I feel you

In the cool summer breeze that blows,
I feel you soothe me.
In the voice of ocean waves, so low,
I feel you move me
As deep as the forest's roots go,
I feel you love me.

Eyes like clear mountain stream,
Object of a young man's dream.
Scent like the fresh air of spring
Take me high, give me wings

But parting is such, I was told,
Your hand I cannot hold.
I was living on a lie,
I have only clear blue sky
To feel you.

Me, myself, and...

I often wonder about how much of who we are is actually who we are. We present ourselves in a particular way to the world around us, we put certain thoughts across to the people we meet, and there is an image that the world has of each one of us. How much of this image comes "naturally" to us? Is it really in our nature to behave the way we behave? Not totally. There is something that we put on every time before we leave home, something we put on every time we have to meet someone- rather like makeup. This makeup kit comprises different cosmetics: the way we think we should behave, the way we have been told to behave (upbringing), and our general notions of how to make any particular interaction successful (how to behave in an interview, the "rights" and "wrongs" while going on a date...).

This bothers me. It bothers me that I cant be the way I was born to be, that for the sake of making daily ride through this roller-coaster world smoother, I have to wear this makeup. There is so much in my behaviour that is certainly a natural part of my character. I am very sensitive to it, and it needles me every now and then. And I can feel it when someone does the same with me- I can see their makeup, and I feel like telling them that they need not go through the trouble of wearing it. It is most conspicuous in large social gatherings- in dinner parties, dance clubs, business conferences- this is when it chokes me the most.

I try to rid myself of this habit as much as possible. The remnants of it, I treat as a necessary evil. I mean c'mon yaar ! Just be yourself, just do your thing.

Lords of the Dark Side

I am quite a music junkie, and music in any form is something that keeps me going, day in and day out. Hard rock for me though, has always been more equal than other kinds of music and it is something that I really cannot live without. Over the years, the dark metal of Black Sabbath has had a firm grip on my mind- there was a phase in between where I didn't listen to them, but I came back soon enough.

Before I move on- Black Sabbath is a band formed in the late sixties and these guys are the Creators and Gods of dark metal- if not for Sabbath, metal would not have been what it is today. They wrote the story of heavy metal- and inspired today's greatest bands.

What is it about their music that captivates their fans? Darkness is the defining feature of their music and lyrics- sin, death, and hopelessness are the main themes. I suppose to some of us, sub-consciously at least, this darkness is alluring. There is something that draws us towards these things, even though logically we shouldn't be- and keeps us there. Black Sabbath was born at the height of the hippie movement. They rode against the wave of coolness and happiness that defined the sixties and seventies. That made them appeal to those who rejected conventional coolness and hippie culture.

And then of course, there is the music itself. It is heavy, at times weird, and most importantly, deliciously addictive. I haven't heard better bass than "Geezer" Butler's in any band to date. Ozzy is a phenomenon- his voice reverberating with sounds of psycho-ness. It was a voice that was never meant to make music, but ended up leading a revolution. They created music that reached into the darkest corners of our minds, appealed to the mad human being inside, and made something beautiful out of all the psycho-ness.

I still have the first Sabbath cassettes that kept me company for months and months at age fifteen, when I innocently picked them up at a sale. I am sure Black Sabbath and it's music will remain a dark treasure for many like me in the years to come.

Looking Blogwards

INTROSPECTION was something that always came automatically to me. It is a good thing in moderation, but quite often it has been an unwanted guest roaming the densely populated corridors of my mind. And now it is paying a visit to this blog- in moderation I hope.

It has been about 4 months since I started the blog, so at this point I start wondering what exactly it is all about. Most blogs do have variety in what they contain, but there are at least one or two common themes or flavours. This one blatantly seems to be dipping it's fingers in everything- small things about my everyday life I observe and want to make fun of, sports analysis, poetry, music and travel. It seems to have so many extreme moods- extremely jovial, extremely sad, extremely analytical- when I read it myself, I feel like I have pulled out bits of different blogs and made a collage of everything. Seeing such extremeties sitting within a blog-post of each other almost scares me. And the fact that it is my own blog- scares me even more. How do I find a single title for this? It throws me into an infinite spiral of confusion!

