Sometime in July this year, my google notification popped up
and asked me to click on the link showcasing the photos of this day, ten years ago.
Intrigued… I click on the link and traverse down the memory
lane.
04th of July 2008 …
It all began the previous day over an innocent remark about
some article on that day’s tabloid about the happenings at Wimbledon. With exams drawing to a close we had a little
breather and were thinking of chilling out.
Feeni, my classmate from Pakistan suggested we give it a go. As students on shoe string we thought the tickets would be expensive . Wimbledon in my mind was also associated with a place where the high and mighty of the corporate worlds and the socialite’s hob-nob while they watch the Tennis matches as well.
Feeni, my classmate from Pakistan suggested we give it a go. As students on shoe string we thought the tickets would be expensive . Wimbledon in my mind was also associated with a place where the high and mighty of the corporate worlds and the socialite’s hob-nob while they watch the Tennis matches as well.
One of our friends educated us. While it was a place where
the who’s who possessed season tickets year on year to watch the best of matches at the center court, everyday, there were
tickets available for as low as ten pounds, for tennis lovers which let you
enter and watch any match at the Wimbledon championships except the center court. However, we were warned the queue would be
long and the wait much longer. Moreover,
there was no guarantee that we would get the tickets to enter the championships
leave alone the center court.
Even if we did, we would get to see some inconsequential match at the
Wimbledon and tick it off our bucket list.
Thus, began our conquest to the Wimbledon on that warm and
bright day at 6.00 am in the morning. By
about 7.30 am we were at the Wimbledon entrance and were astonished at the
queue. There were students like us and
tennis lovers from all over the world who would not be able to afford a proper
Wimbledon season ticket, but were committed nevertheless to watch the sport.
It was English summer and the sun had risen early. There was a slight nip in the air when we
joined the serpentine queue to try our luck with the subsidized tickets.
We were not too disappointed. Our ticket queue numbers were 242
AND 243. Going by the sleeping bags and mats, we guessed the ones much ahead
of us were the ones who had come really early in the morning or had camped
overnight.
For me and Feeni, my classmate from Pakistan it was a part
of our blind list. We just wanted to be
there and experience it all. We did not follow Tennis and were not a great fan
of the sport.
Setting out to a place you have never been to before, to
have no expectation and to just go with the flow is the best part of the ‘blind
list’. It can never be a list, but just
an agenda to be open and go with the flow.
That is what we were determined to do that day.
Killing and indefinite amount of time waiting for our turn
was not difficult at all.
Me and Feeni got talking.
We were not thick friends, just acquaintances as we attended a few
classes together. She was from Pakistan,
but bore a striking resemblance to a Malayali colleague of mine from my previous
job in India and every time I saw her I would wonder if they were twins.
When we got talking she said her ancestors were from India
and while she did does not remember the place where they were from, they spoke
a language that could be spelled just the same from left to right. That
confirmed to me the ethnic connections. Feeni
spoke Urdu and English.
Not a word of Malayalam.
Not a word of Malayalam.
It may sound cliched, but only as we got talking, I realized
there were so many culturally common things between people of the two countries or for that matter all of the world. World over people are driven by the same things. A sense of identity, the need to be loved and to love.
Where we differed as we steered our discussion was when we got talking about politics, history and particularly the Partition of 1947. Feeni had her perspective on the partition while I had mine. This is what our respective history books and television programs had taught us.
Where we differed as we steered our discussion was when we got talking about politics, history and particularly the Partition of 1947. Feeni had her perspective on the partition while I had mine. This is what our respective history books and television programs had taught us.
That opened me up to a very different perspective that I had
not imagined earlier. No matter how open we think we are, we are all so
limited by our view of the world around us!!!
By about 10.30am the gates to Wimbledon opened for the day. We were given to understand that depending upon the number of ticket holders and pass holders that were visiting, the queue for the
subsidized tickets would be cleared. In short,
we were dependent on how many socialites and the corporate big wigs decide to
visit Wimbledon and watch some tennis that day.
