Category: Yesterday

  • 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” 🙂

  • 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

  • Exposure

    Sitting in an official meeting, opposite someone who’s seen you in the nude, was uncomfortable. She dreaded the inevitable moment when he’d bring it up. Everyone stared when he said “You know, the last time I saw her, she was nude. Keeping her dress on was obviously not her strength….. as a 2 year old”

    until next time, the bare truth

  • Collage

    After a really long time, I chanced to see some college kids in action. Some, would be an understatement since it involved half a dozen colleges and a few hundred students. As part of the program, I got to see them in their natural environment, their college. Did that make them sound like animals? Okay, it wasn’t supposed to. It made me think about youth. Not mine, since my memory isn’t too good these days, but the usage of that word to represent the collective.And i realised it doesn’t really do them justice.

    For I saw dreamers, the silent types who sat in the corners of the college quad with either eyes glued firmly to a book, or absorbing the world around in general, sometimes with an amused smile.

    I saw the show-offs, displaying everything from the latest in gadgets and fashion, to the latest in body art, and equating that in some way with what and who they are.

    I saw the absolute rascals, whose single focus was the other gender, and their attention. From what i saw, I thought it was more hormones than nobler intentions of love.

    I saw escapists, who learned very early, that it doesnt matter if the grass is green on the other side, or any damn side, you still gotta have it, the grass that is.

    I saw those who were full of life, participating in all the contests that were happening, eager to prove, not to anyone else, but to themselves, that they had what it took to excel.

    I saw some who had perhaps given up on all that happened around them, some of them with a quizzical expression and some of them trying hard to populate vacant smiles.

    I saw those whose looks had more than a trace of rancour, was it against what they were surrounded by, who they were surrounded by or was it against those who were happy in these surroundings?

    Youth, the collective term for a population that consists of individuals who are perhaps still trying to find out who and what they are.

    And as i sat watching them,  I saw some of them stare back at me, as though asking me how life goes, years after you’ve left college? Whether the world you are part of now, resembles the world you used to occupy then. And I would’ve liked to tell them that the world outside does change, but for better or worse, the world within can stay exactly the way it is, if you’d let it. And that perhaps is why some of us never grow up, and some of us feel that we grew up a long time back. And both of these have nothing to do with our age.

    until next time, growing up…

  • Blog…Blogger..Bloggest

    .….and after over five years of floating around the net, trying to find itself, manuscrypts seems to have found its final resting place. Of course, I’m quite sure there will be regular cosmetic changes, but yes, we won’t be shifting now. The EMIs for the domain and hosting are being paid, and there’s lots of interest. So you see, nothing much has changed, the bad jokes remain.

    So, take a look around. I’m still working on the categories, grappling with whether/how to include a blogroll (there are just so many bloggers I have to add, that I fear the list may be too long. Those familiar with the manuscrypts blog would know that I even keep links of people who haven’t updated in years). I have to clean up the brants tags, and I’ve used too few in Blogger. So, its still work in progress. Since all the blogs’ content will now be here, there should be about 5-6 posts a week. One restaurant review, a couple of personal posts and 2-3 brand/social media posts.

    What I’d love you guys to do now is give me feedback. Positive mostly…. just kidding. 😉 But seriously, have a look at ‘Type Scrypts’ and let me know whether I should categorise differently, so that its easier for you to navigate. Also give me your opinion on the relative positions of items on the sidebar. (tags, categories, archives etc). Do you like the about page? And finally, and most importantly, do you like the content, whether it be the manuscrypts kind, the restorants kind or the brants kind. Shorter? Longer? More of something you’d like to see? Lesser? (Be nice and don’t include me in the last one) 😀

    I’ll miss my old blog, these words from Garden State would express it best for me ” You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.… You’ll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back. It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know.… I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

    When I first wrote the words ‘Blog…Blogger..Bloggest’, it was perhaps my own site that I had in mind. At that point, to a guy who couldn’t code for his life, it was a big step. It still is, but it also marks the end of one five year old chapter. And so, if you liked the blog, and you liked the blogger, I hope you’ll be with me as I start this new journey.

    until next time, thank you 🙂