What does this blog mean to the world anyway? It isn't a tech log, isn't a site for poetry, not a dedicated sports blog, and doesn't contain any socially or politically relevant material.

It's a blog about nothing, and, at the same time, a blog about everything. Maybe it's a "mind-graph"- it traces the wild fluctuations in the mind of a man who is beginning to explore life- and is happy about it.

The most disrespected book ever

ONE has to feel for the DMV rules of the road booklet- yes, the one which we have to read before ticking boxes on a sheet of paper and being honoured with a driving permit. There are books that people read for pleasure, for professional growth, or simply with urgency because they have to. But this one, I have seen people read only when they have nothing to do- absolutely nothing. When you don't have an impending deadline, don't have anything fun to do, or everyone else is busy with their own thing, that's when you read the DMV book. Sure, you can argue that people read the DMV book to pass the test when they really need a license, which would push it into the third category mentioned above. Even so, it tends to receive the least amount of dedicated mind power. I don't think that there any piece of literature that gets the sort of casual treatment that this does. We even begin with the assumption that we are going to pass the test, eventually at least. After all, they let you take the written test something like three times for ten bucks- utter disgrace.

The poor thing doesn't even have a price attached to it- you can download it for free. Just imagine the abuse- get it for free, give it lowest priority, and have no fear of treating it casually, for there is always next time. I don't have any quarrels with the present setup, but I pity the book, especially if it has feelings.

An amusing thought: will there be a day when people pre-order their rules of the road, rush into bookstores to get them, and perhaps try and be the first ones to finish?

Nerds gone wild

THERE are some sights- like a lightning bolt, a hurricane, or a volcano that make us stop for a minute when we least expect to be stopped. We are completely dumbstruck, and all we can say is- "what on earth was that"??

One such sight is the stereotypical nerd having his or her share of the spotlight. Some random flashbacks of geeks losing control (wild dances at random places and unreasonable alcohol intake at inexplicable moments) have inspired me to write on this lazy Thursday afternoon.

The world must take note of this. There may be cool dudes with their I-don't-give-a-damn attitude, hotshots who steal the show, those who liven up any party or burn any dance floor- but the geek letting loose in a bar or club deserves its share of respect, because much like what we see on the discovery channel, these sights are rare, breathtaking and amusing.

There is one obvious explanation for the nature of nerd outbursts. Nerds rarely go on drinking sprees find their groove to a groovy track. But then when a combination of circumstances and curiosity give them a little taste of the wild side, they shed centuries of inhibition. What follows is their transition to a parallel universe, where it is just him\her and whatever gets him\her high- nothing else matters. This particular level of disregard for everything else while is seldom achieved by anybody. The late 80's paid tribute by integrating such characters into their movies- mostly high school geeks getting drunk or stoned, and dancing away. This was funny and often as a result the nerds grew cooler than the cooler gang.

Weird?Freaky?Funny? Whatever you may call it, I'm sure you would have witnessed such glorious acts at some point in your life.

And as a nerd having been there, done that, I dedicate to it a blog entry.

The Perfect Coffee Shop

I don't know how it all started, I don't know how it grew on me- but the cafe/coffee shop has become an irremovable part of my life- coffee shops have a wonderful relaxing effect on my nerves. When I spend time in one, I am convinced that the world and it's people may not be perfect, but there is no real need to worry and it's possible to make something cool out of everything painfully uncool, given the right outlook. They also seem to elevate to me an extremely energetic state when it comes to making conversation or cranking up the creative engine in the head.

So here is a short list of some things I imagine an ideal coffee shop should contain (hopefully my faithful readers will contribute via comments)

To sit: The seating arrangements must have just the right density: not so spread out that it kills the vibe, and not so dense that I am tripping over stuff when I walk, or have someones elbow in my coffee when I am comfortably parked. For a bunch of us to sit down and talk about our lives, a huge, soft red sofa to crash on with a nice carpet underneath. Also, a convenient option to find the little two chairs and a table for the obvious purpose.

The View: Glass panes instead of walls as much as possible- if it's a big city, to soak in the vibrancy, and if it's college, to study the floating population.

Art: Modern art on the walls- very, very, crazy and modern. Walls are useful real estate to add jazz to the place, and vintage masters belong to museums, not coffee shops.

