As Good As It Gets...

I received the below mentioned article as a forwarded message today in my mail box, originally published here. Well, the author might have underestimated the Tiger but the fact remains that he has been the best captain we have ever seen, a true fighter and a pillar of determination & grit. The first time he made a comeback was at the Lords in 1990's; and what a comeback it was! Making his presence felt in the international arena. A powerful hitter of the ball, he went on to become the 'Prince of Calcutta', a nickname given to him by none other than Sir Geoffrey Boycott. The Prince of hearts went on to become the 'Maharaja' of the game and dominated the off side in such a fashion that Rahul Dravid once retorted, "On the off side, first there is God and then there is Saurav Ganguly". A tribute from one great batsman to another. His loss of captaincy and subsequent ouster from the team might have been a temporary setback, but not enough to dampen his spirits. If anything, it probably gave him a reason to get back. About a year ago when 'Dada' made his comeback, after being dropped unceremoniously, people were astounded. The critics who had written him off were stunned and silenced. A year gone by and Saurav has ensured that their mouths are kept shut for good. That's the way to fight back. Not with words but with deeds. With the year 2007 being his best year so far, I believe he has miles to go from here onwards.

The Pepsi commercial ('Apne Dada ki baat sunenge naa aap?') that Saurav did before the world cup was probably an ominous sign. One should have taken the hint then. A tiger can be kept in a cage for a while but it doesn't lose his ferocity.

One should never forget, a wounded tiger is a very dangerous creature and once recovered, it hunts down its prey and feasts like never before!

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A stirring revival
Ganguly's fairytale
Sambit Bal
December 9, 2007

