Different Angle

It’s amazing how life can change in a matter of few days. If you don’t agree with me, ask Ganguly. These days, he is the most eligible person to answer such queries. I had vowed not to write upon Ganguly saga. But this guy is creating headlines just too often. And the fact is that ‘love him or hate him but you just can’t ignore Ganguly’. This poor chap got everything wrong when he opened his mouth against Chappell after scoring an uncharacteristically irksome century against a hapless Zimbabwe attack. And that opened the floodgates for him. The person who was at the helm of reviving this ‘Team India’ suddenly finds himself struggling to secure his place in the team in both formats of the game and everyone interested in Indian cricket wants to know if it is the end of a prolific career. When the sky is blue, grass green and a team winning for fun, who cares about an individual!

Every Ganguly supporter, whether in Kolkata or England, believes that it is Chappell who devilled Ganguly’s empire. And what interests me is the fact that it is Ganguly who advocated Chappell’s nomination as the coach. Moreover, Ganguly himself had flown to Sydney a couple of years ago to take tips from Chappell for tackling short deliveries. We will never know what exactly happened during that short two months tenure of Chappell as coach that made him and Ganguly, the ‘captain’, the fiercest enemies. The reasons may vary from an elementary case of clash of egos to a relatively graver problem of absolute desire of securing throttling hold over the team.

Every single player in the team knew that Ganguly was struggling with his form and being the captain was the only factor that patronized his presence in the team. But no one dared to come forward to question his selection. But disaster always finds its way to creep into one’s life. This time around, it chose the victim itself to mend catastrophe’s path. Ganguly’s outcry on the occasion of a dead century was just one of those incidents. Too many things changed in a matter of few months against Ganguly’s liking. Leakage of Chappell’s ‘secret’ letter to BCCI President, Sharad Pawar’s emphatic victory against Dalmiya (Ganguly’s blind supporter) in BCCI elections, change in the faces constituting the selection panel and a sudden ascend in the performance of newcomers in the team made it virtually impossible for Ganguly to plot his comeback in the team. Moreover, Ganguly didn’t favor himself by bunking domestic matches citing one reason or the other. And the irony is that he was forced to compete against those players whom he had fought for in selection meetings during his regime. Kaif was preferred over him in one day internationals while Yuvraj displaced Ganguly in the test team. Even in one of the domestic test matches, Zaheer Khan, whom he backed so strongly, gifted him a ‘pair’ to make his case even weaker. How cruel life can be!

One can find half-burnt posters of Chappell on almost every street of Kolkata. Everyone claims him to be the source of Ganguly’s fiasco. But an interesting point is that Dravid might also be one of the masterminds behind all this drama. I know he has been a great servant of Indian cricket. He is, in fact, the best test batsmen India has ever produced and I rate him even higher than Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar in test cricket and I am no authority to suspect his commitment towards Indian team but the bottom-line is that the urge for limelight and power can make even the calmest person go mad.

It is no secret that Dravid has always lived in the shadows of Indian greats like Tendulkar and Ganguly and off late, of Sehwag. Ganguly and he debuted in the same game but he always fell behind when it came to the task of creating headlines. During late nineties and early part of the millennium, Ganguly reached the peak of his career and was considered among the best batsmen of his era. Despite playing as vital a role as those of Tendulkars and Gangulys, Dravid never got the same acclaim. He always played the role of second fiddle to other slam-bam players and thus the limelight was always attracted by everybody but him. His nature of batting was not compatible with those cricket lovers who visit grounds just to see sixes being hit. He has always done his job in tranquility and has always been the background color of colorful Indian cricket’s portrait. And suddenly he finds himself at the core of the Indian team with everything going his way. Now he is the captain of a team which is on an unprecedented winning streak. With everything falling into place, he is now acclaimed as a ‘thinking captain’ and is applauded for everything he does; be it taking the bold step of opening in the test matches or experimenting with the youths. He now bubbles with enthusiasm and is even ready to play the lead roles. He finds a Tendulkar who is struggling with his injuries, a Ganguly who is almost at the end of his career and a team that looks forward to him as an icon. The stage is set for him. He just needs to crush his ‘rival’ who is already on the floor. And his knack of playing his role in the background can pay him rich dividends in this field. He might prefer to hide himself in another shadow; this time in that of Chappell who has already earned some ‘popularity’ due to his open revolt against Ganguly regime. Dravid might not have staged the downfall of Ganguly but he might be eager to erase his name from future Indian team for his own sake. And he might be considering Chappell as the right person to use for his own benefit; Dravid’s words from Chappell’s mouth! I won’t be surprised if after his retirement, Dravid writes in his autobiography about the ways he used to debacle his opponents; be it Australia or Pakistan or Ganguly! Still water runs deep. Doesn’t it?