Temperature: Should be perfect again- I should be able to spend insane amounts of time in comfort without my shivering like it's Siberia or sweating like it's the Sahara. Very critical- needs to be just right again!

No: No, TV's- I have seen coffee shops with TV's and they ruin everything. Some of them insist on leaving them on in mute, and that makes no sense.

Wish list: I would really like to see a coffee shop with lava lamps. Many, many lava lamps in many, many colours; one that has seating outside on a vintage cobblestone/stone pavement (I suppose this is how European cafes would be?).

Coffee-shop: everything from the pillar of my social life to my nirvana-giving modern monastery.

The Home of Cricket and going high-tech

IT is every cricketer's dream to tour England, and being capped in a Lord's test would certainly be one of the most special moments for any player. After all, it is the home of cricket, and the grounds that our Indian team is playing on are the cradle of the game. Much of the chatter before India's first test at lord's was about the senior players being eager to make in an impression in perhaps their last appearance at Lord's and the youngsters being overwhelmed by the privilege of being allowed to play a test at this holy venue. The thrill of watching cricket being played in English conditions is no less felt by the fans either. The picturesque settings-be it the backdrop of London's majestic clock towers or the rolling meadows of the English countryside-, the classic grandstands with elderly fans still dressing in their best formals to watch a cricket match, lush green outfields and not to mention the wind vane with Old Father Time at Lord's, all make cricket in England a very special experience. The weather might be the most unpredictable and uncooperative, but there is probably no other venue that provides as even a contest between bat and all, with plenty in the conditions for quality swing bowling initially, and enough respite for the batsmen in patches when the sun shines and the pitch eases up. I reckon batting in English conditions for this very reason is the true test of skill for any batsman, especially an opening batsman.

The second day of the first test produced a very interesting (controversial?) incident involving Kevin Pietersen. He edged one which was lapped up by Dhoni behind the stumps, and the Indian team was off on a celebration, umpire Simon Taufel and that was that.

Not quite.

TV replays showed that the ball had not carried to Dhoni, and Pietersen was almost off the field when his teammates frantically waved him back on and the umpires called him back on. He was to survive only three more balls before being caught behind cleanly again. I did not really think too much about the TV referral until the former Australian batsman Ian Chappell brought up the topic in one of his articles.

Cricket has always prided itself on being a game that put fair conduct first. Chappell has two points of contention against the further use of TV replays than are already in place and I comepletely agree:

1.) Cricket has always stressed putting faith in the good intentions and inherent sense of justice of a qualified umpire. Simon Taufel is one of the best around, and I would imagine that his mistake was due totally to human error. Overuse of TV replays means for one thing that we are not really showing faith in the competence and judgement of trained and experienced umpires who are probably right almost all the time. Further, our extra dependence on TV replays would mean that we start to "make do" with slightly lower quality umpires, since the replays are there to make the correction anyway. In short, we hazard the esteem of good umpiring and risk lowering the expertise of the average umpire. There is always scope for errors in judgement in any sport, and players should be willing to ride their luck. If errors occur alarmingly too often, it is the selection of umpires that must be addressed, and not the inclusion of technology.

2.) It is all very good that the batsman is done full justice in this regard, but what of the bowler? Bowlers do not get to refer an appeal that has been turned down to the third umpire, do they? No balance between bat and ball here.

Ironic that these questions had to come up in Cricket's own home.

Trimming the tree upstairs

GETTING a haircut was never my favourite pastime- and for thinking that getting a haircut was extremely annoying when I was back in India, Destiny sent me to the US, just to show how much worse it can get.

Today the frustration levels hit their highest point- and it was very, very high.

To some people hair is a fashion statement, a reflection of their attitude, something to be flaunted. To me it is an auxillary outgrowth on the head which needs to be gotten rid of periodically. So why the extremely shiny glass cabinets, posh lighting, and overdose of gloss when all you do is esstentially mess around with the auxillary outgrowth using sharp instruments and fancy chemicals? Here I have to admit that I did not have the patience to take the bus all the way to a barber shop which was much more stripped down to the basics, but my amazement at the bells and whistles still remains.