If you're looking for a clue to what has helped Sourav Ganguly sustain his spectacular run in Test cricket since his return at the fag end of last year, don't bother looking at his footwork or the flow of his bat. Take, instead, a close look at his eyes while he is batting. They speak of a calmness that borders on serenity, and a combination of composure and resolve. You could see it in his comeback innings in Johannesburg, which fetched him an unbeaten 51, and you could see it through his epic innings in Bangalore that marked a new high in his career.
In his bowling, and on the field, we have seen the more familiar Ganguly; excitable, emotional, even fiery. He has appealed cantankerously and celebrated his wickets and catches with child-like gusto. His batting hasn't lacked his natural flair - in fact, he has been batting with greater freedom than he did in the period leading up to his temporary banishment - but the most noticeable feature about his cricket has been his poise. It hasn't left him even after he has occasionally been cornered into an awkward position by a short ball.
He has let himself go only once: it was an emotional moment, getting to his first hundred before his adoring home fans. But his celebration after he got to his first double-hundred, a landmark he sought and will cherish, was far more subdued. There was the raising of the arms and the acknowledgment of applause from his team-mates and the crowd. But then there was also a series of little pumps of the fist, and a waving of the helmet. Those were for himself. There was an air of fulfillment, of a man celebrating privately in public. His smile touched a million hearts: his struggle to regain his place, and some would say his honour, have been among the most stirring and uplifting stories in cricket.
Let's be done with the numbers first. Incredibly for a man who was given up for dead, 2007 has been his most successful year statistically. Potentially he has three innings left still, and he has already scored 932 runs at 62.13. His most prolific year to date has been 2002, when he managed 945 runs - but it took him 16 Tests back then. Put together, 2005 and 2006 yielded him only 422 runs from 11 Tests at 28.13, and that included a painstaking hundred against a hopeless Zimbabwean bowling attack.
The manner of his removal, first from captaincy and then from the team, continues to rankle with his supporters, and surely with him. But it is undeniable that from that low has emerged this high. It was perhaps a bit disingenuous for Greg Chappell to claim credit for Ganguly's revival, but in the cold light of the day, the exile, the sheer indignation of it, did make the revival possible, and ultimately far more poignant.
The credit for it must go entirely to Ganguly, for few rational observers would have seen it coming. It wasn't just that the runs had dried up; his skills, his responses, seemed to have deserted him, and he bore the look of a haunted man.
He owes his return to a change in the selection committee, but the rest of the story is about a man who simply refused to surrender to what seemed inevitable to most. Much can be said about his improved footwork and the decisiveness of his stroke-making, but in the end, it has been a triumph of spirit, of incredible strength of mind and faith.
Remarkably, in a batting line-up featuring Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, Ganguly has been India's best batsman since his return. Not merely for consistency and the number of runs scored - during the course of his double-hundred he became India's leading run--getter this year - but for the assuredness of the manner in which he has made them. His half-century in his return Test in Johannesburg, though subdued and a bit laboured, helped India to what ultimately turned out to be a match-winning first-innings total in a low-scoring Test. And in the decisive Test in Cape Town, only he looked fluent and in control in the fateful second innings; his dismissal induced a crawl that proved terminal.
In England he had a series of vital contributions, and none better than a 79 on a challenging pitch in the second Test at Trent Bridge. Apart from Zaheer Khan's inspired swing bowling, my warmest memory from that match is of Ganguly's square-driving.
Michael Vaughan set an off-side trap, with four men between cover and gully, and Ganguly teased and mocked him by caressing, punching and guiding the ball repeatedly through that cordon: one to the right of point, then one to the left, and then a couple between the two gullies. He was denied a hundred by a wrong decision, and his response to that dismissal told a story. In an earlier time he would have left kicking and stomping; here he did so with an ironic, rueful smile. The protest was registered, but without causing offence.
Admittedly his hundreds in the current series have come against feeble opponents. The pitch at Kolkata offered nothing to the bowlers, and Shoaib Akhtar was drained by illness. But at Bangalore he was not so much up against the bowlers as the match situation. He provided the calm cushion for Yuvraj Singh to flow at the other end without ever sacrificing his own strokes.
Personally, my favourite Ganguly innings of the series is a small but vital one. It came during the run-chase in the final innings of the first Test. Shoaib had just cleaned up Rahul Dravid with a ripper; India had over a hundred runs to get; and Tendulkar was finding non-existent demons in the pitch. In this banana-skin situation, typical to India, Ganguly, who had fallen cheaply in the first innings, set about cutting down the target nervelessly, with deliciously timed fours against Shoaib, Mohammad Sami, and Danish Kaneria.
The toughest challenge lies ahead. Australia will come hard at him, and the pitches will test his skills. But he is living out a fairytale at the moment, and nothing he achieves will be a surprise anymore. There are many, me included, who believed Ganguly's time as an international cricketer was over. We owe him an apology and a salute.

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Days (Nights) to remember...

So...it's been nearly 2.5 months since I started working the night shift...starting at 2300hrs till 0830...it seemed exciting at first...a new experience...watching the empty ODC...barely any souls around. It's hard to imagine that this place is buzzing with activity the whole day. With maybe around 10000 ppl in the campus the office campus is active throughout the day.

The first couple of weeks were spent roaming around the campus at around 3 in the night and exploring all the buildings...lots of junk food in the nearly empty cafetaria...listening to music on high volume while working...and watching the rising sun at 6AM. The crimson and orange skies just before the sun rose was so beautiful...as if the guy up there had spilled the paint on a canvas and then very skillfully gathered it up into a big orange sphere!

Well, so much for the initial days of fun. It does begin to take a toll on a persons normal body cycle and affect one's life...am pretty glad that this is goin to end soon. The only thing I would miss is probably the serene and calm environment. Don't like a crowd around much you see. :-)

In case, you are suffering from a similar case of sleepless nights then just forward this link to your boss. Am sure that's a big enough hint ;-)

Meet Joe Black

A movie that never fails to amaze me, no matter how many times I watch it. It talks about life. It talks about the power of love. It talks of respect. It talks of the wonderfulness of being alive. It talks of being true to oneself and to everyone around us.

