It has been a busy, exciting two days at the sleepy Shyamali Colony in Doranda, north Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand.
Cameramen and journalists have been impatiently swarming about a modest home, fronted by beds of flowers, in this staunchly middle-class neighbourhood. And a posse of Jharkhand police have hovered protectively, making certain peace is maintained. In town, a few kilometres away, fans have been delightedly distributing mithai.
This season of jubilation has not affected the residents of this quiet home -- Pan and Devki Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's parents.
They are, as always, calm and collected.
Pan Singh, who only heard the news of his son's appointment as India's ODI captain, when the story broke on television does not overflow with emotions when rediff.com spoke to him on Wednesday night. "Achcha laga", he says.
Says a friend of the family: "They are very down to earth people. Always cool and composed. Never the type of people to get very happy or very sad. His mother was somewhat more jubilant."
The Uttarakhand Association in Ranchi held a small puja a few streets away, on Tuesday, to celebrate the success of one of their own. Dhoni's family migrated to Ranchi from Almora in Uttarakhand. Pan and and Devki Singh attended the puja.
The taciturn Pan Singh says he has not had an opportunity to speak to his son yet. Nor is he sure when he will meet him next. Ever since Dhoni began playing cricket nationally his time has not been his own -- hectic schedules and Ranchi's awkward flight connections have not permitted that many visits home.
Pan Singh denies feeling any anxiety for the expectations that will henceforth be placed on his son, now that he leads the Indian team against the world champions in a domestic series next month. His outlook is to take things as they come.
When Dhoni's new home, which is still under construction a few kilometres away, was attacked by a mob unhappy with his performance in World Cup 2007 in March, it was a trying time for the family. The ups and downs of a volatile public must be difficult for the parents to handle, but about that too Pan Singh is more fatalistic than bitter.
"If the the public wants to behave that way, what can I do?" he says. After the incident the family secured the full support of the Jharkhand government, which is the reason for the presence of police at their home.
And are friends, family and fans surprised that this boy, with humble roots in a small city of Jharkhand, is today the head of India's cricket team? Says Dr Anil Kumar, a psychiatrist attached to the Ispat Hospital, Shyamali Colony (where Dhoni was born), a long-time family friend and fellow Uttarakhandi, "He was always passionately involved in cricket. And very motivated."
Meanwhile neighbours remember the cricket-crazy little boy who was always pleading for a chance to join any game played at the colony grounds. He ran errands, getting paan for folks in exchange for a chance to bat.
That eager youngster, who, since Monday, holds perhaps the most difficult job in India after the prime minister, was often denied a chance to bat because he was too small.
Image: Rahul Dravid and the man who replaced him as India's ODI captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, during a shoot for an advertisement in Hyderabad on January 16, 2007. Photograph: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images
