treat the shot as a four or six but go on taking as many runs as possible till the ball was retrieved and brought to the bowling crease.
Then there was a small ground just below the building of a Marwari Seth which later became the first office of the HP Agricultural University started at solan.
Here I remember playing with a rubber ball and perfecting a shot which took the ball on the rise and sent the ball over ones head and over the wicket keeper's head to the back of the ground usually for a six.

As a baby in the arms I must have watched out with my tiny eyes far on to the green grassy ground and wondered what the men in white were doing.
My father loved cricket and made it a point to watch all the test matches he could.
So it is little wonder that when I grew up a bit and went(was taken) to a sports goods shop I would not settle for a plastic bat and ball.
I selected an English willow bat and the red cherry(the real hard red coloured leather ball).
I loved the thump of the willow bat on to the red hard leather ball bowled to me by my father on the green grassy lawn on the side of our house.
Those child hood days playing real cricket are fond memories of a place and of my father who is up there some where among the stars.