Image Credit; Vijitha

At Indiaspecial.net most of us call each other Dada. Dada takes a few turns here and there – Dada becomes Bhai like Hussain Bhai and sometimes Thambi, as in Raman Thambi.

But to us Dada always meant Big Brother.

Talking of Dada, there is only one person who comes to everybody’s mind – none other than the Prince of Kolkata – Sourav Ganguly.  We, the dadas of Indiaspecial.net are certainly fans of Indian cricket and most of all, the real Dada of our times.

This article is a tribute to Sourav Ganguly – The Dada of India who announced his retirement from cricket, today. Apparently, he would bid good bye to international cricket after the Border-Gavaskar trophy series, with Australia this season.

I have a special connection with Dada. I have not spoken to anyone about this till date as I was not sure if it would be taken in the right spirit. But hey ! I couldn’t stop myself coming out – What better time than now.

Here’s the story.

My childhood days were spent in Calcutta. We used to live in a small town called Behala. Dada’s house was just a kilometer away from our house in a place called Chourasta. I used to study in the school called Vivekananda Mission. Since the school was a co-ed, I was pally with many of the girls and one such girl was a sweet hear of mine, those days (Now don’t try to put this into my wife’s ears. She knows it already).

This childhood sweetheart went to the same song and dance institute where Dona Ganguly studied. As the days passed and we got into our early teens, there were many peeping toms who frequented that place to get a glimpse of the future dancing queens and singing sensations of the world.

While I pitched for one of the singing sensations, there was someone else who batted his life for the dancing queen. No prizes for guessing who it was. We met, we talked and we played a couple of games of cricket in this ground called Douglas ground – friendly matches, though. Douglas ground was in an ideal location – a few meters away from Sokher Bazaar and Behala Chourasta.

As the years passed by, I moved out of Calcutta for health reasons, left cricket and lived day dreaming that one day my childhood sweetheart would come to me and we would lead a happy life – That never happened. May be because I was a loser or may be I was destined for someone else – I’d like to believe the latterJ

But one person lived his dream. Sourav da whom I knew as an extremely nice and gentle youngster, went on to become one of India’s greatest cricket captains.

And not just that – he kept his word. He married his childhood sweetheart, a feat very few of us only dream of. And now he planned his exit strategy at the end of the India-Australia series, to exit in style – No wonder people call him The Royal Bengal Tiger and The Prince of Kolkata.  

Hope you have a “Royal Exit”, Dada !

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