I was greeted by hair cutting person with a handhsake and an extremely artificial and overdone "hello, Im so and so... how are you doing today...". If she was not the one in control of the instruments being used on my head which resemble potential weapons, my response would have been:

"Im not here to buy your company, I am here to get this mop off my head. It is an unfortunate law of nature that I have this growing on my head, and I hate clearing a jungle from the front of eyes to see anything. Unfortunately, you seem to be the only one who can do something about it".

I suppose a simple smile is good enough for a welcome? Apart from the elaborate introduction, the frustration was heightened by the attempt to make small talk, despite my clear (yet polite) signals that I was here just to get the job done, (over)pay the bucks, and leave. Really, does anyone ask a prisoner of war in a torture chamber about what he plans to do over the weekend, whether he wants to go to europe, or what one should do in great weather like this?

I was hoping that once the job was done I would be set free, but as it turns out, there was a burst of aggressive marketing where I was bombarded with an army of "haircare products" in all shapes, sizes, and solid/liquid/semi-solid states. After charging an exhorbitant $16 for the haircut, I was asked if I wanted to add any of those onto my bill. I mean, is that a trick question? I am a graduate student, and my haircut is certainly not sponsored by a movie production company.

When I got home and thought about things with a cool (and lighter) head, I realized what a pain I must be for haircut people around the world- uncooperative, terse, least interested in being stylish, and stingy. I cant help it though, I have tried for two decades, I guess I was just born this way.

But hey, I make their next customer seem all the more sweet and friendly.

Me and the City

THE inspiration to write this article comes partly from my own experiences and partly from a friend of mine who left for a certain beautiful european city for a little while (the city of love and romance: guesses, anyone?). The title of this post does not give much away, and the feeling I am writing about here is hard to describe to someone who has not experienced it- but here goes!

Quite often we feel trapped by the circumstances we are stuck in or the (physical) place we are stuck at. There does not seem to be much we find exciting in either our professional or personal life, and there always seems to be something we find lacking in both. To make things worse, there could be people around who do not appreciate us for who we are, or for what our choices in life are- and being in their company or vicinity brings us down and weakens us to such an extent that we are unable to do anything to improve the quality of our life.

It is then that we need something special something to happen. Perhaps we need something so big that we and our problems are small in comparison. We need something so dynamic that we have no time to stop and brood. We need something to connect with that gives us pleasure, and this pleasure is free of all conditions and uncertainties because we do not rely on anyone else to give it to us. We are at the source of pleasure, and there is nobody between us and the source. We can just drink in what the city has to offer in it's many special places- I suppose each city has one such unique place. What comes to my mind is Marine Drive in Bombay, Times Square and Lower Manhattan in New York, or the banks of the River Seine in Paris (this I have only heard about, never visited).

This special thing can sometimes be a city. It could be any city in the world- I have found the size and dynamism in Bombay, but it could as well be the artisitc, romantic touch of paris. When it is just Me and the City- something special happens. We find something in the air that gets us going, that sets our pulse racing and makes us appreciate and value life. We find something that makes us forget the issues we almost enjoy complaining about every single day. There is a reason to actually start getting the most out of each day.

Bombay (or Mumbai, same thing!! :) is where I have been able to live alone with the city. It is so enormous that I am just a speck of dust in the millions. Nobody knows who I am, nobody cares how I am living my life (in fact, they are least interested) or what I am doing. I have complete freedom to live according to my choices, as long as I obey an unspoken code of conduct in everyday life that is observed for the common good. At the cost of a digression, it is worth mentioning here that Bombay was (absurdly) voted last year as one of the "rudest" cities the world-I am no globetrotter, but it is one of the places where I have seen, on an average, people behaving in a much more synchronised manner to keep life moving, and certainly the best response to unforseen natural or man-made disasters. People complain about the hustle,dirt, crowd and costs of big cities, but I find a certain peace in them when it is just Me and the City.

