What a year.

A year and 19 days after I last typed into this window, and I sit back trying to recollect all the moments gone by. First non-coalition government in Karnataka in what, two terms? (I think just one term, and we had three chief ministers!) The infamy of the Australia cricket tour. And Oh my god, the ignominy of the Hockey team not making it to the Olympics for the first time ever?! The short-lived media frenzy over the priceless feats of Abhinav Bindra, Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar. And what an Olympics it was... I salute you China. (Mind you, Arunachal Pradesh is INDIA. Free Tibet. And DON'T YOU DARE legalize Tiger farming). The IPL happened somewhere in the middle as well. Bah, whatever. Kumble got 600, and I had more tears in my eyes. Akhil Kumar, good match man, good match. Rajvardhan... Try again, please, try again. Sania? Fitness darling, fitness... Saina, tough luck. (Actually everyone else in the Olympics contingents, never give up). The bomb blasts - (in purely chronological order, due respects to the ones lost and affected) Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi. How much more can one speak of the insanity, that is fundamentalism. The church attacks, secessionists in Kashmir, (what is wrong with you people?), separatists everywhere else. Insipid governments. Recession. Insipid governance. Bracing up for the biggest fall in economies in modern history. More insipidity. well, you get the picture.

All hail a warrior...

A hundred years ago today, a young warrior was born. He went on to give his life to what he believed was the truth...

Overdue...

August 29th was Dhyan Chand (Singh) 's 102nd birth anniversary. And I so desperately wanted to have something to say for the occasion. But what would I say? That he hit a 1000 goals in his career? That he once played barefoot and took India to victory in 6 minutes? Or that Hitler is supposed to have asked him to emigrate to Germany? All this and more is old laundry. A click and flick, and you'll find a full life story in Wikipedia. So anything more I say will be me trying to bask in reflected glory by highlighting his achievements. (Like some hyper charged Times group journo- I had to take this cheap shot, the paper and the channel have been pissing me off too much).
So it took me 11 days since his birthday, Sharapova losing in the third round of the US Open, rumours of Sachin's retirement (on Times- where else!), and of course, India making a glorious entry into the Asia Cup final, (The women's team is having slight bad luck, but I'm hoping things get better) to finally say something about the wizard.
As much as I'd like to believe all the stories of the world's disbelief with his prowess (the magnet-in-stick conspiracy theorists, the glue-on-stick conspiracy theorists, the Hitler's-invitation story tellers) for now, we'll just put them aside without comment. The most astounding story that I am desperately hoping to find concrete support for is that his stick-work was so fabulous, slow motion TV replays couldn't decipher the complex pointework. What that means is, 1., Some of his flicks and moves were faster than 1/50th of a second or 1/60th of a second (depending on which video system they used) which is simply supernatural, and 2., There are, somewhere in the world, videos of the wizard playing!
For the last month or so, I've been desperately trying to get videos of India's hockey spectacles and sadly enough even recent victories don't find a place in the myriad of the World Wide Web. (Atleast, not anywhere I've looked, and I've looked in a la-ot of places). So to me right now, Dhyan Chand remains an elusive dream. So much I've read about him (Probably a lot more than he humanly could have been) but the truth is just out of reach. Why hasn't the world any record of the "greatest hockey player ever"?
The only videos that return on a google search for "Indian Hockey"+"video" are those from Chak De! India.

I finish this rather empty post a few hours after South Korea came up the wrong side of 7-2 in a splendid team game that India put up in the finals of the Asia Cup. The ladies however seem to have gone down 4-2 to China, to come in 4th in the tourney. 'Tsalright, there's next time.

More patriotism.

I wanted to post something on World Photography Day (August 19th), but decided to photograph something and post that as a blog instead. (A picture is worth a thousand words right?) But domestic commitments meant I couldn't stir out of the house or pick up a camera. So instead of posting something for the heck of it, I just played Age of Empires III for about 5 hours straight. (I'm playing random maps now so I get used to the interface, I didn't do too bad, my city BengaLooru moved up 7 levels).