I know such an idea is somewhat difficult for diehard Dravid fans (including me) to swallow but I would advise them to hire a time machine and go back to year 2000 when Hansie Cronje surprised everybody by accepting that he indeed accepted money to lose matches. Wasn’t that a similar shock? Who could have imagined such a great ambassador of the game to be a crook? That’s what separates human beings from other organisms--Unpredictability! One should take nothing for granted. The unlikeliest and most grievous probability values are 0 and 1. And Dravid might be the perfect example for the word 'unpredictability'. But then, there is always a word ‘might’…

Great Indian Dream

They say that India is not just another country; it is a culture, it is an adherence, it is a festival, it is a pleasure. But how true are those words? We talk about our freedom in the country, we take pride in unity-in-diversity hymn and we boast of the fact that we are the largest democracy in the world. But when we dare to go deep into the ocean of facts, we see a different picture altogether. Majority of our population is plagued by poverty; the general happiness rating of India is incredibly low; North Indians disdain South Indians and the other way around.

It’s amazing how eagerly we wait for the arrival of 15^th August or 26^th January so that we can enjoy few extra hours of sleep in the morning. It’s astonishing how badly the ‘sentiments’ of religious leaders are hurt when Salman Rushdie writes “Satanic Verses” and then fatwa is declared against him. It’s surprising how much we talk about the great works of Gandhi and then criticize all the paths shown by him. It’s dispiriting how we spend hours watching news on the TV concerning a natural calamity in Kashmir and then hesitate to donate Rs 10 in the relief fund.

We always think that saluting our National Flag and singing National Anthem twice a year, supporting Indian cricket team in a game against Pakistan and calling ourselves Indians are the only ways of showing our respect towards our so called great India. These days, everyone has drowned himself into the colors that Rang De Basanti has brought with itself. Everybody is acclaiming the way Aamir Khan utters “behen de takki” in his dandy Punjabi accent and the way those five youths enjoyed their lives in Delhi and the path they chose to bring justice to a dead pilot whom they called their friend. But do we really care if the path that those five “revolutionaries” chose was correct? Is killing a criminal the only way to bring justice to those who are victims of his barbarism? In fact, is it really a way to punish a criminal? I firmly believe that killing a criminal is not at all the way to penalize him. The only way is to make him realize that he committed a crime and then asking him to rectify his mistake (or crime) in every possible way. Furthermore, how many criminals can one kill to purify the polluted Indian air? There is no end to this vicious ‘litigation’.

Moreover, the climax of the movie spreads a futile message in the audience. I can’t understand why those five young men chose to sacrifice themselves. Was it just for the sake of resembling the incident with one that occurred in the case of Bhagat Singh and company? The director and the script writer of the movie must understand that in this era, no war is won by dying. The person himself should accomplish the task of revolutionizing the environment. India is a place where sacrifices of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh are not recalled; leave aside those of five unknown names. Sacrifices like those create headlines for two days; TV channels interview their relatives for a week; general public remember their names for a fortnight and then everything boils down to the ground level. After a month, people struggle to recall if anything like that had occurred.