Dancing In the Dark

LET me be completely honest-I did not expect Graham Ford, when offered the role of coach of the Indian team, to turn it down. A corner of my mind was aware of the fact that this is one of the most demanding, scrutinized, and high pressure jobs in any sport at any level, but at the same time I had imagined that Ford would be lured by visions of becoming a demi-god by giving our cricket crazy nation a taste of success. I suppose the BCCI also carried this sort of overconfidence, because at no real stage did they look too interested in any alternative candidates. There was only one alternative candidate, John Emburey, and they never seemed to consider him too seriously. But now Ford is not coming, and as the tough tour of England looms large, there is still no coach. Quite a desparate situation to say the least. The BCCI is in a fix because of it's own stuborness and overconfidence.
I have not been among the coverage on what exactly the "senior" players of the team have been saying, or their take on who should be coach, or why they preferred Ford as coach. We could give them the benefit of the doubt- since senior players have more experience they would know who is better suited for the job at the top level. However, there is still this dirty disgusting part of me which says that their opinion (it is indeed important, I am certainly not disputing that) is being given too much weight. I am skeptical about whether there are purely cricketing reasons behind the senior players' choice, or they are looking for a person who is not going to question them under any circumstances, and let them remain in their comfort zone of not being questioned.
Futile as it may be, I still wonder why Ford chose to quit after coming all the way from Kent to make his presentation. The straightforward way would be to accept that he was not willing to relocate along with his family to India, a land foreign to his wife and himself. However, he did know when he was applying for the job that his family would have to relocate or at least make adjustments if he were take up the coaching job in India, didn't he? Once again, the darker side of my mind seems to suggest that he might have been intimidated when actually came to India, and got a flavour what the BCCI actually is, and the complex people and situations he would have to deal with during his tenure which would ultimately limit his freedom. Perhaps he was also not able to get a sense of what a high-pressure job this was going to be, sitting in the relative serenity of Kent.
Whatever his reasons may have been, the fact remains that we do not have a coach now. We need to find a good one, and need to find one fast. We can only hope that the BCCI gets Indian Cricket out of this mess by going about it's job in a more urgent, sincere, organized, and yes, modest manner.
Otherwise we shall be dancing in the dark.

Overwhelming Response

Who would have thought one man's relative uncoolness and ignorance would draw any kind of attention- yes, I am referring to my own relative uncoolness, my very ignorance, and the 5 comments that have been posted on the stag article!! It's great to see ideas flowing, because in the stag community we need to know why we are called so :P. "Good Jaaaaab", friends! I won't be surprised if there are enough ideas in my head to set off another article speculating where this term came from.

This is my first attempt at blogging, and for now even a modest number like 5 comments constitutes a heartwarming response.

Food for thought

IT is agreed upon by doctors, dieticians, and the general public that the choices we make in what we eat have a huge impact on the quality of our life. We must then realise that the next time we go out to eat, we must give the following non-trivial question enough thought and make an informed decision:

Do we eat deep dish pizza or thin crust?

It is a dilemma I am faced with almost three times a week. I will try and provide an impartial analysis here for the benefit of the food-loving reader.

Fill Factor: Remember those times when your stomach was growling like an unhappy beast and all you wanted to do was grab the food off other people's tables? The deep dish(or thick crust, if you like) is the undoubted saviour in these situations. The sheer volume of the crust sinks in and fills that huge emptiness inside that is the cause of pre-meal sorrow. The thin crust falls way short of the mark. It is gobbled up like a snack and half an hour we are back in the hungry zone again. Unless of course, you have lots of other stuff on the side, but that brings in the cost factor which I will get to later.

Topping Factor: It could be in part due to my poor eating skills, but I have noticed that my favourite toppings slide off the thin crust way too easily. To savour the topping, be it the tomato, the capsicum (ok..ok..bell pepper), or mushroom, it should be given the space and stabillity to impart its taste to our taste buds. The thin crust does not offer this kind solidity. The deep dish on the other hand, is like a solid platform where the toppings showcase their brilliance.

Crunch Factor: This post now seems to be slaughtering the poor fragile thin crust, so here is one point clearly in its favour. Quite often, pizza is not about filling empty spaces in the stomach, it is also about a food with a touch of class. The well made crunchy thin crust is all about class, especially if enjoy the "crunchiness". It is great for a heavy snack or a light meal, and if you add a nice side and some lemonade, hard wood floored cafe in some nice surroundings, the spohistication of the thin crust leaves the rather industrial deep dish well behind.