When we grow old and are 65 and we look back at our lives, how many of us can boast of a life so enriching and absolutely fulfilling that you would have no regrets? You wake up from bed and say to yourself, 'I don't want anything else'. A life so inspiring that death itself would stop by for a moment and admire the person you are.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend on 'Carpe Diem' and what it would translate to in various contexts. I guess regardless of the context, what it translates to is simply that whatever we do, time is always a constraint. How we handle that constraint and make the most of what we got in hand ultimately decides the person we are. Isn't it?

Take Your Fl(P)ick!

Well, it's been a week already and I think the hype and all have subsided. Things have become clear on the obvious choice for some. For those of you who have only got the reviews but haven't actually got to watch them yet, here's my take on both the releases.

Saawariya: If you want entertainment, then forget it...go watch something else. This is a movie which has got a very simple story (I know some might say, 'if it can be called a story!', but nevertheless). Boy meets girl...falls in love with her...girl loves some other guy...other guy is absconding...will he come back?
Sounds simple enough? Probably Sanjay Leela Bhansali thought the same too. So what does he do to create the grandeur that we genrally see in his movies? He gives the entire setting a fairy tale look. The look is amazingly suitable for a Hans Christian Anderson kind of a story. A random unknown town, the roads and buildings of which are just like in a storybook. It rains AND snows depending on the mood of the characters. The prostitutes wear colour coordinated dresses (Green or Blue mostly!). People behave so indifferently to the central characters. It's more like there is nothing else happening around. It's just the story of these two youngsters and those related to them. Every now and then they break into a song. With roughly an hour worth of songs in the movie, you feel like bits and pieces of a narration is thrown in between a musical. You would definitely be in a trance. But the likely cause might be the amazing cinematography and the grand sets with the blue and green lighting rather than the brilliance of the story. Innumerable references to Raj Kapoor and the RK banner looks like they wanted Ranbir to be launched under the home banner but probably thought otherwise and just put in the proxies for the effect. But the question one would ask is what exactly was SLB trying to achieve from this?

As far as the newcomers are concerned, they seem to have the talent to be good actors someday. Maybe a different movie, a different kind of a role. Ranbir would definitely do good in a serious/action kind of a role while Sonam looks pretty versatile. But Saawariya was simply the wrong platform. Watch Saawariya only when in a sombre mood. It's not for the regular moviegoer.

Om Shanti Om: That's what I call a real entertainer. Forget all logic. It's not meant to be logical at all. But if you want value for money and 2.5 hours of fultoo entertainment then this is the right movie to watch. The first half sees a lot of 70's drama. SRK overacts like no one can and the best part is that he is meant to do so. All characters have been beautifully enacted by some very very good actors. Kirron Kher in the role of the 'overacting Filmy Maa' is simbly supaarb :-) . Shreyas is brilliant as usual. But the surprise pack is Arjun Rampal. Carrying off such a brilliant negative part in this kind of a masala movie is quite credible. Deepika Padukone, contrary to popular belief, can actually act and she does so brilliantly. She caries of the classic as well as the mod look with such ease that it is difficult to judge where she looks better. The two main attractions of the movie, in my opinion, would definitely be the spoof on south indian movies and the 'Deewangi' song. Watch out for SRK in the 'Rascalaa...Mind It' avataar. Mindblowing! No other word for it.

And the 31 star song does indeed take you back to the old era. Rekha, Jeetender, Mithun doing their jigs with the new brigade is very very entertaining and it really looks like they had one hell of a party at the sets :-).

The movie credits at the end of the film is definitely worth a watch. I don't think any movie-maker has brought his entire backend staff on-screen and given them due credit in this fashion ever.
OSO is a very apt tribute to the Hindi film Industry and to everyone who make it possible for us to love the industry and its movies despite everything. Farah Khan, you rock!

Celebration...

