Dignity!

Been a while since I've posted...Since I am having a very long writer's block, here's a piece from the book "Fooled by Randomness"....Simple, yet powerful!

The author speaks of a poem "Apoleipein o Theos Antonion" which addresses Mark Antony, who has just lost the battle against Octavius and was forsaken by Bacchus, the God who until then had protected him. Legend has it that even Antony's horse had deserted him to go to his enemy.

The poem asks Antony to just bid farewell, to Alexandria , the city that is leaving him. It tells him not to mourn his luck, not to enter denial, not to believe that his eyes and ears are deceiving him. "Do not degrade yourself with empty hopes, Antony. Just listen while shaken by emotion but not with the coward's imploration and complaints".

While shaken with emotion. No stiff upper lip. There is nothing wrong and undignified with emotions - we are cut to have them. What is wrong, is not following the heroic, or at least the dignified path. This is what stoicism truly means. It is the attempt of man to get even with probability. The stoic is a person who combines the qualities of wisdom, upright dealing, and courage. The stoic will thus be immune from life's gyrations as he will be superior to the wounds from some of life's dirty tricks.

Being a hero does not necessarily mean such an extreme act as getting killed in a battle or taking one's life - the latter is recommended only in a narrow set of circumstances and considered cowardly otherwise.Having control over randomness can be expressed in the manner in which one acts in the small and the large. Recall that epic heroes were judged by their actions, not by the results. No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word. We are left only with dignity as a solution - dignity defined as the execution of protocol of a behaviour that does not depend upon the immediate circumstance. It may not be the optimal one, but it certainly is the one that makes us feel best. Grace under pressure, for example. Or in deciding not to toady up to someone, whatever the reward. Or in fighting a duel to save face. Or in signaling to a prospective mate during courtship: "Listen, I have a crush on you; I am obsessed with you, but I will not do a thing to compromise my dignity. Accordingly, the slightest snub and you will never see me again."

The Battle Down Under!

The Sydney Test of 2008 will be remembered for a long, long time, more for the wrong reasons than the right ones. Here are my two cents on the whole affair:

The five frenetic days of outstanding cricket was marred by shoddy umpiring, racial abuses, and a team's dogged determination to win-at-all-costs that drew flak from one and all.

India fought hard at Sydney, came close to earning a stalemate, before madness crept in and
they surrendered the Border-Gavaskar trophy to the (not so) innocuous Michael Clarke. Blame Bucknor and Benson as much as you like, but India could not play out 5 minutes of gentle spin, with 3 wickets in hand.

Before Ganguly appreciated the indomitable Aussie spirit, I had remarked to a friend the day the Test concluded, that one way to view this is to see how hungry the Aussies are for a win. I'd rather support a team that has this killer attitude than have a team of gentlemen coming from a land where people smear tilaks on their foreheads and hope that things will work out in their favour. The problem with Indian cricket in spite of having a fantastically talented team is that a loss doesn't hurt them as badly as it does the Aussies. A part of Australia literally dies after every loss. And from the ashes of that loss, arises a Phoenix which extracts vengeance in the next encounter. Am sure they'll come out all guns blazing at Adelaide!

In spite of being a hardcore Aussie fan, I have to admit that they carried themselves terribly in a couple of instances (Ricky claiming Dhoni's catch was a real no-no!)

However, I think a majority of the issues were blown out of proportion.

Keep Walking?
Standing one's ground is the prerogative of every batsman, and expecting a batsman to walk
in such a high stakes environment is plain dumb! And let's not be hypocritical. No batsman in World Cricket does it! How can we forget the recent 7th ODI against Aus in Mumbai when Murali Karthik clearly nicked one, did not walk, and managed to guide India to a slim victory. He even had the gall to admit that he had hit it in the post match conference!

Claiming Low Catches
About the much disputed Michael Clarke catch - None of the TV replays could conclusively show either way whether the catch was clean or not! The other controversy regarding the touching of the ball after rolling can best be left alone. Sunil Gavaskar did not have a problem with the catch, only with the touching after the catch was taken. On the contrary, Ian Chappell said that the touching was permitted since the catch was completed. Now two men who have played cricket for so long interpret the rules differently. Who do you believe, because both are tremendously biased towards their respective countries!

Sledging
Coming to age-old debate on sledging. The Aussies are again allegedly the culprits, though every team does it today. We live in an age of 'Might is Right' and the Indians may look feeble in front of the "Ugly" Australians. The same Indian players however, assume an air of superiority when they play Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I can still see Munaf mouthing obscenities at the Bangladeshi batsmen who were carting him around the ground in their upset victory over India at WC '07.

Racism
The racism incident is best left alone, since no one can really be sure of what transpired. One thing I'm dead sure of is Harbhajan banging his bat against the bowler - It won't be the first time he's done that too.

And now that India has won the Perth Test, is almost feels as if Sydney happened a long, long time ago. As Ravi Shastri mentioned, it was probably karma that India got the decisions their way, and for once, Andrew Symonds was deserted by Lady Fortuna. Perth is an outstanding example of what this Indian team can achieve without superhuman individual contributions! Hope that India continues to fight every time it steps on the field.

So did Perth make matter even-stevens? I don't think so. I have a feeling that both teams will be going for the jugular in the final test, to have the last laugh.

It's a matter of pride now!

I had promised some time back to whine about Bengalooru, so this is the first of a series of posts.