Beer Factor: I am no beer guzzler, but I do enjoy the occasional beer with my meal. In this regard, the deep dish is a much better companion for that chilled, bitter liquid than the thincrust. It is hard to describe why, but its just first hand experience that tells me deep dish and beer go hand in hand. As mentioned earlier, the thin crust would beat the deep dish for a lemonade, some fruit jiuce, a coke, or maybe some sort of wine (I think I am getting beyond myself here) .

Cost Factor: Now we all value our value for money. If you are a poor graduate student and looking to hit the highest point on the utility v/s cost curve, then hit the deep dish. It is filling and can make a badly chosen or cheap topping go unnoticed. Having said that, there are obviously times when we want to be a bit more sophisticated (a first date, perhaps :)), and the thin crust is the right choice for these moments.

These are just a few of the things that determine our dining experience. So the next time you are "just going out for pizza", remember there is indeed a need to stop and think about the smaller but more important details in life. You will thank yourself for it!

I hear you, coach!

CRICKET is an integral part of every Indian's life- there are those of us for whom it is the most sacred thing on earth, there are those who worship cricketers like gods when they win, and curse them like devils when they lose. There are those who drift in and out of this obsession depending on the nature of the match or tournament; those who couldn't care less but would like to make that known to the intoxicated masses, and last but not the least, those who simply loathe the game (or rather the fever that grips the country as a result of the game) and believe that it brings down the nation's productivity.

In any case, it touches every Indian in some form or another. And now, the time has come after Mr.Chappell's less than pretty exit, to choose another man to coach the men in blue. Names have been flying all over the place, and with each name there is associated a complex theory explaining why he is the right choice. But one of the hotter debates is over whether we should hire a firang coach or a desi. The current wave seems to suggest a slight preference for an Indian coach (I read Jimmy Amarnath and Ajit Wadekar said so), and like all true fans, I have my own views on this which I shall now freely air with pleasure.

There is no doubt that Greg Chappell did not achieve as much as he was expected to. We did crush England, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in successive ODI series about an year and a half ago, but we also did go down in flames against a less than reputed West Indies team. We won our first series in the carribean in four(?) decades but the test performances against England and Pakistan were scratchy. Add to that the World Cup debacle and we have a tenure that would best be described as stop-start-stop.

I still think Mr.Chappell (and Captain Dravid for that matter) had the right ideas. "Experimentation" to have a wide range of young players game tested and ready for a challenge at any position in the batting order/ bowling attack is the best way to build a winning ODI team. The emphasis on a long term goal and building up a team towards it- yes, I am referring to the now infamous WC 2007- is a good approach. However, Mr.Chappell failed on two counts- firstly, he was unable to fix the inability to overcome the classical phenomenon observed in Indian cricket- tigers at home, kittens/bunnies abroad. Our worst failures still kept coming in alien conditions- I consider the WI tour overall to be a failure even though we won the tests, because based on caliber, experience and past form, we were the favourites going into both ODIs and test, even as tourists- and playing with authority in completely different conditions is something we have to learn in order to become a force to reckon with. Mr.Chappell also did not seem to win the support of every player all the time. There was always one fragile relationship waiting to break, be it Sourav Ganguly at the beginning or SachinTenulkar at the end.

Which brings us to the point: are foreign coaches not suited to coaching us because they "don't understand" us or are "culturally different"? It is a tricky question and I don't have the answer- but it is easy to see what they do bring with them, and given what they bring we must weigh out the pros and cons.

Fielding, Fielding, Fielding: that is the one mantra to success these days, especially in ODI cricket. Fielding standards outside the subcontinent are much higher than within it. Foreign coaches are in a much better position to make Team India a good fielding side, and we certainly have seen (maybe not with great consistency, but it is true nonetheless) fielding standards improve under John Wright and Greg Chappell.

Discipline, Discipline, Discipline: before John Wright came in, the team actually used to have chairs at practice sessions and some nice chai aur biskut to go with the afternoon. Sounds good, but doesn't sound like a WC winning team. The first change John Wright made was to get rid of the frills. I dont see a candidate among the Indian coaches who can put his foot down and establish a no-nonsense ethic like either of Mr.Wright or Mr.Chappell.

Kill, Kill, Kill: speaking of cultural differences, here is one that I have observed. A Kiwi or an Aussie certainly would run the last mile more aggressively than we would. Indian cricket has always been plagued by the "so close, yet so far" syndrome, where we lose more close games than we win. A foreign coach would help build some killer instinct in our men.