Got the below mentioned piece in a forwarded mail recently and it got me thinking. Have we really forgotten how to be a friend? Since we were kids, we might have met many people. Some we liked, some we didn't for various different reasons. Some of those became very good friends. Some became close acquaintances while some we resented and they were on our hit list always.

Time passes and we keep in touch with some of them but some do drift away only to ring the bell on the doors of our memories at the most unexpected of times. When that time comes, what do you do? Is the relationship similar as it used to be? Can we ever be like that again as we used to be?
Just a few questions that comes to the mind.

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Celebration means......

A winter evening.
Four friends.
One barsaat.
Four glasses of chai.

(OR)

Hundred bucks of gas.
A rusty old bike.
And an open road.

(OR)

Maggi noodles.
A hostel room.
4.25 a.m.

(OR)

3 old friends.
3 separate cities.
3 coffee mugs.
1 internet messenger.

(OR)

Rain on a hot tin roof.
Pakoras deep-frying.
Neighbours dropping in.
A party.

You can spend
Hundreds on birthdays,
Thousands on festivals,
Lakhs on weddings,

but to celebrate all you have to do is spend your Time ..

Keep in touch with your loved ones ........

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Diwali Deewangee

It was a weekend we had been waiting for sometime. A four day holiday...away from work and away from doing the usual stuff. Well, it certainly was unusual in a lot many ways.

8th November: PP arrived in the morning from Hyd. Pre-diwali day. Lots of crackers to be bought and we had no clue where to get them from! Surprisingly, Bangalore had a few or no cracker shops at all in every corner of the road like we have it back home. The evening started with bowling at Megabowl on airport road. And before I forget to mention, we had a very competitive match indeed. The winner (Shk) scored much more than twice the score of the person ending up last and yours truly fought till the last ball was bowled, to end at 3rd spot. (the fact that there were just four of us is incidental ;-) ). Well, it was a futile search for crackers that day, but the drive on the Whitefield Road was good.Coffee at CCD followed by dinner at Golconda Chimney was a nice way to end the evening. By the way, for those who haven't been to Golconda Chimney...you must try it out. The food is quite good.

9th November: Diwali day and NO CRACKERS yet! Made some calls and were told that Hosur road is the place to go. So off we went on our bikes again. We found a wholesaler for 'Standard Fireworks' pretty close by on Hosur Rd. and the variety of fireworks available was just what we wanted. It had been 4 years since I had stopped bursting crackers and this year was going to be a 'back to the past' kind of a celebration :-). We got the stuff which lasted well over 3 hours. Diwali evening was quite exciting. Last years celebrations were at Ooty and hence it was my first Diwali at Bangalore. I lighted Diya's and two Phuljhari's at my flat before joining the others at Sbz's place. The first half of the evening did consist of some weird and crackling designs formed of those patakha's. A sample of the artistic skills of the crazy gang can be seen below.

Interval was full of laddoos, mewa and wine. Interesting combo...All this with the movie 'Jaaneman' playing in the background! I know...that is an 'Eeks' moment! ;-) Well, the rest of the crackers were burst in the next 30 minutes in a really marathon session where the rockets were flying every which way you can imagine...the Chakri's chose to run under the bikes and the bombs/sparklers threatening to start a forest fire! The Ladi being the grand finale was not a dissapointment at all. And we really hope (actually quite sure) that the galli ke doggies wouldn't bother to threaten the people of this particular galli at least for the next few months.

Dinner was at a nearby restaurant where we saw some people leaving the place with a box of sweets in their hands. We were quite amused and a bit happy to know that the reataurant was pampering the guests thus, until someone overheard that they were personal guests of the owner! Well, never mind. Too much sweet isn't good for the weight conscious anyway.