Nobody understands the pain of others until a person himself goes through such dreadful events. Even those five guys realized the fire inside them only when they felt the pain in their respective souls. Nevertheless, it is certainly a movie that can make us talk to our scruples and realize that there is no point in watching impotently everything going wrong around us. We need to make a sound and ‘legal’ stand against something functioning improperly in the system, for it is our responsibility to bring back the lost pride of our lovely country. We can’t afford to leave the job for others to complete. We need to recognize that every issue of national interest is as important as our personal issues; in fact, more important than our personal issues.

We dream of other nations acclaiming India as a developed and rich country. But the first step towards this trip is to realize that others will never respect us if we ourselves don’t show respect towards our country and our people. We need not be revolutionists or freedom fighters to turn that bold Indian dream into realism. If each one of us can change our attitude towards looking into a problem and can motivate ourselves to work out that problem in a sensible manner, we can see a new India in the horizon. Rights and duties go hand in hand and are inter-related. If every one of us starts performing his part of the job honestly and correctly, then that great India is just around the corner. I wish to live in that happy India and I am sure you too. Can’t we vow to contribute to this Indian dream, can’t we lend our hands for this Indian desire, can’t we devote our time to make India a better place to live at, can’t we gift the coming generations a developed India? We surely can!!!

I, Me, Myself.

Ask a young actor where he sees himself after five years or so and he would inevitably say that he wants to be as successful as Amitabh Bachchan; ask a budding singer what she aims at and she would say that she wishes to be the next Lata Mangeshkar; ask a cricketer who is about to play his debut game what he wants to achieve and he would say that he aspires to be as successful as Sachin Tendulkar; and ask a young industrialist what he wants to accomplish and he would say that he desires to be as rich as Bill Gates. That’s the trend we human beings follow. We always want to be like our idols. We see the most successful people around and we don’t dare to go beyond them; we can’t see ourselves achieving more than what they did. We always dream to be the best in the business but when asked how successful we want to be, we always come up with a name. Isn’t that amazing?

We always live in shadow of our paragons who are more successful than others but we often forget that we have identities of our own and we have to develop worlds of our own, where there is just one king, just one emperor. Do I need to name the emperor?

In this materialistic world, every idol is fancied as the limit of perfection. But are they really perfect? Can’t we achieve more than what they did? OR why do we endure the success of others, why can’t we determine our own success? Will that not be more satisfying? These are few questions we need to ask ourselves.

We need to show our dreams the way that leads to the factory of materialization, and let future decide how things shape up. We, at times, envy the success of our fellows when fate plays a deciding role in it and we wonder why luck flirts with us so often, despite we being more oriented and having more potential. But then, life is a potpourri of games—you win few, you lose few. It’s difficult to swallow losses but one has to live with them, no matter how close to perfection he is.

No matter how stupid I am, no matter how many complaints I have to register in God’s book, no matter how many painful moments I have endured, no matter how distressed I am, no matter how many failures I have gathered till now, I would love to visit this world every single time with the same personality traits that I have been awarded in this particular life, for I love the way I struggle to reach the farthest milestone with my limited resources and abilities. Had I been awarded with superior qualities, I would no more have remained a ‘normal’ human being and with substandard capabilities, I would not have even bothered to chase my dreams. May be, I wouldn’t have even dreamt. I just want to be myself and I don’t want others to follow me either as everyone has his own ‘unique’ way of adaptation, his own ways of thinking, his own track to sprint on.

Every time a person generates a new 'sensible' idea, he goes on to reach heights never attained before. Be it Einstein or Microsoft owner Bill Gates or Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, each one of them had ideas of their own; very unique and something that world had never thought of before. And these revolutionary ideas swept everyone off his feet. And that's what made them distinct in the crowd of seven billion people. They dared to think beyond the norms and proved their uniqueness. It is quite easy to earn Rs. thirty thousand per month with no innovation involved but at the end of the day, it won’t satisfy you if you feel that you have the potential and vigor to 'contribute' in a much better way.

It is all about discovering the strengths and weaknesses that we possess and then decide what we aspire to reach. In the end, my race is with myself only and the surroundings are mere racecourses. Can I beat myself? Can I stretch my limits? In the evening of life, if I know that I achieved what I could have, I would justify my potential and would be ready to apprize my God of my performance and my singularity with a well-deserved ardent eye contact.