Which brings me to today. I don't know where, but I read that this year was Bhagat Singh's birth centenary. I obviously had to research, and research I did. Bhagat Singh b- 27th September 1907; d- 23rd March 1931. A sense of overpowering shame engulfs my senses. (I was teetering on the brink of feeling ashamed over the past couple of days for a lot of other things.) Largely because, in spite of all the concern I have for the nation, I had never deemed it fit to recognise this year and its significance. He was less than 23 when he died, and I am days away from finishing 23 myself. He (to para-phrase from Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows) "walked into death's open arms and embraced it willingly". Now, I'm not "afraid" of death myself, but what I find remarkable and most admirable in the great shaheed, is that notion that he so fervently believed in. That his death would make a difference, that his killing, would make for a better nation. (And better it did, the Bhagat-Sukhdev-Rajguru ideals and methods of struggle crossed the borders of Punjab into other parts of India once the nation got wind of their murders). But how many 23 year-olds today believe that their death would make a change in anything in this country?
I didn't want this stream of thought that is, this post, to be some rant about how our country rocks or sucks. As I read about Bhagat Singh, in parallel IE windows, I almost sub-consciously researched Satyendra Dubey's murder, its precursors and consequences. A 30 year old intellectual being, he was murdered by none less than the government itself. I don't talk of this in the literal sense, rather more philosophically. Whether he was killed by the people he fought against or in a simple robbery incident (yeah right) it is highly immaterial. A responsible government should have brought to light his fight against the bane of modern day governance; corruption. But then again, as Upton Sinclair has so famously supposedly said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it". And in this case, not just understanding it, but also spreading awareness about it.
The bigger shame of the day came as I finished reading up on Dubey. I read the name of Shanmugan Manjunath, a kindred spirit of Dubey (or so the sentence said). I had a very familiar feel of unfamiliarity about this name. It said that he was murdered by a petrol pump owner and his gang. He, like Dubey was in a similar struggle with "bigger" entities and was involved in drives to check rampant adulteration in petrol pumps owned by Indian Oil (where else!). Why had I never known about this? It obviously was in the papers. Wikipedia says that because this was so close the heels of the Dubey murder, it received attention as well. The case was tried, and (all) 8 suspects convicted in 16 months time! (in a non-fast track court at that!) There's even a foundation in his name.
Seventy-six years ago, in a time of lower literacy levels, of lower means of mass communication, it took 3 deaths to catalyse a long overdue youth movement in India (or at least, gave mass and momentum to it; in no way would I underrate the youth movements prior to their deaths). But fast forward to today, and how many people of integrity have to die for something similar to happen? Satyendra Dubey and Shanmugan Manjunath could end up just being names in a long list of the people who died for a lost cause.
A very unlikely person recently showed us what insanity meant, as he walked up to being hanged. He gave cries of patriotism and hurled abuses at his captors. He was quite cruel in his day himself, a mass murderer, but he had convinced himself that it was for his country. He was 69. And still, for people who would see his enemy as their own, he would seem no different than Bhagat Singh. I bring this seemingly scatter-brained thought in this text to highlight that the learned people of today will also have to exercise discretion in which person they look up to as heroes. The death of the 69 year old insane man, while extremely biased and a farce of any sense of "justice" that was supposedly served, was definitely not a tragedy. And the man, not a hero.
I shall sign off today with a poem from Dubey...

Na mujhko yaad rakhna
na mera kaam yaad rakhna,
bas itni dua hai
ki paigam yaad rakhna
(Don’t remember me or my work, just one request, remember my message.)

kindly see:
Bhagat Singh
The Satyendra Dubey Foundation

The pursuit of redemption.

By freak coincidence, a day after a very touching moment in Indian sport, I happened to go and watch Chak De India. The filmmaking classes have finally taken effect, "What my version of the movie would be like blah blah blah" is trying to bubble out of any available orifice on my person. But no, my mind is made up. "In the present day and age", when values seem to have gone from invaluable to no value, the cinematic (uh... um...) value of this movie is just so besides the point. So who cares what i think of the screenplay or dialogue, or the factual accuracy in the movie or the lack of it.
This is a movie that children should watch. (Actually, cinema in our country should step up to the challenge. Of presenting to young ones what we lack in reality. Everything that we lack.) It must be said, felt great to see a movie that had so many girls in really skimpy skirts NOT being an object in some unintelligent man's hammed attempt at cinema. The girls kick some great chauvinist ass, and that kids should see. We'll have a lot less wife-beating husbands and daughter killing families if more of these movies are made.

P.S. The goalie is seriously pretty. Vidya Malvade if I'm not mistaken. And Preeti - Sagarika Ghatge. Due respects of course.

And joy wept.

I begin to write this at the stroke of midnight of a day in history. A memorable day in history. Woefully, I write about something I didn't see as it happened, rather only heard of it as a capsule of things that went by. Anil Kumble wrote a very unlikely page in cricketing history, he became the first cricketer in Test cricketing history to have scored a century with more than 550 wickets as well to is credit. (Don't worry, I checked to make sure I wasn't bluffing).

