Category: Life Ordinary

  • Destination Unknown

    ..and few weeks back, it happened… at last. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar became the highest run getter in the history of test cricket, and the only man to cross the 12000 run mark. As Alfred Victor Vigny has said, “Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age” I remember writing this about 3 years back, and sparking off a Gavaskar-Tendulkar debate then. And inspite of that, I still consider Sachin a greater player than Gavaskar. But thats just my perspective, and this post is not intended to start off that debate all over again.

    As always, it is the standards that the man sets off the field (Adam Gilchrist can take his stories down under) – including the locker room and press conference chats, that amaze me. His teammates talk about his indefatigable spirit and his joy in playing the game. While his fans were cheering him, and his critics were throwing stones at him, was he looking forward to this milestone, if not playing only for it? At 16 years, when he played his first test in Pakistan and fell to Waqar for a mere 15, did the boy Sachin know that he would make the 11000 plus runs that would make him a unique persona in world cricket? When Merv Hughes told Border that ‘This little prick’s going to get more runs than you, AB’, how did he know? When a person is doing exactly what he is meant to do, does the clarity reveal itself to himself and others?

    At a far lower plane, many of us have achieved those little milestones, the ones which we had looked up to in awe, and wondered whether they were achievable at all. I remember, about 7 years back, hearing about my project guide’s salary and saying that if I got that kind of money, I wouldn’t mind stagnating after that. And now i look back and smile at myself, because i realise how time changes everything. I also realise that I can keep setting higher figures up, and god willing, perhaps knock them down. But most importantly, I realise that when life brings us to that point of our imagined future, there will be happiness, but perhaps not joy. Like ticking off a box in a things to do list, as opposed to a whoop of sheer delight. Unless, I am doing what makes me happy, so that the inevitable reaction to achieving a milestone is joy, and there is simply no reason to contemplate such things as destiny and my reason for existence, except for saying a thank you.

    Is that cynicism brought on by the loss of innocence ? Or are the likes of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, ironically named after Sachin Dev Burman, a legendary music composer, blessed by the cosmos to tread only on the exact path destined for them, while I continue the search, hoping I haven’t “missed the starting gun”

    until next time, “the post is over, I’ve nothing more to say” 🙂

  • Invaluable

    There is a peculiar phenomenon that happens on Bangalore roads. Whenever the traffic stops at a signal,  some of the vehicles behind quickly make their way outside the median onto the side of the road belonging to the traffic from the opposite side. These vehicles move ahead a bit and then try to get back by fobbing the guys who have been disciplined enough to stick to their side. In most cases, they are not able to, and they are at the receiving end of contemptuous glares. I wonder what these guys believe-  the Bhagavad Gita moral of ‘end justifying the means’? Or is it to do with solving the immediate problem and figuring out the right/wrong of it later?

    The last few days have been bad for the global workforce in general. While the layoffs in the US seemed somehow far away, the Jet axing was closer. A few days back, a couple of my twitter friends worriedly spoke about how a few of their colleagues were being asked to put in their papers. They are young kids, in their mid twenties, perhaps in their first jobs. Most likely, they have grown up seeing (at least the first) trends of opulence. Even in their earning life, it has been a life of choice abundance, that has spawned a life on EMI.

    Sometimes, they remind me of the guys who go across the median. They get glares from those who feel they’re not entitled to be where they are, that’s okay, I think they have learnt to deal with that, but I am not sure if they have learnt to deal with the massive truck that will come bearing down on them from the opposite side. They will panic when they have nowhere left to go. But hopefully, it will help them gain some perspective.

    One of the good things about most people of my generation is that they have been brought up with the strong foundations of what is fondly or deprecatingly (depending on who says it) called the great indian middle class. There are a lot of values there that stand you in good stead. I sometimes wonder if the cosmos has its own ways of inculcating the values it wants to see in us mere mortals. Quite a humbling thought, that…

    until next time, keep the faith

  • Accurzzzd

    Somewhere in the first half, Himesh sings “Hari Om. With the twang, it sounds like ‘Hurry Home’. I didn’t heed it. As the movie moved towards the climax, and Himself confronts Urmila, who plays the vamp, I half expected Him to sing ‘Ch***** banaya’ in tune with his old hit. This time I’d have agreed.

    until next time, but hey, its a must watch 🙂

  • A Matter of life and death

    It is not about death. That is a process that starts as soon as we’re born. It is the reminders of mortality that has led to my aversion for hospitals. Mangled body parts, groans of suffering that beg me to put the sick person out of his misery. Painful messages that tell me that I’m really not in control.
    It is not about control. That is a process that stops as soon as we’re born, or perhaps way before that. It is the reminders of the hands that decide my destiny that nauseate me. Faces begging for answers as to why it had to happen to them. It warns me of age, and a clock ticking somewhere.
    It is not about death. It is about groping frustratingly for answers that seem to elude me. It is about wondering if I have missed my destiny, and wondering if everything I experience is a clue to something that I’m missing, and the futility that I’d experience if I kept missing them. For, it is when I walk through hospital corridors, that I painfully see the possibilities- physical and mental wrecks of what were once, human beings, it is then I realize that it’s life I’m afraid of.

    Until next time, live

  • No more holy days…

    Last week had a very holiday theme to it. Technically, there was only a day off, but the particular day was different for different places..and work places. I had the day off on Wednesday and D had an off on Thursday. Well, a far cry from the good old days, when the Puja holidays was an eagerly awaited annual event.

    Its appeal lay in the fact that school books could be ‘legally’ laid aside for a few days. I still remember treating the occasion with all the seriousness it demanded, and even including comics in the book-ban. As i grew older, non-school books were gently eased out of the process. So were many accessory rituals like the early morning bath and going to the temple.

    Zoom to now, when the single day off is just another holiday to me. D does try her best to retain the last vestiges of an occasion that now exists only in the memory archives. But the link to the original event is all but severed.

    There are two losses that i mourn for. The first is of character – the character that differentiated and defined each of these holidays. The character that made sure each of these holidays created specific memory associations (our memory, i think, used folksonomy long before web 2.0) that would last decades after the holiday was last celebrated in the way it was meant to be. The memories now created are just another multiplex movie and a few ‘upto 50%’ off deals. I think we are celebrating more, only we have forgotten what we’re really celebrating. (pardon the generalisation) The second is of the innocence – individual more than collective. From the child who had oodles of faith and belief in the sanctity of the rituals he undertook, and derived great pleasure from it, to the cynical adult who battles hard to regain his faith, albeit in the form of spirituality.

    until next time, keep the faith