Love versus Love

It’s amazing how it feels when something you start ‘loving’ is snatched from you and then, you are tethered to see that happen. What can you do if you are forced to be a mere spectator when your most ‘loved’ possession is shredded into tiny pieces in front of you? Do mind the word ‘loving/loved’ that has been used throughout the post instead of ‘liking/liked’. The verb ‘love’ is far different from the verb ‘like’. Moreover, love, the noun, is not just another feeling. In fact, it is a passion, an intense emotion, a belief and may be, much more than what those words can reveal.

Just imagine how it feels when you are tied to a firm pillar by the strongest rope ever manufactured and then a brute is on the verge of scooping out your heart by pressing his ardent sharp knife into your soft flesh without displaying any trace of mercy on his inclement face. How difficult can it be to watch into those cruel blood red eyes, mere inches away from your face, of that merciless hunter. And it can’t get worse if you come across the fact that the relentless poacher is none but the person whom you gravely ‘love’. Yes, there arrives the hapless word ‘love’ again!

One may always fall prey to such situations when he can do nothing but kill one of his ‘loves’ to salvage the other one. I know it hurts when one is asked to burn one half of his asset just because the other half envies it and ‘loves’ to be known as the only asset the concerned person owns. Is this mere possessiveness on the part of the latter or is it the inability of the former to defend itself against its ‘enemy’ that has brought it on the brink of an end-- a dead end! Does the other half of my asset, the intense one, want me to attach myself only to it? Is this its intense love that I want or do I desire the silent, may be weak care that the first half has to offer me? In fact, I don’t even know if the first half has any ‘love’, any care for me inside it. If it really has something sacred for me, why doesn’t it come out and demonstrate itself in front of the population. Can’t it be bold enough to apprize the cosmos that it values me as much as I do it? Does still water really run deep?

I am not certain about the standing of the very vocal, very outrageous half of my asset as well. It exhibits its intension of killing the other half but is it just the desire of gaining me as its sole property or the hatred against that other half that rams it to destroy the silent half?

I have to come up with a choice soon for if I stay numb for too long, it would result in certain death of mum-half of my assets and then I would never know if that dead tacit half really ‘loved’ me. I need to ask myself a question---Who is more significant- the one whom I love or the one who loves me? My inability to reach a hasty conclusion might prove fatal. Which one shall I choose???

Valentine

Saint Valentine knocks the door of time and the young population behind the door welcomes him with open arms. Every juvenile is busy making his/her partner feel special. These days, even the oldies can be seen soaking themselves in lively colors that St. Valentine brings with himself on this endearing day every year. People all around the world use this opportunity to apprize their counterparts what they mean to them. A young lad, standing far away from this scintillating event, enjoys and even envies the felicity that his friends experience with their girlfriends on this exhilarating day and wonders where his girl is. He eagerly inquires Cupid when he would find the girl who visits him in his every dream. He portrays the girl whose three majestic words can bring an end to his every sorrow, whose one glance can enliven his every desire, whose one tear can stimulate him to set this cosmos on fire, whose one smile can bring his existence to stalemate.

He always feels the need of one such girl whom he can embrace when he needs someone around him, whom he can tell about all his troubles, whom he can tease on her every minor error, whom he can fight with while deciding the movie they would be watching that evening, whom he can bank upon when he finds himself in dire straits.

He aspires for a girl who can tauntingly yell at him at the stare of some other girl, who can sham fear just to entice him to hold her lax hands, who can call him at midnight just to say that she cares for him, who can feel his absence when he is not around, who can put her head on his shoulder claiming it to be the cosiest berth to rest upon.

He knows that his Valentine is just around the corner and might be thinking on same tracks about him. He just needs to find her out. No prizes for guessing who this guy is…

Meanwhile...