Where was I? I was stuck in traffic. Kilometres of piled up traffic, thanks, probably to some no good jackass voted into authority for lack of a lesser evil. But I shall not be petty on the day of the Jumbo. Fate did not will me to watch a great sportsperson script history. I cannot fight fate, I am not Anil Kumble.

My mother had called me up when Kumble was 82 n.o. and I was riding home, hoping against hope he'd get to 3 figures. (Looking back, I feel rather proud of myself, I wished he get the century than me being able to watch it... ). Traffic denied me the pleasure of screeching in joy at a sporting hero's laurel, one that perhaps came 17 years too late. I learnt of it the moment I walked in home of course, ran to my room and gave a silent roar. Shed an invisible tear. (My favourite kind). I (now) selfishly think to myself. "Vindicated".

I remember when I first saw Kumble bowling for India. Tall grim looking guy with a weird action. My appreciation of his game was largely for regionalist reasons then I think. He was from Bangalore, and hence I liked him. Forgive me Mother India, I was a young fool. Later of course, as the days went by, ecstasy swept over regularly thanks to this man. 6-12 at the Hero Cup. The match in Bangalore against Australia. 88 vs South Africa. The muted appeal for Brian Lara's LBW from a bandaged face. The perfect 10. 24 wickets in Oz. Crossing 500 wickets. There are many more of course, but the greatness of the man would be greater still by not even bothering to think further more about it. I think it was Richard Nixon who said "It's only when you've been in the deepest of valleys, do you really enjoy the peaks". And how many valleys has the Smiling Assassin seen? Not a good enough fielder. (heavily redundant) Doesn't spin the ball enough. Picks only tailenders. And of course, doesn't bat well enough. For some weird reason, I hardly ever agreed with any of these. except for maybe the fielding bit. No point talking about the spin, "561" talks for itself. Picks only tailenders? How come the other 1000 bowlers in test cricket never did. What, the tailenders came out to play only for Kumble? And batting? He's number 8 on the line-up. Asking him to bat well is asking Sachin to open bowling with 90mph yorkers.

My admiration for some of these players has always bordered on irrationality. As is true, with most other people who follow cricket in our country I suppose. There were 30 people in my house that day when India was 164/8, and Anil Kumble walked out to join Javagal Srinath in the middle of the Chinnaswami Stadium. 29 people in the room told me to switch the TV off and sleep. But the 12 year old worldly being that is my brain, decided otherwise. India would win that day, and I wasn't going to miss it. (I chide my mother to this day about how a 12 year old's foresight was better than her and my father's). When the giant's jaw broke in the Windies, for some reason people were talking of how he should have retired. A faithful friend and teammate that he was, Javagal Srinath went to hilarious extents to make sure he didn't get the 10th wicket that truly belonged to Jumbo at the Kotla that lovely day in spring.

Now Anil did not need a century in test cricket to show anyone his greatness. Nor does he need anything anymore, to "show" greatness. It is right there, to be seen and known. Like the depths of the sea, an understated magnanimity that one must be a fool of Bushian proportions to not notice. What this century however did, was vindicate everything around the great man himself. A dumbledorean act of insurmountable selflessness, these runs could perhaps be the most novel of ways that Jumbo could have come up with, to say thanks. To everyone who ever stuck with him. Srinath, 30 n.o. in Bangalore, and those two wides at the Kotla. Rahul, for picking him in spite of the flimsy reasons that people come up with. A million other people, and all those insane fans like me who refused to believe that Anil Kumble could ever make a mistake.

It's november 21st, and a little over 15 hours from now, Jumbo takes the field as India's test captain. 17 years, 560 wickets and he's the captain... May the force be with you, and remember, with great power comes great responsibility...

Glossary...

I love reading books, and ironically (I'm not giving excuses) I haven't read that many to call myself anything with books. But of the few that I have read, minute elements in them fascinate me. (Sometimes they aren't that minute.) And they become part of everyday thought. The veiled arch in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was one such thing. I dream about it occasionally. Also from the same book, I was deeply incensed by the idea of the Gubraithian Fire. Supposed to be everlasting. Of course, for this, I have my own interpretations. Rather, I would like to interpret it in some ways... Fire, in whatever little literature I've read seems to be commonly equated with anything intense (As it should be?). "With anger burning inside him like a raging fire". "All consuming hatred engulfed her senses like fire". "Burning loins"; and what not. I suppose I can do without hatred, and anger as well. But the idea of everlasting passion and ambition is definitely romantic. Especially for someone with far fetched dreams. So in the spirit of this romance, I sign off...