Luckily it was a week day, and early in the Wimbledon season. We were
hopeful.
I finished reading ‘A thousand splendid suns' by Khalid Hosseini
which was in the best-selling list of that year while we lay on a sleeping mat
taking in the warmth of English summer. It was a hard-hitting book and its
melancholy lingered on much after I had finished the last page.
Not a great mind set to have for an exciting day ahead, I
thought to myself, desperately hoping that the queue ahead of us would clear up
and we would get to go inside.
A few hours on, my wishes would come true. It is about mid
afternoon and we get to enter the Lawn tennis championships entrance gate.
It was a riot thereafter.
It was a riot thereafter.
At the 'today's match fixtures' board we note the qualifying matches for the day. Federer, Nadal were part of
the day's fixtures. Martina Navratilova and Leander Paes, two of my favorites were
going to play a mixed doubles. But the
icing on the cake was a Ladies doubles quarter final match between N Dechy / C Dellacqua and S Williams / V Williams at the center court later in the
evening.
The sun was shining and HSBC was offering free strawberry and
cream for their account holders. I have never been a prouder customer of HSBC. Through
the day, I helped myself thrice with bowls of Strawberry and cream flashing my
credit card, debit card and my flexi card. Those were the good old days when we
were oblivious to the Global financial crisis that would hit the banks, world
over in just a month ahead in August 2008. Those were days of opulence and plenty
and so the free Strawberry and cream flowed.
Apparently Strawberry and cream were introduced as a
tradition in Wimbledon in 1877 and served to about 200 spectators.
History has it that Wimbledon’s connection with Strawberries and cream began during the reign of King Henry VIII. Thomas Wolsey, a powerful figure in the king’s court, served the dish at a banquet in 1509. Later, Wolsey built a grand palace that is known today as the Hampton Court Palace. It was here that Strawberries and cream were served to the spectators who came to the Royal Tennis court. By the time the first Wimbledon tournament began in 1877, strawberries and cream were trendy and in season given it was summer. It was considered a delicacy and given its limited shelf life, it became a favorite among the wealthy spectators who patronized the sport.
History has it that Wimbledon’s connection with Strawberries and cream began during the reign of King Henry VIII. Thomas Wolsey, a powerful figure in the king’s court, served the dish at a banquet in 1509. Later, Wolsey built a grand palace that is known today as the Hampton Court Palace. It was here that Strawberries and cream were served to the spectators who came to the Royal Tennis court. By the time the first Wimbledon tournament began in 1877, strawberries and cream were trendy and in season given it was summer. It was considered a delicacy and given its limited shelf life, it became a favorite among the wealthy spectators who patronized the sport.
I was thrilled to watch Leander Paes and Martina Navratilova pair up for a mixed doubles match at one of the outer courts. Later in the evening, we managed to get a free entry pass into the center court. (if the center court is not full, some entry passes are given to subsidized ticket holders to enter the center court for a limited period of time to watch the match in progress.)
I could not believe my good fortune as Serena and Venus Williams made
their entry for a doubles match against Nathalie Dechy and Casey Dellacqua for the
ladies’ doubles quarter finals. Up and close to Venus and Serena Williams at
the Wimbledon center court made it feel truly surreal.
The day ended on a really high note as the Williams sisters effortlessly
won the quarter finals match.
That is what happens when you open yourself to possibilities that you
think did not exist.
Who would have thought as a student on a shoe string budget, I would get
to watch Venus and Serena Williams at Wimbledon center court if I had not
listened around and made it to the Wimbledon on a whim.
Excited, contended and tired by the end of the day, I stepped out of
Wimbledon but not before picking up another free bowl of Strawberry and cream
at the HSBC counter before stepping out and heading to the Southfields tube
station.
#TheBlindList and #SayYesToTheWorld,
https://youtu.be/3g6dDFy3d8o
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