“Please God! Just ask that bloody prof to produce a lenient question paper for this Major. I need few more marks to pass this course. Please help me this time, one last time. Please!” I talked to my God in a whispering voice with closed eyes, sinking into my favorite third bench from the right in the second last row. There was a whole bunch of guys going through the same process. I looked around and the nervous look on their faces made me feel a bit better. I was not alone in that terrorizing Ex-hall. I looked at one of my mates and we shared an anxious smile. There were few girls as well, with apprehensive looks and I was badly trying to avoid fronting them, for I was there to debar a probable F grade while those maidens were concerned about their inevitable A grades. My classmates were assaying to seat themselves in a definite, plotted arrangement in order to write their papers with a collective effort, using every bit of available resources. It is one of those rare events while the most barbaric foes conduct like trustworthy allies.

The examination hour started and I tried to figure out the known words in the question paper. It hardly took me any time to sample out the questions which I could attempt in my bare answer book. I commenced tardily, for I knew that my fast pace could result in ‘completion’ of my paper in half an hour or so. Despite my best effort, I couldn’t carry on for more than three quarters of an hour. Even after innumerous verifications of my neat attempts in the answer book, I have had more than an hour left to spend. And this is usually the time when my philosophical mind generates weirdest doctrines, my mechanical brain points out the ‘Centre of Mass’ of each and every fan attached to the roof, my secular heart criticizes those useless examinations, my athirst taste buds desire a cup of really hot coffee and my heavy eyelids seek a nap.

I looked around if others had also hit the same patch. The murmur in the air affirmed that my mates were busy catching the informative waves from each and every corner of Ex-hall. Periodic cautionary outcries from the prof muted the mutter. But, every single time prof left the arena for one reason or the other, it regained its lost intensity. The students tried every trick in their Holy Book to gain few more marks which they can boast of. The apt use of calculators for ‘mugging up’ formulae, the ingenious practice of copying each and every letter of bulky books to mere pieces of paper and summing up the juicy facts on the palm can bring shame upon the smartest cheats.

In the meantime, there were few students who served as the centers of scare and hopelessness for guys like yours truly. Their frequent demand for extra answer sheets created furor in the hearts of rest of the examinees. The speed at which their pens slipped on the paper made me wonder if the answers were so lengthy. They wrote as if they would be stoned after the examination.

The end of the examination was more of a sigh of relief for me than anything else. As soon as the prof snatched the answer book from my hand, my eyes started searching for my mates whom I believed had fared more or less like me. Every eye contact was followed by spooky smiles. We gathered at one corner of the Ex-hall.

“Fuck yaar! Despite such puppy questions I couldn’t answer them because I had not mugged the formulae”, one of us tried to explain the toughness level of the questions.
“Oye! Will you keep your mouth shut? We all know how much you knew”- another one among us shouted at him in frustration.
“Yaar”, uttered another fellow, “you didn’t help me at all in the paper. It wasn’t expected of you.”
“I myself was clueless yaar! Moreover, you were sitting too far from me to pass the answers in any form.”
“Will you all stop all this nonsense? It is now past and there is no point talking about it. We should be thinking about the next paper. Why don’t you people understand?”-- I came up with my practical philosophy.
“Haan yaar, you are right. We have a fighter paper to face tomorrow. And I haven’t even looked at the course content. I might be awarded a fakka. Let’s move.”

We headed towards our hostel knowing that we all would enjoy a long session of sleep just after reaching our respective rooms, no matter how fighter the next examination was!

Purpose

Few ‘encouraging’ words from my loved ones and I can sense life, which had nearly deserted my body, again accumulating itself in my cells. Blistering storm is reforming itself into cool steady breeze. The dark night has given way to dawn and I hope to see a new, delightful sun this morning. I need to reanalyze myself. I wish to fly to a territory where I can spend some time laying on soft green grass, talking to colorful chirping birds, touching the soft fur on red-tinged ears of small rabbits, listening to comforting sound of water flowing in the nearby lake, saluting the cloudless blue sky, lauding the proud hill on the other side of the lake. Is there any such peaceful and enticing place on this so-called beautiful planet? If not, then I need to construct such an environment to stem my fall into the dark burrow.

