Three Idiots? Not quite

Hello World!! (All right, I know just a few people will be reading this, but just wanted to prove that my readers mean the world to me.)

Just saw the first match of IPL 3.0 between a team which won the trophy last year, and another which won the wooden spoon. Sounds like a mismatch but it turned out to be anything but that (unless you consider the four 10-over slabs in isolation). Now close matches always thrill you but this one provided all the more excitement because the man in the commentary box was Harsha Bhogle. Don’t know how many noticed but he was at his best, even by his own standards. He truly is a genius and you can’t miss him when he adds punches like “Shah Rukh will be tweeting every two seconds” or like “Wasim Akram would have learnt to swear in Bengali” in moments when tension is at its peak. Real gems, these are; and a real gem he is.

One of my priciest possessions in the small library which I have developed, is this book ‘Out of the Box’ which is a collection of the best articles he’s written over the course of 5 years. And just for the records I had obtained a copy the day it hit the stands. :) Truly India’s (in fact the world’s) first cricketing icon among people who haven’t played the game. (Lalit Modi could well be considered second). Now, one of the best ways to make your blog interesting is by quoting Harsha Bhogle and I’m going to do just that. This one is the opening paragraph of today’s edition of Indian Express. (For the ignorant, he writes for them every Friday). Read it and be awed by it, just as I was.

Pakistan hand out bans like toffees, those handing out the ban pretend they are pristine; Australia’s vice-captain leaves his team behind to offer solace to his girl suffering the after-effects of a dubious relationship; another South African storms his way into world cricket — for England; the world’s most hyped tournament slithers, rather than storms, in. That’s a lot of unusual things for a sport played by so few!

Coming back to the match, I was actually supporting the chargers (the team representing the city of Ashish Garg and N.D. Tiwari :P)- and the only reason was to irritate my sister who is a die-hard fan of SRK and hence KKR. Now any argument involving SRK generally leads to a comparison between him and Aamir Khan. I would’t want to jump into the debate here, but I did mention to my sister that three of Aamir’s last four movies (not counting Luck By Chance where he had a role as small as Dada’s stay in the crease today) – RDB, TZP and 3 Idiots – were probably better than any of Shah Rukh’s; and even she looked convinced about it. But then there is no denying who a better showman is between the two. Just to gauge what being witty means you just need to watch the show when Shah Rukh won the NDTV entertainer of the year in 2007 - the way he handled the barrage of seemingly tricky questions that were doled out to him. But sorry Di, Aamir is the better actor for me.

But again, Aamir is not a complete perfectionist that he claims to be – he didn’t undergo a sex change operation for his role in Baazi, did he?

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The God of all things

Sachin became the first man on the planet to score a double ton in a limited overs international. I could not share my thoughts through the medium of a blog because of two primary reasons - A) I was traveling and hence did not have easy access to the internet and, B) I had no words to match his feat. The first is now taken care of, but the second is still an issue. But I've always been taught in my workplace that there is a workaround for everything. So here I am - after all a picture is worth a thousand words.


Repeating what I had said in an earlier post:
It is difficult to imagine what life would have been without cricket and it is impossible to imagine what cricket would have been without Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

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IronY!

“Zindagi bhi hamare saath kabhi kabar ajeeb o’ garib khel khelti hai”. This is perhaps Bollywood’s oldest clichés. Even to me, it was no more than a cliché; until a few hours ago.

Let me take you to flashback mode (which happens to be Bollywood’s favourite tool). The year was 2008 - the year when India thrashed Australia in Perth, the year when IPL made its debut and the year when Love Story 2050 was allowed to release. The story is about two great friends – Rohit Chawla and Rahul Saraf (who by the way is me) – both of different shapes and sizes, but both world famous (or rather infamous) college-wide for their well-earned reputation of being PJ stalwarts. The former, the teacher and the latter, a disciple. The former was known for being very slow and the latter just for being ‘low’. Both had to choose between a job offer and an admission offer (in the same B-school). What choice they made is history now. Both lived on with their without reflecting too much on their decisions, for approximately 20 months.

Cut to the present: The fateful day of 4th February 2010 arrived. Rohit Chawla gets a dream campus offer from KPMG – one of the Big Four in auditing (which makes him a direct rival of my sister, and - I have this sinking feeling - of the Shiv Sena too, who off late have a problem with everything). But destiny chooses the same date for the announcement of Monster’s acquisition of Yahoo! HotJobs (which by the way is the property I work for) – subject to approval by the regulatory bodies, which does not include the Shiv Sena.

Now this reminds me of another famous Bollywood dialog which goes as follows (after omitting the lisp defects): “Zindagi mein watt isse nahi lagti ki humne kaunsa rasta chuna, balki isse ki humne kaunsa rasta chchora”

And before the curtains roll, the disclaimers: “Aal izz well”. I’m so happy for Rohit who deserves every bit of his success. And mind you, things are not as bad from my end as have been projected here. I still have the job. And I did misuse some of the literary license to dramaticize the whole affair. And by the way, another story to share – another of zindagi’s ajeeb o’ garib games: Just a couple of days ago, Tanushree (who is one of the very few readers (which includes Google’s crawlers) of this blog) asked me when would the next blog come. I confessed that my life was drab and I have nothing to write about. Well, I had no idea that Destiny so desperately wanted me to write that it would go to this extent.