10th November: The D-Day! We were watching 'Saawariya' today. Had already got some diametrically opposite reviews from various sources and hence were quite apprehensive. Well, what it turned out to be is something I will not discuss on this post. Evening we had to do some shopping for a trekking expedition at Kalawarhallibetta (Skandhagiri Hills). We left from Bangalore at around 11PM. The group included Sbz, PP, Nash, Smr and of course Hum :-). Kalawarhallibetta is a difficult place to find (esp in the night) if one doesn't know the route. We had a yummy dinner at a Dhaba near Yelahanka. The dhaba was ideal for one of those ghost movie settings. Reached Chikballarpur at around 1.30AM and then the driver of our cab got thoroughly confused as to which direction to go in! Just wonderful isn't it? We asked for some directions and found the turning that had a KM-stone with 'Nandigram 6 km' written on it. We turned left from the Chikballarpur main road and carried on. Going further we lost our way again and at 2AM there was no one to ask directions to as well. There was some divine intervention near a place which read Sri SathyaSai Ashram. We found a friendly woman awake who directed us onto the right path. Well, if you thought that we were to find the place now for sure, well you're almost right but not quite. We were indeed blessed with this amazing pathfinder (a.k.a our driver) who could get confused at the slightest excuse. Probably the excuse this time was the scary shadowy figure we saw on the road. Totally covered in blue with a blue and white headscarf and standing hunched on the side of the road holding a stick! The figure wasn't moving at all and as we went past it, for a moment it did scare us when the headlights of the vehicle flashed on the figure, until we realized what it actually was. Well, coming back to our quest for Skandagiri Hills, it turned out that we had to take a turn at the Visveswariah Arch and enter the village (this was the birth place of Sir M.Visveswariah). Some 2 kms further on this road the Skandhagiri Hills trek start point was there. Some negotiation with the guide took place and we were off to start the expedition uphill. Our backpacks loaded with water, chocolates & biscuits and with flashlights in our hands we were all set to conquer Mt. Skandagiri! :D. We had barely walked 30 minutes that the task began to look quite daunting but nevertheless doable. For Nash, who hadn't done a lot of trekking earlier, the uphill trek was a difficult one and we had to stop every 10-15 minutes to let him catch his breath and also goad him on to continue walking, trying various incentives included playing songs on the cellphone to taking pictures on the rocks in the no-moon night. To top this, the guide was a pestering kind who it seems, had some sort of a inter-galaxy shuttle to catch on reaching the top of the hill. The continuous 'come FAST saar' was quite irritating as well. So much so, that PP contemplated throwing him off the cliff if he said FAST once again, and as if on cue the next word from the guide was, 'FAST saar!' ;-) Lucky that the guy was some distance ahead of us. We reached the top of the hill after around 2.5 hours of climbing and one would have thought that the difficult part was over. We were walking on flat ground and were nearing the top of the cliff where all other trekkers could be seen, when suddenly there was a noise behind me and Nash just disappeared! Just like that...Poof...into thin air! Just that it wasn't the air but the ground that gave way underneath his feet. He had fallen through the grass on the left side of the path and into a bush some 6 feet from the top of the hill. When we tried locating him, all we could see was his right hand. Thankfully, his fall was broken by the dense bush and he was somehow holding onto something. His left foot was stuck in the branches and right foot was loose with no foothold underneath. We were terrified but thankfully, the guide knew the hills. He got a few other localites and they got into the trees below and tried pulling Nash up. I could hear PP mumbling something and realized that probably they were silent prayers. Am sure that's what everyone else was doing at that moment. We didn't know how deep the pit was and how bad the fall had been/could have been if Nash had continued falling.

We hear of accidents and near death experiences from other people and always think that it can't happen to one of us. We are always very careful. But what happened there, just made me realize, that one can't be too careful always and unthinkable things can happen to anyone. But, destiny does play a role. There's a reason and time for everything that happens around and to us. We do not know what would happen in the next moment. All it takes is a split second to change your life. A blink of an eye and everything can be what you have always dreamt of or what you never wanted to happen! Just goes on to say that don't take life for granted. Sure, we should live by the moment and be happy with what comes our way, but whatever comes your way mayn't necessarily be what you deserve. Probably it happened to you because there are better plans written ahead in the future chapters of your life and these are the ways to be prepared for what lies ahead.