It is the lack of motivation that has always slowed down my march. And I am passing through one such phase. I can still recall moments from my past when I pointed out things-to-do and completed those jobs well within the intense deadlines I had set; I can still figure out the instances when Mathematics theories sounded common sense to me; I can still collect events in my mind when I enjoyed the surprised looks on the faces of people germinated by my skill of rendering quick, smart solutions to impossible looking problems; I can still gather examples from my past when I attended tuitions at 5 AM just to get glimpses of my friend’s girlfriend (oops!!!). I hope my friend doesn’t read my blog regularly.

Life, today, has come to a halt. It sees no target to aim at, no barrier to cross, no aspiration to exercise for. I have always loved limelight and I have attracted it often in the past. It wasn’t too long ago when I dreamt of conquering this world and stamping my name in everyone’s book with enormous volume of vigor and positive energy campaigning in my arteries. The joy of working hard for a purpose has always pleased me but these days the magic word “purpose” is flirting with me. The vim, the energy, the push is still there but it lacks orientation. I know I have worked madly, day in and day out, when given a task but those tasks never challenged my limits. I have always come across jobs that are either too timid to daunt me or too dull to work for. What I am looking for is an interesting task that can push my limits; that can book me for itself till eternity.

This world is certainly not shy of such objectives. My eyes are soberly looking for such an aim, my mind is badly cogitating million such thoughts. I am still looking for the purpose of my arrival, for I don't want to leave the stage without playing my role perfectly. I think….no, I believe I'll get hold of that dream role sooner or later. I am eagerly looking for the angel who could usher me to my destination. Is that you???

My Terminal

I sense immense pleasure every time I see people carrying a dead body to the graveyard. I find the deplorable, moist eyes of the loved ones of the corpse soothing. I feel good when a lifeless body is on the verge of losing its connection with this living world as the lid of the coffin is tardily shut. I enjoy spending time with myself in a graveyard crowded with lively spirits. Although I can’t see any movement around, I always feel their presence when dry leaves rustle in the strong breeze blowing across the cemetery. The silent crying of air makes me believe that someone follows me every time I visit my favorite destination.

Death, it seems, is the only medicine that can bring relief to my sorry soul. Every moment I spend on this planet contributes to my grief. I am bleeding since the very first day I trod on the planet. And the fall of last drop of blood flowing in my veins on the soil will declare the end of my rues. I know death is my destiny and I am thirstily running towards it. Birth, life and death constitute a magnet with birth and death being its two poles and life being the separation between the two poles. No matter how short this magnet is, the two poles never meet each other and it is left to us to determine our path from birth to death. Sorrow is a monotonic increasing function of distance traveled between birth and death. The more you walk, the more you suffer. I am tired of walking this wearisome path and I am in need of renaissance. I need to construct my shortest road to death using the colorless flesh of time. The unfortunate event of birth pushes me away from itself, while enthralling personality of death attracts me as if asking me to sublime in its affectionate arms.

I envy the freedom of the dead buried three feet beneath the ground in a six feet long coffin, for he relishes his decision of discontinuing his relationship with the painful job of living. He celebrates his role of a creature that doesn’t have to bother about his survival. I wish to live the life of a dead. I want to explore that maverick world.

I plead for death in front of the Master. I hurt ‘living people’ around me just to make sure that they file complaint against me in the court of the Lord. I bruise them so that the curses germinating in their anguished hearts can agitate Him to consider my case. In a way, I use people as attesters of my sins in front of Him.

The volume of this anti-Abhieshek league is growing and I know that I am on the brink of winning my right to die. I want this group to accelerate my bleeding; I need them to assist me in engineering the road to my casket; I ask them to help my cause. My ways of approaching my destiny might be eccentric and my habit of exploring for shortcuts might lengthen my path, but at this moment, I can clearly vision my darling end and I want to accomplish this task forthwith. May God approve the petition of this distressed lot in near future!