The Hoola-Hoopla and the 100th one !!

Most of you might have guessed from the title as to what this is going to be all about.


Nevertheless let me just say it. Yes it's about Sachin Tendulkar.


This person I feel has achieved almost everything you want in this game. He has been the captain, the backbone of the team, the part time bowler- turned- savior, the highest run-getter, an icon to the almost entire cricket fraternity and what not.. To top it all, wining the World Cup has probably made his career come full circle.


He's been a part of teams that ranged from being tagged the best ones to worst ones. One thing that has remained constant is his ever-lasting love for the game and the sole objective of being able to play. Just Play !


For a long time now, everybody has been talking about this person and the record he is on the verge of. Everybody, except one person - Sachin Tendulkar

The media goes in a frenzy, people start speculations, twitter trending begins, facebook shows what's on people's minds and this person is there out in the field just like any other day in office !
Yes, he knows that the nation may pause for a second or more, yes an entire nation, if he achieves what everyone is waiting for.

Amongst all this there is a segment of criticizers, analyzers who have thoughts of their own. A few typical ones :
# "India never wins when Sachin plays well"
# "Sachin only plays for himself and not the team"
# "He is always nervous in the ninties"

I say..Ok..so.. your point is .. ??

Aren't these thoughts individualistic? If not, aren't these based on the buzz surrounding all this.
Why in the world, does such a thought come into your mind?

Trying to carve out a niche for yourself, then better do it against a plethora of people who think otherwise.
Sachin never said "I am Great". He never said "I am the best". He never said "I am a match winner". He never said "I can always score a 100". He never said anything. Period.

I confess that I am a huge Sachin fan. But this advocacy is not a result of me being a fan. It is something that disturbs me with regard to this segment's inability to comprehend these facts.

I will rather certainly have these same strong reactions, for any blatant criticism against Rahul Dravid or Anil Kumble or VVS Laxman. For those, who know the game and the people who play it, will understand why specifically these names have been mentioned.

And precisely yes, none of these, none, have self claimed greatness. Then why do you single out Sachin. Let the blatant criticism engulf these people. Why the leniency in some cases?

What I probably feel is, greater the buzz, louder you go against, better "footage" you get !
What utter crap, if this is true !!

This person has been relentlessly doing his job for the past 22 years. Can everybody just cut him some slack and let him do what he does best. Play. !!

I am sure he is more than eager to achieve what everybody wants him to do. For God's sake, it's his personal milestone in the first place. Whether the team wins as result of that or not is a different story altogether. The nation's expectations being fulfilled is the last facet in this scenario. Yes, I may seem confused by saying that it's his personal milestone, but then why not.

Why should not a person doing his job for a duration, most of the cricketing fraternity has never seen before, consider it his personal milestone ?

How often do you find a person with mega massive achievements and not going ballistic about them. How often do you find a person being criticized for things which are beyond his control and he not retaliating back. How often do you find a person getting along equally well with his team mates - young or old. How often do you find a person so good at what he does and being criticized at the same time for not being the best.

I fail to understand this Hoola-Hoopla, completely, in the entire sense of it.

Let the man do his job. Let him enjoy. Learn from him and you will enjoy too.

A Legend that he is, hope his legacy continues !

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - A salute !



dtd - - 13/1/12

Void.

I had never been wanting something so badly in my life...

Never had this feeling, craving, the "why not?" feeling....
I always accepted what came to me naturally, without hassles, without any
extravagant efforts and nothing "awesome" in general.

But this time its different. I want it to happen and want it to happen
badly...too badly I can say !! What prompted this, that I don't know and even
I cant understand. Why this is happening is another big question for me. Its
complicated... Its really complicated.. heavily !!

Sometimes I feel its just a test...and I might as well get success in it.
Tests are supposed to be for something which you know. But in this case .. I
think, I am just heading into it without even a glimpse of the syllabus.
The more I think about it, the more confusing it gets.

Its been a pretty easy journey for me up till now... I mean comparatively,
yes, its been good. But this one thing, I am struggling a lot ..

I think it is going to be one hell of a journey...

I win it or lose it .. Only time will tell . But one thing is for sure .. I
am going to fight for it .. fight for it hard .. This one thing I have to
struggle for... and I will take it head-on !