Coming back to the cliff, the guide got us some help and we could reach Nash at last. With some effort he was pulled up and was back on solid ground. What was amazing was that, all his tiredness had disappeared and his sense of humor was back in a jiffy. Now the only thing that he was complaining about was that we failed to take pictures when he was busy playing Tarzan hanging on the edge of the cliff!

11th November: The sunrise was in another 20 minutes and it sure was beautiful! A sunrise on top of a hill from where we could see the clouds floating below was simply breathtaking.



We started our climb downhill around 6.30AM and reached the foothills in about 2 hours. We reached back in Bangalore in around an hour and totally crashed out. Terribly tired but the experience was amazing. I think we should plan our next trek soon. Sbz-Take the hint ;-)

Dead tired from the trek and slept most of the afternoon. Evening did pass by quite fast and the small vacation was nearing an end. But this was a long weekend that would last in my mind for a very long time to come for a lot of reasons.

Myth-o-logic!

Came across this piece here.

Reflects today's situation in the country very aptly.

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The Lord surveyed the Ram Setu and said "Hanuman, you and your vanara sena had built this bridge several centuries back with great diligence and devotion. It is remarkable that it has withstood the ravages of the climatic and geographical changes over centuries. It is indeed an amazing feat especially considering the fact that a bridge at Hyderabad built by Gammon using latest technology collapsed the other day even before they could stick the posters on its pillars."
Hanuman with all humility spoke "Jai Sri Ram, it is all because of your grace. We just scribbled your name on the bricks and threw them in the sea and they held. No steel from TISCO or cement from Ambuja or ACC was ever used. But Lord, why rake up the old issue now?"
Ram spoke "Well, Hanuman some people down there want to demolish the bridge and construct a canal. The contract involves lot of money and lot of money will be made. They will make money on demolition and make more money on construction."
Hanuman bowed down and said "Why don't we go down and present our case?"
Ram said "Times have changed since we were down there. They will ask us to submit age proof and we don't have either a birth certificate or school leaving certificate. We traveled mainly on foot and some times on horseback and so we don't have a driving license either. As far as the address proof is concerned, the fact that I was born at Ayodhya is in itself under litigation for over half a century...If I go in a traditional attire with bow and arrow, the ordinary folks may recognize me but Arjun Singh may take me to be some tribal and, at the most, offer a seat at IIT under the reserved category. Also, a God cannot walk in dressed in a three-piece suit and announce his arrival. It would make even the devotees suspicious. So it is a dilemma to say the least."
"I can vouch for you by saying that I personally built the bridge."
"My dear, Anjani putra, it will not work. They will ask you to produce the lay-out plan, the project details, including financial outlay and how the project cost was met and the completion certificate. Nothing is accepted without documentary evidence in India. You may cough but unless a doctor certifies it, you have no cough. A pensioner may present himself personally but the authorities do not take it as proof. He has to produce a life-certificate to prove that he is alive. It is that complicated."
"Lord, I can't understand these historians. Over the years you have given darshan once every hundred years to saints like Surdas, Tulsidas, Saint Thyagaraja, Jayadeva, Bhadrachala Ramdas and even Sant Tukaram and still they disbelieve your existence and say Ramayana is a myth. The only option, I see, is to re-enact Ramayana on earth and set the government records straight once for all."
Lord smiled "It isn't that easy today. Ravan is apprehensive that he may look like a saint in front of Karunanidhi. I also spoke to his mama Mareecha, who appeared as a golden deer to tempt Sita maiyya when I was in the forest and he said that he won't take a chance of stepping on earth as long as Salman Khan is around!!!"