When Cheteshwar Pujara's wife Puja bats for the cricketer

Puja Pujara recalls how her wedding to Cheteshwar Pujara (on February 13, 2013) had to be squeezed between two series—first against England and then Australia. They skipped their honeymoon so he could join the training camp. Pics courtesy/The Diary of a Cricketer’s Wife

Though my fiance and I were in our courtship phase, I had not really had any meaningful glimpse of his professional career, mainly because he didn't talk about it too much and I did not like to probe.

When I look back, I marvel at the irony of it all; there was a copious amount of information available online about his cricketing career, and yet I never bothered to browse in-depth on the net to find out about it. Somehow, at the time, I had felt that it would be more natural to let that side of him unfold through his eyes instead of absorbing it impersonally through third-person narratives.

Puja recalls being taken aback when her face was splashed across newspapers - including this November 16, 2012 sports page from mid-day - after Cheteshwar scored 206 against England

We settled down to watch the opening session. Gautam Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag opened the match. The former got out at 45 and Cheteshwar walked onto the crease - and that is when I had my second taste of media attention. It came as quite a shock. Our faces had been splashed in the newspapers extensively enough barely a week earlier, but the blissful anonymity that had ensued till this point had lulled me to believe that I was not interested enough to merit any further press coverage. Subsequent events soon put paid to this false piece of optimism.

Sehwag, from the little I understood of the game, played a scintillating innings, scoring 117 runs with a strike rate of 100 per cent. A loud cheer reverberated around the stadium when he was bowled by Graeme Swann. ‘Why are they roaring when the poor guy has got out - that too after scoring a century?' I wondered.

I did not know then that the stadium had come alive, because Sachin Tendulkar, the demi-god of the cricketing world, was trotting in to replace Sehwag at the crease. He had debuted for India on the same date 23 years ago, as a 16-year-old. The crowd was ecstatic. Unfortunately, he got out at 13.

Cheteshwar stood his ground at the other end, and a couple of times when he hit a boundary, the cameras focused on me. Utterly self-conscious, I sported a constant smile on my face - good shot, bad shot, it did not matter - not that I knew much of what was happening in the game in any case. My facial muscles started aching. Valiantly, I persevered on, wondering if I would ever smile again.

Cheteshwar is joined on the field by Puja and their daughter Aditi as he wins his Hundredth Test cap in 2023

This particular bout of media intrusion was just the harbinger of a string of seemingly never-ending woes. All of a sudden, I was inundated with a host of random messages. Matters did not improve. Soon people started approaching me; a patently peculiar experience that increased my sense of unease.

I stared at the steadily burgeoning crowd, with a spurious smile still pasted steadfastly on my face, wishing with all my might that I could turn into a latter-day Sita and invoke the earth to part and swallow me whole because, quintessentially, I was a very private person. I had never dealt with people in such large numbers before. If there had been an invisibility cloak handy, I would have grabbed it.

At the close of day, Cheteshwar was batting at 98 and Yuvraj Singh at 24. The Pujara family was naturally disinclined to abandon its illustrious scion at such a critical stage of his innings, and decided to stay back at Ahmedabad for the night.

The decision was worth it. Cheteshwar, taught to put a premium on his bat, carried it through and remained not-out at 206, when India declared the innings after amassing 521 runs with only eight wickets down. Even I, a cricket-novice, understood the significance of the achievement.

Cheteshwar was on a high when I met him after the day's play. Caught up with the general sense of elation, I said: "You have no idea how happy everyone is - and we're all thrilled to bits that you got your double hundred - it's truly amazing - " He cut me short. "This is truly amazing - what we have is truly amazing - this feels - " he paused, groping for the right word.

Pic/Getty Images

"This feels complete," I said, finishing the sentence for him. His eyes twinkled in response. I understood what he left unsaid. The fact that I had finished his sentence had just served to underline his point: this was complete; we were complete; we completed each other. It was a magical moment and his words never left me.

Cheteshwar and I were having our customary nightly chat over the phone. He mentioned in passing that he was expecting to meet some acquaintances shortly. Soon afterwards, he took off and I thought no more of it.

Twenty minutes later, he called me up, shaken. His voice kept cracking because he was on the elevator and the signal was poor. I could not make out what he was trying to say, but it was clear that he was bursting to share some news with me.

"I can't hear you properly," I complained.

"Just hold on, I'm about to reach my room. I need to tell you something," he muttered, his voice suddenly loud and clear.

I heard him unlocking the door of his room and then latching it a few seconds later. By now I was brimming with curiosity.

He came back on the line. "You remember I was telling you about these people I was going to meet?"

"Yes," I admitted, cautiously.

Cheteshwar's story, the way he told it, bore close resemblance to a Grimm's fairy tale with a burlesque ending, in which he appeared to have starred as a somewhat naïve male version of Little Red Riding Hood. The big bad wolf in this instance turned out to be a young thirteen (maybe fourteen) year old girl.

In plain English, he met this family of four to five people who were friends of some friends. They asked for a photograph with him. He obliged. They wanted an autograph. He duly signed the bat produced by their son, who it appears was younger than his more intrepid sister. Just before they left, their young teenage daughter ventured to give him a quick hug and a chaste peck on the cheek to wish him good luck for his upcoming test match in Bombay, with her parents looking on benignly!

He ended his tale a tad disjointedly trying to soothe what he imagined would be my highly ruffled feathers by pointing out somewhat defensively, "I couldn't do anything. It happened so quickly."

I burst out laughing.

My amusement went unregistered and after a slight pause, avowedly determined to unburden himself, he continued in a stiff and embarrassed voice, ‘I thought I should tell you.'

Still, in whoops, I chortled loudly and said, ‘Cheteshwar she's only thirteen! Why are you even telling me about it? In fact, why are you even thinking about it?'

He grunted. His sense of humour had clearly gone abegging.

Excerpted with permission from The Diary of a Cricketer's Wife by Puja Pujara with Namita Kala, HarperCollins Publishers India