Where did it break down then? I suppose Greg Chappell was too authoritarian for our players. It looks like Indian cricketers like to have a little bit of their own territory and a complete control over a bit of their territory. They don't like to be told harshly what to do, and it looks like they seldom like to be questioned. This was precisely Sachin's problem a couple of months ago. He didn't understand how he was being "questioned" after years of service to Indian Cricket. Two analogies that come to mind are a) Little Children b) People looking to establish mini-circles of power in a joint family :).

What do we need then? We need either an Indian coach who inherently has the ability to tackle these problems, and has technical expertise along with a work ethic comparable to the best in the world, or, a foreign coach who brings with him technical expertise but with a softer personality- who doesn't have the same dictator-like image that Mr.Chappell had, that eventually led to disharmony.

Given the current crop in the country, I would say we don't close our minds to the latter option based blindly on the Chappell Regime. Even treating his whole tenure as a failure (which would be stretching criticism), it's 1-1 as far as foreign coaches go.

Otherwise, I shall be playing a lot more football.

Stag...

So, it's yet another informal coffee conversation among graduate students who actually should be working but are convincing themselves that there is always a moment for coffee , and since it is just Monday, there is enough time to get things done (I suppose I top the list :P). Now, a couple of my friends were having a conversation about clubbing in Bangalore and suddenly I heard the phrase "but stags are not allowed in club so-and-so". I thought it was the coffee, but after due verification, I found that the word "stag" actually refers to a guy who is going to a club without a girl (or date, should I say). My initial guess when I was asked whether I dont know what a stag means was (obviously) that it was a deer with long horns, or a tall deer, or whatever. I had some trouble digesting the word "stag" and started wondering how it came about. Do stags symbolise the lack of female company and the need thereof? Or do male stags often wander alone and start dancing when they find the need for a girl stag? For a few hours now, it has captured my imagination.

So, the entrance of a club would read : "No stags allowed" ? , or those which do allow them, "Caution: Stags corssing" , "Stags: Next 1 km", or even worse, "Dont feed the stags".

What happens when your girlfriend leaves you? Are you "staggered"? That would make a bunch of guys going to a club "staggering".

So now I have a new label to give myself on weekends: "stag". I'm firmly embedded at the center of the stag herd. Funnily enough, the comedy that I find in it seems to reduce the often felt frustration of being single on a Saturday night :).

And perhaps the next time I find a lonely stag, and it puts it's hands on my shoulder, we will be able to relate to each other.

Urdu Ashaar

I find Urdu to be a very beautiful language. It sounds very sweet and what attracts me is that it seems to be "compactly" poweful- that is, people can convey a lot of strong emotions and feelings just through one or two very sweet words, or appending one word to another with the use of "e" or "o" (like "shab-e-gham" or "dil-e-naadan") to make the combination of two unrelated words seem like one beautiful word. I imagine writing in urdu will also be an equally rewarding experience. Quite a steep challenge for someone whose mothertounge is not urdu, but I propose to chase after it :)

A sher that resulted from today's obsession with urdu (albeit the written script here is Hindi, I dont see myself learning the urdu script in the near future :):

कयों रखें कदम इस आसतां के बाहर
उस बज़्म में हम नहीं है मुश्ताक

इस वीरानी की भी करो ज़रा कदर
शोला-ए-जश्न में जलके बन जाओगे राख

आसतां : abode, threshold; मुश्ताक: interested, eager, keen;
वीरानी: Emptiness, Desolation, Loneliness; शोला-ए-जश्न: flames/blaze of celebration

A gift for the kids and a bit on Lars Ulrich

Baby Rock Records has come up with something *amazingly* out-of-the-box. Imagine tucking your 5 year old kid in at night and to get him/her to dreamland ASAP we dont have to use sheep anymore. The sheep are replaced by Metallica! Yes, thats right- BabyRock Records has transformed some Metallica classics like Enter Sandman, Wherever I May Roam and hold your breath..the thrash metal classic "Battery" (!) into lullabies in an album called "Rockabye baby: Lullaby renditions of Metallica". They claim to have brought down the "volume from an eleven to two" and "made the bed ourselves" to "rock" little kids to sleep :). One CD for 17 bucks, and it's going to be interesting to watch how many parents invest in making the next Hetfield's, Hammett's and Ulrich's while they fall asleep in bed!

