The Joy Called SACHIN

Outside grounds, people wait until he goes in before paying to enter. They seem to want a wicket to fall even though it is their own side that will suffer. We sink into despair if he fails and a maddening surge of patriotism frenzy breaks out when he does succeed. He is virtually GOD to most who follow the game and a single ray of hope to the expectations of a billion people. For over 20 years now and since the time he was 16 this is how Sachin Tendulkar knows cricket.

Its a treat to the eye to see how the great man scores his runs waiting for the delivery like a boxer ready to deliver the KO punch. He moves quickly into position flashing his bat to guide the ball where he wills. Its a rare combination of textbook classicism and raw aggression. He always seems to have the measure of every ball as he smacks it cleanly through the panicking fielders. His statistics are too numerous to show his greatness but a few words from the bowlers who stare him down 22 yards shall put all doubts to rest. In many ways he is like Maradona, at 5 feet 4 the stature is the same but what he shares with the Argentinian star is something called “Peripheral Awareness”. Its awareness of a man who even without looking already has a map of the field logged in his brain. Even before the ball leaves the bowlers hand he knows whether to go front or back while lesser men still decide, and once the blade meets the ball right underneath his chin the result is another helpless gasp from the bowler and leather hunt for the poor fielders. The opposition cant help but praise as he exists in a place where only a few can.

I personally liked the Sachin back in the 1996's and 98's, pulling McGrath for a six, hitting Warne out of the ground, destroying Henry Olonga. Captain ship put a unwanted burden on him which hampered his batting and then in 2001 it was found bowling a negative line hampers the great man which was cruelly put to use by England and Australia. A few failures and may claimed it was “ENDDULKAR” for the great man but then suddenly out came the paddle sweep and the slash over slip shots. Sachin was back. He wasnt as ruthless as he used to be but nevertheless batted with the same tenacity and aggression. He plays more freely now thanks to a loosening burden of expectations due to the increasing number match winners in the team. The 200 was a testimony to the fact how well he understood the game. He cut pulled drove his way to 150 and as he neared the landmark choose more to hit the ball into the gaps and run. The already hapless fielders had given up way back even to try and effect a run out.

But how in hell does this man do it? How, after all these years, does he not only maintain the phenomenally high standard he set at the start, but constantly raise the bar even further? And how in hell does he convey the impression that his enjoyment has only increased with time? He himself perhaps is the motivator as he battles not against the opposition but against himself. He is his own bar and strives to overcome himself.

In a country where cricket is a religion Sachin serves to be be its baptism, for us ordinary humans, it is enough to say that we were privileged to have lived in the same era as this awesome batsman.

Wish i never grew UP

We recently had a group of freshers join office, ice breaking session yesterday they claimed they enjoyed the work. Overjoyed my group head flashed is teeth around for the entire day enough to give Deepika Padukone a run for starring in a Colgate ad. ENJOY WORK, poor sods dont even know what work is, seriously how can going to office 6 days a week be fun ? How can working 12 hours a day straight, every day, 7 days a week in a row month after month be FUN ?? How does one enjoy being exhausted both mentally and physically, too tired to carry on with the social niceties and then being labeled as a social recluse ? How does is feel realizing that you would be on call for every holiday and weekends for the coming year.

As a kid we were often blackmailed by the family elders, “Abhi Padh lo bete, agee jaa ke zindagi aish hai” (Do study now as once you grow enjoy all you want). Good I didn't pay any heed to that. Yeah I have grown up and life right now is planning for my future or planning for my future investments neither of which is fun. And to top I need do all of this sitting in a 3 X 3 feet cubicle and making MOOLAH is the biggest necessity of all !!! Spare me the irony is any of this even supposed to be fun ?

Fun was playing cricket in the by lanes, football in a slush pit, enjoyment was sitting on the wall with friends sucking on to orange candies in summer, that was FUN. As we moved to college it was bunking class to catch the latest movie at 10 in the morning so that we got the tickets at half the rates. Fun was deciding on where to eat lunch and end up having puffs and coke at the nearest bakery. We ran out of places to eat and drink but never tired of hanging out. Fun was the days spent is hostels and dorms, TV was a luxury we ourselves were the entertainment we had. Planning meant trying to save every scrap of the meager pocket money so as to buy the dream camera. Investment meant finding the proper girl and holding on to her so dearly that it would put shareholders of Reliance to shame.

