Magical Morphy Richards!

It was a World Cup Final (Cricket); Minnows were pitted against Giants. Opting to Bat first, Minnows got thoroughly battered and limped to a paltry score. Everybody watching it / listening to the commentary gave up even the tiny little hope they had on Minnows by the time the demolition was over.

I was a little boy with unlimited optimism back then. Not the one to call it quits, I wanted to make this team win!

So what did I do?

While listening to the radio commentary (no Internet back then), I switched off the Radio and turned it on again after some gap. Giants have gone from 'No Loss' to 'One wicket down' meanwhile.

I listened for some more time and grew frustrated as no wickets were falling and runs were getting scored heavily.

So I switched off the radio, took a short walk, came back to listen to the commentary...Giants were Two down!

I sensed something was in the air (magic may be the right word!) - 'I have been suddenly given the power to alter the course of an important event!' - this was a tremendous revelation!

From that moment, I would listen, switch off, switch on, listen, switch off (you get the drift eh?) like a ritual and every single time I turned the radio off, a wicket fell!!!

Morphy Richards, the Vacuum Tube Radio I clung on to listen to the commentary, became a magical wand and using it, I helped Minnows beat the Giants by a very thin margin! 

India defeated West Indies to clinch the world cup, the year was 1983.

For a long while I was convinced that 'I' influenced the course of the match towards the trophy!

Even now, many of my folks resort to unusual stuff like 'not shifting their place/posture throughout the match' to 'not watching it at all' thinking that doing so would spell doom to their favourite team...

A friend of mine, now leading a global IT team, used to force his Grandma to hurry to a nearby temple once Sachin Tendulkar crossed 75. His instruction was the same every single time; "Keep doing pradakahan till I come and pick you up after he crosses 100. Don't stop. OK?". Poor lady would have cursed Sachin in every step she took...or maybe not...grandmas always come with a heart of gold, right? :-)

Radio gone (well, not entirely, yet), replaced by so many digital tools now which keep pushing live feed to our palms and eyes, but these idiosyncrasies may never vanish methinks :-)

Most recently a cousin of me lamented that India lost the world cup semi final because I did not join him to watch the match :-)