Thursday, July 13, 2006

From the Pavilion End

Do read this one. It's hard not to laugh like crazy after reading this. :)

"Bomber" Wells, a spin bowler and great character, played for Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire. He used to bat at No.11 since one couldn't bat any lower. Of him, they used to paraphrase Compton's famous words describing an equally inept runner, "When he shouts 'YES' for a run, it is merely the basis for further negotiations!"

Incidentally, Compton was no better. John Warr said, of Compton "He was the only person who would call you for a run and wish you luck at the same time."

Anyway, when Wells played for Gloucs, he had an equally horrendous runner as the No.10. During a county match, horror of horrors.......both got injured. Both opted for runners when it was their turn to bat. Bomber played a ball on the off, called for a run, forgot he had a runner and ran himself. Ditto at the other end. In the melee, someone decided that a second run was on. Now we had *all four* running. Due to the confusion and constant shouts of "YES" "NO", eventually, all of them ran to the same end. At this point in time, the entire ground is rolling on the floor laughing their behinds out. One of the fielders - brave lad - stops laughing for a minute, picks the ball and throws down the wicket at the other end. Umpire Alec Skelding looks very seriously at the four and calmly informs them "One of you buggers is out. I don't know which. You decide and inform the bloody scorers!".

(Incident described in "From the Pavilion End" by Harold "Dickie" Bird)

Monday, July 10, 2006

Escaping from the abhicentric world

Times are changing fast. Frighteningly fast! The whole landscape changed while I was gazing at the moon. Nothing is there anymore where it was. Everything moved. Everyone departed. I wake up from a deep slumber and I find myself here, the very place where I was years ago. Even those for whom I waited moved ahead. Those who once held my hand and walked with me pulled their hands back and went away. Dazed and stunned, I look around. But I see nothing familiar around me. All that is left with me is memory of a dream. It was a dream!

I feel that I am transfixed at the center. Static. Arrested by intertia. Paralysed. Condemned to but see everything in lively motion. Dead.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

That's how I'll portray you

This is my 100th post, a very special one for me. I present here an excerpt from 'Doctor Zhivago' by Boris Pasternak, a novel very close to my heart. Zhivago, the protagonist, who is also a poet, writes this for his beloved, Lara.

"I’ll stay with you a little, my unforgettable delight, for as long as my arms and my hands and my lips remember you. I’ll put my grief for you in a work that will endure and be worthy of you. I’ll write your memory into an image of aching tenderness and sorrow. I’ll stay here till this is done, then I too will go. This is how I’ll portray you. I’ll trace your features on paper as the sea, after a fearful storm has churned it up, traces the form of the greatest, farthest-reaching wave on the sand. Seaweed, shells, cork, pebble, the lightest, the most imponderable things that it could lift from its bed, are cast up in a broken, sinuous line on the sand. This line endlessly stretching into the distance in the frontier of the highest tide. That was how life’s storm cast you up on my shore, O my pride, that is how I’ll portray you."

koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanha kyooN hai

koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanha kyooN hai
wo jo apna thaa wahi aur kisi ka kyooN hai
yahi duniya hai to phir aisee ye duniya kyooN hai
yahi hota hai to aakhir yahi hota kyooN hai

ik zara haath baDha deN to pakaD le daaman
uske seene meiN sama jaaye hamari dhaDkan
itni kurbat hai to phir faaslaa itna kyooN hai

dil-e-barbaad se nikla nahiN ab tak koi
ik lute ghar pe diya karta hai dastak koi
aas jo TooT gayee phir se bandhaata kyooN hai

tum asarrat ka kahO ya ise gham ka rishta
kehte hain pyaar ka rishta hai janam ka rishta
hai janam ka jo ye rishta to badalta kyooN hai


Movie Name: Arth (1983)
Singer: Jagjit Singh
Music: Jagjit Singh
Lyrics: Kaifi Azmi

One of those songs that require a certain maturity to be appreciated. I go through a plethora of emotions while I listen to this song. Right now, I am feeling amused by the first line - koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanha kyooN hai. It's so ironical. With whom can I share my deepest loneliness? I get friends who help me forget my loneliness. But where do I get someone who could understand it?

Begaani shaadi mein Abdullah deewana

Last year I was in Germany thanks to the clumsy management of geometric and I had visited the newly built and very much talked-about stadium in Munich. To seize the moment (exclusively for public exhibition in years to follow) I flashed a smile keeping the phenomenal stadium in background and got myself shot. As Germany plays world cup soccer with considerable probability of winning and India doesn't even aspire seriously, I resolved to apply my emotional energy in the support of Germany as a mark of gratitude, coz they hadn't thrown me out of running train as I had feared.

If it won, I would win too. I would enjoy 'maine to pehle hi kaha tha' status. Else who minds if you support something for emotional reasons? Nobody can match me in all this petty business.

I was eagerly waiting for the world cup to come so that I could paste my Munich snap at orkut. But it is beyond me why others are so much excited about it? People of Kolkata with painted faces shouting slogans on TV and waving flags of Brazil look ludicrous to me. I fail to understand their passion. It looks a bit too much to me. Oh kitsch!

What is the nature of our passion? Are we passionate as sportsmen? Or as gamblers? Or as wanna-bes? Or as moviegoers? Think about it. I am rather sceptic about the first. Anything but that. We are not sportsmen. We don't play and we don't want our kids to play. We are those who believe in 'padhoge-likhoge to banoge nawaab, kheloge-koodoge to banoge kharab'. We play only as far as it helps us with our studies and above all with our CVs. We have become incapable to feel the spirit of sports. We have lost that. We have lost touch with the ground. If we didn't have power shortage, we wouldn't know the smell of sweat. No, I refuse to accept that. What explains this glaring inconsistency between our professed passion and our pathetic performance?

In actuality we are a nation of moviegoers. We want someone to do some heroic stuff to make us feel alive. We want someone to run and jump to titillate our fat bodies full of flatulence. We come out of cinema hall and rush to the railway reservation counter and reach their late coz of traffic hold-up. We spend half of our life standing in queues and we burn half of our blood in cursing the ubiquitous bollywood enthusiasts who think 'jahan hum khade ho, line wahin se shuru hoti hai'. We hardly get time to think beyond admission in schools and colleges. When you see the DU cut-off marks being displayed on TV and hear your parents wailing how they sacrificed whole of their life for your education, you are not left with nerves to kick a football. I find it hard to be optimistic about the future of sports in India under these conditions. I wish I am wrong.

So keep cheering while sitting in your wheel-chair. Who are you cheering for? France or Italy?