Eden Gardens, Wimbledon and Old Trafford remain on my bucket list, but there's something about the 'home ground' and I consider dusty, crumbling, rude and patronizing Wankhede mine.

As I joined the century-long queue at the Wankhede with a horde of people anticipating a century of a different sort, I knew what the Buddha was talking about- I felt at one with the world. There was one word on every lip and in every heart in that queue- Sachin.

I entered to find Viru and Ganbhir going about their business. Bombay made up for Kolkata's absconding- the openers' solidity was rewarded by the vociferous chants we reserve for our own...till the administrators at the Wankhede flashed His face onto the giant screen. All alse was promptly forgotten.

How much love can a person receive? It was 'Sachin, Sachin' on every lip again, and Viru and Gambhir went about their work, forgotten. We were waiting, and our urgency was beginning to be palpable. Ask anyone at the grounds how Gambhir got out. Chances are they won't know. What they will remember is that awkward moment when the finger went up, when the second of obligatory silence was followed by a deafening roar that erupted without thought, straight from the heart. How much happiness can a person spread by his mere presence?

We were united, heart and soul, from that moment on. Sachin might be India's son, but Wankhede is his home ground. Our 'moriya!'s made sure he remembered. His arrival brought on a pandemonium that lasted every ball and reached a crescendo at 94 not out. How can a person infuse so much energy into so many?

And then, a sheer drop into sheer silence. Stunned faces. Despair. A thousand hearts stopped simultaneously, the carnival was suddenly a funeral. He wasn't to reach his pinnacle at home, we were to be denied, but our spirits would be with him in Australia, where surely it would come. Perhaps this was retribution for the booing of 2006? So close, yet so far...as we stood to applaud him back to the pavilion, we wondered, how can one person break so many hearts?

The silence settled around us as we let the pain sink in. But we are not the raucous, unsporting Wankhede for nothing and we are not to be beaten. We had a renewed chant for our hero- "We Want Follow-on!"

Anything for Tendlya. Anything.