And just for the records, I don’t have many regrets about the decision made two years ago. As Bollywood would have said “Woh kehte hain na ki jo bhi hota hai achche ke liye hota hai… sahi kehte hain”

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Potpourri

After being absent from this space for a long time (for various reasons), just thought should do a ‘quickie’, my last of the year (* conditions apply). And all thanks to the wi-fi connection at the Bengaluru International Airport – I’m on my way to Shillong, ‘The Scotland of the East’ - home sweet home. After reading this more people will realize that the new airport wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Sitting at the airport, I see three people of different shapes and sizes sitting directly opposite me. From whatever I could gather from their conversation, it seems they are plotting a new state. Maybe the theme of their state is going to be unity in diversity. But to think of it, don’t know how successful KCR will be in his bid for Telangana, but he has managed to establish a new nation wide state all right – a state of chaos.

Anyways the last month has been marked by a state of adventure for me too. I had the honour of attending a wedding… and this time I was invited for it… by both the groom and the bride. This surely brought back memories of all the “Farji Marriages” we used to attend back in the good old college days. Well, of course the marriages were not farji; we, as guests, were. But I can only present my own perspective of things. Anyways getting two invites for the same marriage seemed like a luxury. Well, let’s just say that I have graduated well!

And talking about marriages, there have been a plethora of marriage announcements around me. If marriages are made in heaven, it seems as if ‘all heaven has broken loose’. The latest in the list were Lucky and Poonam. Congratulations to both of them and commiserations for their respective fiancés.

Moving to something I am married to - Cricket, India moved to the numero uno spot in tests. It is reason enough to celebrate but what was shocking and sad was that the board announced cash prizes just for the current lot of players. This feat would not have been a reality without the contribution of the Gangulys and the Kumbles, and ignoring them wasn’t such a good idea (Maybe the cash prize in itself was uncalled for). Another thing that has been making news is the UDRS. I was one of the proponents of this system, even though it meant that the umpire’s raised finger or the shake of the head would not bring the same amount of instant joy or grief to millions that it did before. It will no longer be the death knell. It could demand a situation where a cartoon on a giant screen would have to validate the verdict, delaying the hopes or the fears. But what we saw in the Perth and Centurion tests have forced me to have second thoughts. The tail-enders asked for reviews just because they had it in their kitty. They were testing technology more than the verdict. It really was a shame.

I had the chance of seeing Avatar last week. One word that describes the movie is grand. It is a kind of movie you not only watch, but celebrate. Also had a much needed hair cut – you know its time to cut the crap when a look in the mirror reminds you of Jairam Ramesh.

That’s it from me for now. Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy Maadi.

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2 Decades of Power Play

“In a gentle way you can shake the world”

-- Mahatma Gandhi

“Main khelega” said a squeaky voice from under the helmet covering the blood smeared face of a 5’ 6”body lying near the pitch. We’ve heard the story a hundred times from Sidhu (in an unmatched charismatic way that only he can manage), of how a 16 year old kid - who had no business being out of the comforts of school, leave alone facing the likes of Imran Khan, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram at their fiercest bests in a cricket pitch – had refused to leave the ground despite being hit on the face by a Waqar Younis special. “Main khalega” – these are perhaps the two words which best sum up the hunger, sum up the attitude of the great man towards the game, during and even after 20 years from the incident. The world knew that the 16 year old had come of age.

Enough is already been written about him as he knocks off another milestone in his career. There are not enough superlatives to describe what he has done in these 20 years, so I will not even attempt to tread the path. But what amuses me, is, that despite all this, he could never please the critics enough. If the critics had had their way, he would never have made his debut at such a tender age. If the critics had had their way, he would have hung his boot by now. The world would not have known what they would have missed. For some time, he let the numbers do the talking on his behalf - 10K runs, 30 odd centuries. But after a certain point, perhaps even the numbers became so huge and unfathomable (and as meaningless as the age of “Baa” in the Indian television soap industry). Perhaps they should stop keeping track of his records and just employ the symbol for infinity and make the life of the statisticians easier. And by the way, the 20 years haven’t always been about the runs alone; but the manner, the precision, the style, the honesty and the simplicity with which he’s got them. It’s been about his flawless image; the fact that never once has he been involved in any tussle with the media or a team-mate or the opposition, any drunken escapade, any incriminating incident or any other spat that usually accompanies super stardom at a young age.

Margaret Thatcher once remarked that if her critics saw her walking on a river, they would say it was because she could not swim. The legend too, brought some changes to his batting style, at times adopting a more cautious, a more mature approach – cutting down on some of the aerial shots, cutting down on some of the flair. And people came up with theories of his reflexes betraying him. Mind you it was more out of choice than anything else; and one thing he did not cut down on, was class. Yet, as a reminder to his critics, he produced one of those innings time and again, as if taking it out from a shelf and placing it back there again. Aren’t we fortunate to have seen so many avtaars of the legend, each one special in its own realm, each one with genius written all over?

“ENDulkar?” screamed the headlines of the TOI after the Mumbai test against England in 2006. Well I hope whoever came up with this phrase has a good enough sense of humour to laugh at himself each time the man goes out to bat and comes up with something special, else life would have become miserable for him. But this has been the legend’s story all his life - some people have kept throwing stones at him and he has kept converting them into milestones, craftily and gently.

In the gentlest possible way, he has made billions celebrate and cheer, he’s given them a reason to rejoice, and to cry - a reason to live; in the gentlest possible way he has made a mockery of bowling attacks, slaughtered their confidence, given opponents sleepless nights; in the gentlest possible way he has shaken the world. It is difficult to imagine what life would have been without cricket and it is impossible to imagine what cricket would have been without Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

P.S. – The quote by Gandhiji was used by the man himself to describe Harsha Bhogle, another legend in his own rights; but if anything, it fits seamlessly with Sachin.

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