P.S : - Now that you have read it, let the speculations begin and prevail !!!


dtd - 12/8/11

The Day after SRT !! - A Tribute

The evening of April 23rd 1973 was an ordinary one you would think, Lord our god was havin a regular day, his friends were outside playing cricket. He wanted to join but was too busy making designs & attending to complaints. His friends mocked him, his mom was like, "atta kuthehi jaycha naiye khelayla.kama kara!".He so wanted to play.but determined & powerful as he was he said, "Baas, udya dakhavtoch!". then dawned the pious morning of 24th April 1973 & his show that started on February the 15th 1989 hasn't stopped!

That was the day mankind was blessed with hope, talent, determination, inspiration & that smacking cover-drive. God said "let there be a player for those who can't play, cuz maybe they are busy, have duties, are ill equipped in any way, have dreams, lack determination, need inspiration, need addictions, need something to take their mind off things, are disabled, basically for all mortals.Karachi drew flak but confirmed entry, But ."Mai Khelega" hinted longevity & determination.

Manchester '90 hinted at genius, Chennai '93 claimed singularitySydney '92 meant prodigal; Perth '92 was magical, Colombo '94 implied belonging; Nottingham '96 confirmed geniusCape Town '97 was princely, Sharjah '98 confirmed coronationDhaka '99 displayed performance; Bristol '99 showed passion, responsibility & emotions Chepauk '99 was tragic, hinted human; Chepauk '99 & '08 confirmed peerless & granted redemption Natwest '03 showed adaptability & commitment, Sydney '04 hinted @ sainthood, Dhaka '04 was comeback, Hamilton '09 was Supremacy Re-BornSydney '08 exorcised the demons; Eden Gardens '10 was another step.Jaipur'10 confirmed God! Wankhede, Mumbai '11 should not matter.

Forest Gump was a fictitious character who ran for little more than 3 years & won Oscars, this man (?) has been running for more than 20 and still draws flak for the Ferrari! The journey from Shivaji Park to Wankhede of little more than 10 kms takes about 30 minutes by local train, this particular one has lasted 21 years and features more than 30000 instances of running up & down that 22 yard strip. Sometime in the near future he will stop running, take off his guards, hang his boots as they say, put his feet up & enjoy a cheesy-fatty burger & beer for breakfast. Slowly he will be able to do the small things he craves like having the Kirti college wada-pav, hanging out at Marine drive with old pals, not driving the Ferrari, attending award functions or having dinner at Hilton. Sometime in the near future the shoulders will heave a sigh of relief, the fingers will straighten, the heels will cool, the painkillers will stop, the lower back support will come off and the only the eyes will moisten at mentions of Chepauk, Sharjah, Perth & Shivaji Park. He will have done his part, it's another matter whether the people will be satisfied or not. It's not in his hands. Math suggests he will have, but destiny takes over where math ends. We can just Hope & pray.

It's a reality we have to face; and the sooner we accept it the better it will be for us. Ours is a country living in nostalgia & hope, nothing wrong in that. But, sometimes in reminiscing & dreaming we forget to revere the present. Remember in school when after a typical mathematics exam we used to ask the teacher, "Will we get marks for steps?" We had an idea the answer will be wrong, but somehow to us that didn't mean we had not put in efforts. To our parents it always did. Ends should not be a judge of the commitment put in the means. Remember how our parents did not let us go out for a night out to our friend's farmhouse cuz we were too young @ 17 to do that & it was outside city limits? He was 16, travelling to a country with whom we had fought 3 wars, which remains to this day our biggest enemy & whose bowlers thought that getting a batsman 'out' was to get him to not be physically able to play the next delivery. From the foggy, bloody Karachi morning of February 15th, the dusty Sharjah night, the chilly Manchester morning, the hot Chepauk afternoon to the divine Jaipur evening the journey has attracted all the adjectives this language had to offer. Now we resort to mere sounds, intonations & swear words."Gacchi dakhavli.", "Kadak!", "aaaaaaiiicchhhya gaavat!!!" & "baba laagle" sadly cannot be termed as adjectives.

