I’ve never carried a bucket list. Never believed in them.

All I had were dreams. No plans. No checkboxes. Just some wildly unrealistic, fragments of comatose dreams – left untouched for so long they got buried under a thick layer of dust.

Buried but not dead.

I rarely chased them down with intent but always ended up fighting for them with everything I had in me. Not by design. Not by calculation. But with pure, stubborn, and unexplainable passion.

I don’t know if there exists a God or any order to this chaos but what I do know is that I’ve been blessed with the rarest of chances to fulfill the wildest of my dreams.

I was 6 when I first cried over a lost cricket match. What followed is a story of eternal longing. Fought over the TV remote for a mere glimpse of my heroes, changed batteries of the old radio in the hopes of catching live commentary over the AM signal, watched the entire 7 PM news everyday just to get a score update.

Glued to the TV screen I would often wonder what magic must people feel to be present there if this much of it bleeds through these ordinary pixels.

They say Lord’s is the ‘Home of Cricket’. To me it felt more like the temple where my lifelong ache found its resting spot. Every speck of dirt on that ground has witnessed more cricket than I’ll ever hope to in my lifetime. So when an opportunity to watch a test match at this sacred venue turned up, I booked my tickets before committing to my next breath. 

What makes it even more special is how people react when I tell them that I traveled thousands of miles, all alone, just to watch a test match – that too when my own country wasn’t playing in it! From the Heathrow immigration officer to Wasim Jaffer (met him at the airport) – all reacted in the same way – raised brows, widened eyes, mouth slightly agape – I’m no stranger to this, “Are you crazy!” look. And I couldn’t be prouder of myself for that!

Something I’ve learned from this incredible experience is that,

Do it alone. Do it scared. Do it in tears, if you have to.

There will be a thousand voices trying to rationalize why you shouldn’t. Fight for your dreams even then. Especially then.

Because that’s the only thing you owe back to this beautiful universe – to show the courage to pursue your ethereal dreams.