Couldn't be much more from the heart

A very very long time ago, when I was graduating school and Internet was in its infancy, results of our board examinations were published online. there were queues of students and their tense parents outside these little cyber cafes waiting to know their fate. For the uninitiated cyber cafes were establishments with a number of computers which had internet connection. The results would be announced at midnight or some such ungodly hour and a little before that time, people would start milling in and around these cyber cafes, in expectation, hope and trepidation. None of these people knew what the future holds. Will the internet allow so many connections at a time? will the server crash? When i put in my roll number would I be able to view my results? These and many more questions hung around like little clouds in the air. You could cut the tension with a knife. As the heart rates went up, the conversations grew sparse. I also remember these ancient websites had a countdown which was invariably in a red font on grey background. First they would count down days, then hours, then when it was down to the seconds there was absolute silence. This is it, this is the moment. 

The wonder and excitement of that moment was so pure, one built up with such genuine anticipation and subsequent joy, that I was pretty sure that it was something I would never feel again. Everything is so easily accessible now. Everything is at our fingertips quite literally, hence there is no real sense of achievement when you finally get it. 

But I was wrong. Yesterday I felt that - that unadulterated sugar-rush inducing all-encompassing exhilaration. 

So 28 February 2024, 10 AM CET is when the 2024 French Open premium tickets were to go on sale. We had planned this way ahead and we had thought we will be doing it together. But Joy had to go to Kolkata for his mother's surgery so we would be doing this from different cities. We were logged in from our different systems. I did not send Koko to school so that he can also sit with the iPad. We were counting down the hours, to minutes and then to those heart attack inducing last few seconds. With modern tech, the queues cannot be seen. But there was a cute tennis racquet holding icon who would go up and down an orange line indicating your position in the queue. 

As the seconds were over and the page said that you will be auto assigned a queue number, we waited to know what would be our allotted position. My nails are barely there anymore. No one cares about them. 

Finally the number appeared. We were frantically toggling between tabs, between systems, between individuals and between cities. Who would have the most probability to get it. On one of my log ins the number was 15,000 and something. The other one was 6000, I said. From the other end of the line you said you are at 40,000.  Sigh! this will be a long and torturous wait. 

But hold on you say, on one other system you are at one hundred and seventy. 170! Wow, that is luck. Someone said (someone being the hundreds of blogs which i had read to mug up all possible best practices for this venture) all you need is patience, luck and a steady internet. Alright, we have the most unpredictable element on our side. 

While my orange guys with their racquet were moving at a glacial pace, you were in within like 5 mins. We now had 45 mins to browse and select our seats. we got perfect seats, all together, straight viewing, the inclusive French food and wine sounds great - this is it! Buy it, Koko says. Buy it, I say. Let's do this, you say. This is all too good to be true. And you know what happens when things get that way right? They are!

Strangely, your credit card does not go through. No problem, try mine. It does not work. OMG, our time is running out, you try two other merchants, they fail. It's ok, we will figure something out. Yes, let's get money from fixed deposits to our main account and pay from there. That gets declined too, on both our cards. 

At this point in time I feel like i shall spontaneously combust - I have the damn money, I have the credit line, I am ready to pay - but it just does not work. What is this? The timer is running out. Wait, my orange guy at 6000 is almost in. we will still get some seats. But the issue with premium seats are that they are less in number - about 10-25 in each section and they get sold out within minutes. 

I call up my bank, they have an AI lady who thinks she is smart but she is stupid. She keeps repeating the same thing, so I have to get around her and get to an actual person. Gurpreet tries her best to solve my problem but she is none the wiser about why this got declined. In the mean time Joy and i are talking to each other on Facetime. Koko has given up, he gives me a hug and says - I know this was important for you, sorry. I have said my sorrys to myself already. Thinking in my head, this will be a good story to reminisce later. The time when we almost went to Roland Garros. 

You hang up, you're getting a call. You are talking to your friend Prapti who is also trying to get tickets. She says why don't you use my card, but those beautiful perfect seats are gone by now. You get a phone from your bank in the meantime - they declined the transaction because they thought it was a fraud. No, no, not a fraud - I am trying to buy stuff, I am trying to spend my money you tell them. 

But what's the point now, no tickets are left. We absent mindedly talk about how we were close, yet so far. I'm singing Nothing Else Matters in my head. Koko is reading Harry Potter. I don't know what is Joy's coping mechanism. Suddenly he says, wait, what if we are not sitting together. Two tickets just got free. At this point it just seems like empty rumination, so I go along. But Joy is not one to give up - so what if we are not sitting together - it's just three people in a row anyway. 

And he gets it, these are not absolutely in the front, but these are still premium tickets. OMG, are we really actually for real and in flesh and blood going to the clay courts or Philippe Chartrier? Yes yes and yes! 

Remember that absolute, pure, unadulterated all-sugar high? This is even better. IT's been 24 hours and I'm still processing it, this is to process it - to make it real.