Coaching, sport merchandising, FMCG & advertising industries were riding solely on him for years, more critics & 'experts' have made money on him than you can imagine, more people must have retired from cricket after he started playing than people appearing on reality shows, every time a teenager shined, his throne was said to be in danger. But he stood. Lasted. All the Graeme Hicks, Saeed Anwars, Inzamams, Pietersens, Pontings, Shane Warnes, Wasim & Waqars, Donalds of the world have come and gone, they just were not enough to deter him. There is no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow, but in this world of seeming chaos there is one order that it is impossible to hide the sun after he rises. There will be prodigies, there will be displays of brilliance, statistics suggests that there might even be someone who will manage to score more runs...but will there be a better on-drive, a more sonorous cover-drive, more conviction in a straight drive, more nirvana in that raised bat, a more joyous celebration of a wicket? Will there be another one? No. End of debate.

This might be sounding a bit pessimistic cuz I am talking about the end of something which all of us who have held a willow fathom, but only because it took me a while to realize that yes we are having difficulties with comprehending what we will do when he is not around anymore, whom will we look up to, where will we dump our sadness? What will unite us? But the bigger problem which we selfishly seem to have overlooked is what will HE do? Not that he is incapable of doing anything else, cuz only God knows what he has created with so much attention & what are his creation's limits, but we seem to think of him as a machine that has been producing since the ribbon was cut 20 years back. We have no memory of him not being around. He has just been there, taken for granted. Just like the sun...

There came a time when he was riding a tiger in search of the tiger; the tiger he was, he knew, he owned & controlled. He was deciphered, figured out, if the critics were to be believed. The believers were quiet & confident. It's been 6 years since a leading newspaper printed an iniquitous headline, 'Endulkar?', I await the day when ill have the power to say to them "In your face!" that is what makes him different from us, he doesn't think about retribution, he thinks about duty. Taoism says 'be vacant & you shall remain full'; he emptied himself, went back to where it started & retraced his steps and as always just like after the eclipse the sun is brighter he came back stronger. He knew he had the ability, he knew he loved doing it; he had to make his body believe in his love. Today he is truly the Tao of Cricket. I weep for the future of cricket as a visual attraction medium. The silence that follows his wicket is said to be the loudest sound in sports, let us make a deal that the applause that will be heard on his last day on the field shall be one of the most resonating sounds in sporting history. So I ask you all today to clap and contribute to the decibel levels, because the sound needs to reach the heavens, God needs to be told that we are thankful. Gather your tears because we need to repay the sweat. Stand up, fold your hands, close your eyes and worship because none of us will be alive to see another remotely like him.

It won't matter if next time you think you can't pull something off & don't remember 143@ Sharjah, next time you think you are in pain & can't think of 136 @ Chennai or 140 @Bristol, next time you think you can't find a way but don't remember 241 @ Sydney...but remember, every time that you feel your feet are above the ground think of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

We owe him that much...

Cheers & Good Luck to everyone for WC '11...

(P.S - Complied with mail fwd from Anuj Kolekar)

dtd - 12.12.2012

Insanity is... Catchy !!!

Never thought that I would write a movie review !! But this movie is definitely worth it...

The movie : Shutter Island --- is one hell of a watch !!

The Genre : Suspense Thriller -- Don't worry, its not the regular types !! Its a Psycho-Suspense Thriller !!

The cast : Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo -- to name a few, are a bunch of people who act and when they act they do it in style !!

The direction : Martin Scorsese --- the director, has created an amazing piece worth all the applause that it can get !!

The book : Dennis Lehane --- who has the credit of authoring the book "Shutter Island", this man must have some amazing thoughts and visionary abilities !!


The movie is about a Federal Marshals - Edward "Teddy" Daniels (Leo) and his sidekick Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) who get assigned to a case at Ashecliffe, a mental institution on Shutter Island. Once there, they have to figure out how a patient Rachel Solando disappeared from the island while under watch from the guards. But when they start digging they realize that not everything may be as it seems.

The movie moves on from investigations to doubting to allegations and finally to.. confusions and mega massive problematic insanities !!

What catches you is the way the movie has been put together. It works and works hard to keep you caught up. It is, so nicely arranged that you keep on thinking attentively and you do that happily.

This psycho-suspense thriller is one good way, which proves that you don't need jump scares nowadays to really make an audience feel disturbed and that too without being disgusted !!

One shortcoming though is the editing of the movie. Its not that great with some bits and pieces going haywire and clearly visible. But on the other side, if this has been a deliberate attempt to keep the "insanity" going, then yes, I must say- A good job done !!

Overall, Shutter Island is a great and suspenseful thriller that is well told, well acted, well written and well directed --- ending in an apt dilemma :

"Which would be worse : To live as a monster or die as a good man...."