I don't need to save money to buy the latest Digital SLR Camera, I can buy it directly off the shelf as my salary permits me to do so. But I rarely have to time to shoot and all I do with the camera is clean it and put it back in the cupboard. I remember the day my dad used to deposit my pocket money in my bank account, 2000 it used to be and I used to save enough to ensure I could twice a month blow some cash eating or drinking. I earn more than 20 times of what my dad used to send but the happiness of the MOOLAH coming in is not as that when my dad used to send it. I can afford to eat and drink at a restaurant every day but suddenly the appetite for it has gone. I traveled general class as a boy / student on overcrowded trains, I move around in flights these days but the days for vacation reduce every year. Back then my wardrobe was 2 pair of jeans and a couple of shirts, branded shirts and pleated pants fill it up now but how would I love to go back to those days in jeans. Bunking aint possible, you cant fall sick, watching a movie means late at night and going into deep sleep only to be awaken when its over.

I wonder why the hell did we ever grow up, but then we were never BORN FREE and thus cant expect ourselves to be LIVING FREE for as the moment we were born we were hurtled into a rat race and I at least have a long way to go before I finish it.

Calcutta !!!!

Being in Calcutta is like watching a mid twentieth century love story, everything is excruciatingly SLOW. Traffic inches along, people plod sweat pouring out of their pores, the heat sags the city. Everyone over here waits as if its a written rule, any questions asked the answer is “eikhaney to erokom-i hoy", (This is how it goes on around here). Its a city of closed desolate factories not empty mind you as the cadres with red flags dotted the perimeter giving a demonstration of the so called strong trade unionism and the “Leftist” ideas which have strangled the city into despondency and stagnation. My beloved city is getting decayed but then great cities decay and are reborn again, unfortunately Calcutta wont, it wont because of the perspective of the people who live in the city. For a city / civilization to grow and evolve it must change. Talk about change in Calcutta , its like a dirty word. For them “Old is Gold”, change certainly is not welcome here. And then there is the typical bengali “Sab Janta” attitude (I know it all) coupled with a sheer disdain for anyone who talks sense that brings the cities fortunes down to levels of Ashish Nehra's batting average.

I left Calcutta some 8 years back just when the air around was optimistic about some change. I left nevertheless but in a turn around none ever expected the city seemed to have gotten rid of the attitude that strangled it for decades. The Grand Old man of Stagnation “Jyoti Basu” finally stepped away and Buddhadeb his replacement was supposed to be a trans formative figure. The slammed doors were reopened again and with IT majors, heavy industries and other projects lined up to open offices and factories it seemed Calcutta was turning over a new leaf.

“We feel it in our fingers, We feel it in our toes.

Change is all around us

And the feeling grows”

And that was all we got a feeling that change might happen. A few years later the government shot itself in the foot. Mamata who was subdued and almost forgotten for a few years arose from the ashes while burying all chances of TATA opening up a factory and with it went all hopes of Calcutta ever becoming a manufacturing hub. But then it not Mamata's fault completely, what did we do to claim a share of the riches of investment when the doors were opened in 1991.We shunned it !!!! So while the state coffers went empty our streets became the hub of business, Hawkers I mean. Footpaths were as if meant for them to run business as they took them over forcing people to plod on the roads, we did so too as “eikhaney to erokom-i hoy". And then once the arteries became too clogged for tolerance they were tried to evicted only to be rescued by the perennial “Didi” of all Mamata herself. Votebanks restored she put her eyes on the naxal situation thus gathering support by letting out false sympathy. And while she chugged away with the Railways the WB “Goborment” lies almost brain dead and dis functional. How “Brain Dead” they really are was put to show a few weeks back when 30 or so were cooked inside a burning building while the fire brigade ran around trying to hunt for pneumatic ladders, once they did arrive no one knew to operate it and the belly pouting firemen watched as people having more faith on miracles tried jumping from the 20^th floor rather wait for the firemen to reach them.

The state was slow to come to terms with the market driven regime that dismantled the so called command driven economy the left used to rule the state , but ask them and they claim “Change is all around”. Well yes if we look at the basement car parks of the sky gazing apartments built all around no longer has the slow moving huge Ambassadors but shiny American, Korean and Japanese models. “Adda” has been shunned as people spend more time in fancy restaurants, lounge bars with ethnic themes, and coy night clubs which have sprouted all around the city. The eternal “Shonar Chele” has shaken up inhibitions and traditions but willing to work at nights, the family get together now takes place at the nearby country club where the 150 kilo odd “Boudi's” barely manging to squeeze herself in the latest designer jeans tries sampling wine, “Aare eta to grape juice ei” (its grape juice after all). All for a “Resurgent Bengal”, and what if industrialists dont come in with the money we have SRK pouring in the MOOLAH, all we need to do is shout “Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo Re”.

But then is this the change we are really looking for, if yes then the renaissance for change in Calcutta was started with small change. The city needs to adjust to the global market while the Left themselves have to remove the old industrial map and dismantle its kind of protectionist economy.