Ive been a worshipper of Lars Ulrich ever since I first heard Metallica. No surprise that many around the world consider him the best drummer there ever was/is. Here are some interesting facts about him and quotes of his I found on the internet while Metallica and his drumming was keeping me company at 4am last night

- Lars Ulrich (born in Gentofte, Denmark) was in his early days considered a tennis prodigy. His dad was noted tennis player and jazz musician. It was only when his dad took him to a Deep Purple concert in Copenhagen that he was introduced to the world of rock. His trip to Los Angeles at the age of 17 was supposed to hone his tennis skills and train him to become a sportsman, but instead he ran into a certain James Hetfield in LA, and the rest is hisotry.

-His passion for the band: "The day Metallica's over, i'm not going to put an ad looking for another band. I'll put my drumsticks on the shelf and there's 14 other things I wanna try. Metallica's the only band I've ever been and it's the only I ever wanna be in.”

-"The minute you wake up, it's there. That feeling in your stomach...Like, it's noon and you wanna go on stage and get going, but you got nine hours of sweaty palms ahead of you."

Hail King Lars!

The King's Show

Who said basketball had to be played as a team game- certainly not Lebron James. In the Cleveland Cavaliers thrilling double overtime 2 point vitory over the pistons on Thursday night, the only player to score for the cavs in the last 17:21 was King James: and the Pistons could not do a thing about it. He scored all the last 25 of his team's points, and 29 of the last 30. How's that for a one man show? Even the Jordans and Johnsons of the Bulls and LA lakers never defeated 5 opposing players in the single-handed fashion that King James did on Thursday. A slap in the face for all his critics who have been criticizing him for his so called ball hogging. Didnt watch the game on TV :(, but apparently he was extremely toned down in his post-game interview, talking of team support and how the other guys did a great job. Well, I suppose there were four other bodies floating around on the court that were wearing the same coloured jersey as he was!

Cavs up 3-2, and on Saturday if King James can produce even half of what he did yesterday, the cavs will surely make it all the way to the finals!!

the great outdoors

After a kind of hiatus from outdoor activities, I went camping again with some friends to a campsite near Julian, CA. The weather was excellent, unlike the last time when we spent 36 hours in near sub zero temperatures with just the aid of a couple of jackets (admittedly, an excellent bonding experience). Some activities included roasting various vegetables and turning them into amazing snacks -mushrooms, onions, capsicum (ok ok..bell peppers!!) of various colours, making wood fired pavbhaji, and playing antakshari in company that included a broad spectrum of vocal talent: ranging from those who sang like vessels in a sink to one of the best non-professional ghazal singers I had ever heard. Also, a post midninght walk where we had a rare and life-freaking-out brush with something that sounded like and had the outline of a wolf. Well, as long as I am alive to write about it, I suppose I should not mind.

The crowning glory was clearly the two warning we got from park rangers for being noisy and being on the verge of getting kicked out. Felt like I was back in school again..

ghalib ke chahne wale...

Some good news for those ghalib fans whose grasp of urdu is not that strong. Check out http://www.smriti.com/urdu/ghalib/ . It has almost 50 of his ghazals including most of his very best with the meanings of all the harder urdu words there. If your appreciation of his ashaar was limited by your urdu, this will take care of that problem!

Also, youtube has several episodes of the late 80's doordarshan serial "Mirza Ghalib" which was a confluence of artistic class never seen before- the life and shayari of mirza ghalib, directed by gulzar, featuring naseeruddin shah and jagjit singh's silken voice!

Intro

Now that you are here, the obvious question is what can you expect to find here? To start with, plenty of my first passion: sports! In any form, shape, from any corner of the world. Also a good deal of my new found passion: Urdu/Hindi poetry. I have been captivated by the poetry of Mirza Ghalib and Gulzar. Their work is mainly what I read though with time I have been reading some shayari by other classic shayars as well.

Some stuff for sure on music: Passion for Metallica. An erstwhile passion that is making its way back into my life: Tabla. And then hopefully some clips of action from my everyday life!

Agar hai junoon, toh shuru ho jayiye!