Water Cooler Moments...

I have been longing to post these series for a long time...!!
So finally starting it .....

Every Sunday, the Times of India, page no 19 is one hell of a information treasure trove..!! But along with it comes a nice little column named "Water Cooler Moment" by Vandana Agarwal.

The column, for me is, like the most awaited read for the weekend! Its too good to give it a miss..
Its usually a chilled out, funny and a typical "office time pass", conversational take on the happenings around the world. And now that I do get to spend time in the office (especially at the water cooler), the column has become all the more appealing to me...!!

So here start the Moments - The Water Cooler Moments :

Eruption Disruption

Ay-yah-fyah-lah-yoh-kuu

Yes, I also think that the water is not so cool, but that's no reason to swear in public.

I said Eyjafjallajokull. That's the name of the volcano that's erupting in Iceland. But some journos who can't pronounce it while reporting from there have simply shortened it to E15

That sounds more like the secret service than a short tempered volcano!

Well, it's got 15 letters. Not counting the E of course.

How come we didn't read about this volcano in our school books?

The NCERT must have tried but probably couldn't print the name correctly and gave up!

Had they done so, our teachers were such sadists they would have probably set its as an exam question!

While the rest of Europe is in a tizzy, the 317,000 Icelanders can hardly be bothered. They are too busy promoting the place as a tourist destination.

Hotspot, you mean! They could do with the money.Iceland went bankrupt tin 2008. The joke is that when Iceland's economy died, its last wish was the ashes be spread across Europe!

RIP. Their economy can now rest in peace.

And so can the airline industry....

(Overheard by Vandana Agarwal)

अट्टाहास ... !!!

Here's a poetic piece penned down by one of my friends..
I found it amazing...

केलास कशाला अट्टाहास मग...??

होतास की मग्न जगण्यात...
होतच की हृदयाला तुझा ठोका...
होती की इँद्रीये जिथल्या तिथे...

दिलीस का साद त्या अत्रुप्त आशेला??
दिलेस का रंग त्या विस्म्रुतित्ल्य स्वाप्नांना??
दिलेस का शब्द त्या मुक्य भाषेला??
दिलास का स्वतहामध्ल्य स्वताहाला एक वेगळाच जन्म??

एवढा सग्ल करून.......................
फरक पडला....
तो फक्त तुलाच......
साद ऐकू आली......ती फक्त तुलाच.....
स्वप्ने तुझी.....सप्तरंगी वाटली......ती फक्त तुलाच.....
अनाकलनीय भाषा ती.......कळली पण फका तुलाच.......
अजुन काय......नव्या जनमतला हरवलेला ठोका पण......
तुझा तुलच सापडला........

वेडाच बारा होतास.....
का केलास या शहाणपणाचा अट्टहास??

अट्टहसाच करायचा होता......
तर हे सर्वा लपवण्याचा तरी......
काही गाहीईवरलेले क्षण.......नसते गोठले मग.....!!
गुदमरलेले काही निश्वास.....सुटले नसते मग....!!

dtd:- 19/11/09

Shallow Perceptions....

Weird morning to wake up to...

The first view, from my usual good old balcony was that of a huge monstrous JCB (earth mover) tearing down the house that stood besides our building for God knows how many years...!!

The effort put in by the JCB was minimal... It felt like the hand of God is taking down things and destroying mother earth... What a spectacle ... !!!

Then the realisation dawned... I did not know why the house was being taken down or even who stayed there !!!!
What a thought... You get up in the morning, first sight of the world you see is that of destruction and you don't even know why is the destruction taking place and even more weird.. who stayed at that place ?

It was a regular house which stood at the same place everyday, and I didn't even care to observe it properly...
It was not my house, neither did any of my friends/relatives/family stayed there, neither was I going to be affected by its "demise"... But it was a perfect example of taking things for granted...

What struck me the most was, how we live everyday just because we have a life, not observing, not caring, and taking things for granted. And then a day comes when something is lost and we repent.. I guess this is human tendency !!!

Yes it surely turned out to be a philosophical morning... but helped me to dig deeper and think harder.. and yes... observe, care and take note of things happening around...!!

Shallow perceptions... yes indeed.. shallow perceptions .. !!

Better gear up for something deeper... !!

dtd:- 15/11/09