My first pet peeve about Bangalore which any moron can guess is - TRAFFIC...The only description for it is FUBAR! (ref: Saving Private Ryan, for the uninitiated)

Now I've driven in Pune and Mumbai and am no stranger to a sea of humans chugging along on their 2-wheelers, auto rickshaws, buses and trucks. Bangalore throws a similar volume of vehicles at you, maybe a slightly larger volume. But what you would have never anticipated is that you will have to draw upon a different skill to navigate this problem. Remember, back when we were in school, we used to have those slow cycling races, with the winner being the last one to cross the race, the last one standing!

It's a very similar environment out here..However, not all is lost!

Success (Reaching your destination in the optimum time, with all bones, muscles, cells and the nervous system intact) can be guaranteed, nay attempted, by the following factors:

1. Inculcate Patience: Just as the most successful people in the stock markets are the ones who exercise patience and do not follow every whim and fancy of the market, so also the ones who make it through here are the ones who do not utter unconstitutional language at every red light. The red lights stay that way for a longer period of time, so this time can be best utilised by memorising the lines of your current favourite song, ogling at the beautiful sights around, etc...
Also, the sooner you realise that the time taken to travel per km increases exponentially in peak hours as compared to other cities, the better off you are!

2. Pick up some traits of Formula 1 drivers (Such as using the width of the track)
If you follow lane discipline, you will not only be figuratively screwed, but also literally run over by the sane people who are weaving in and out and dying to get to their workplace to check their emails on the latest about Indian Idol!

3. Know your vehicle to the last inch: Successful are those who are able to squeeze their vehicles in the smallest of crevices offered. Another trait of F-1 that comes handy here is weaving your steering left and right, as if a thousand simians have landed on it! While the racers do it to get heat into their tyres, you might be able to gain significant road position relative to the other fellow racers on the road!

4. Learn some Kannada: Just as the Aussies had learnt some Urdu to verbally assault the Pakis on their own turf, it always pays to abuse the locals in their own language. Communication can otherwise be a big problem and your affection for the offender can never be fully conveyed! Though this would not improve your position, at least you will be at peace with yourself!

5. Petrol Pumps: The filling stations at the side of the roads are cute diversions and are used more often to bypass the vehicles in front of you, rather than stopping for gas. Again, this goes back to the first rule of using the entire width of the road!

Finally, have you noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, while anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

As for me, I am leaving Bangalore without much damage. This goes a long way in saying how good how I've been in playing peek-a-boo with the vehicles around me. The only scars that I take back from this urban battlefield are a damaged headlight (via an idiot who thought it would be fun to hump his bike in stationary traffic) and a swollen leg (Courtesy another moron who
thought it a good idea to check out his shock-absorbers by running one wheel over my leg as I patiently stood waiting for the damned light to turn green)!

Have fun :)

New musings

Wow! It's been almost 3 months since I've posted anything! These 3 months have been a little out of the ordinary, what with a new job in a new city... Now surely, these are the things that people do write about...

What the hell was I thinking? Anyway, there shall be updates about Bangalore soon...

Not such a great place as people make it out to be...So be ready for a lot of cribbing :)

Till then,

Chow...

Sorry minnows!

The fact that ICC had incorporated 16 teams for this year's WC infuriated me terribly, last year. After seeing the draw, I had come to the opinion that the real tournament would begin only from the Super 8 stage when the top 8 teams would be pitted against each other.

However, Pakistan's shocking loss to Ireland & the Bangladeshi win against an extremely fickle India has force me to eat my words! I owe the minnows a huge apology. Not only is one definitely going through to the next stage, Bangladesh is also threatening to dash the hopes of the blue billion! The word Blue could take on a completely different shade if Sri Lanka puts it across India!

As someone said, "Keep your words soft as you never know when you may have to eat them!"

Lesson learnt...

Shut Up, Mr. Gavaskar!

The recent comments made by Sunil Gavaskar about the Aussie players' behaviour are stirring up quite a storm! TOI reports today that the Aussie players are remarkably upset over them and naturally so. Gavaskar's always been after the Aussies for their sledging and "apparent" bad behaviour on the field.

But tell me, which team doesn't dish it out to the opponent batsmen? I was watching the India Bangladesh match yesterday, and Munaf Patel surely mouthed the choicest expletives to the Bangladeshi opener, Tamim Iqbal after the latter had smashed him out of the park. Did you see that Mr. Gavaskar!!!

Agreed, the Aussies do cross the line sometimes, but you had no reason commenting about the late David Hookes. That was in real bad taste!

The Aussie team of the last decade is arguably the greatest side to have ever graced the game, and you have to give them credit for that! You should thank the Aussies who revitalised Test cricket by scoring at 4 an over in most of the matches they played! Thank heavens for Shane Warne who showed what spin really is, Mcgrath for showing us that humans too can be as precise as machines, Ponting for showing that captains can forget pressure and make a mockery of the big games and for Steve Waugh for showing what leadership is all about!

Please save us the biased outlook that you bring to your commentary every time! We are not stupid and though we haven't played the game at the professional level, we do understand the game! No, the Indians are not victimised every time they step on the cricket field as you make them out to be. You talk about the decisions going against India, yet you see in the other direction when the Indian fielders appeal for a catch of the batsman's neck! (Ref: Ind-Ban match). Please also stop the constant bum scratching for your pal Tendulkar, who should show some sense and quit after the World Cup.

If you really want to contribute, please use your "expertise" in advising India. It's a bloody shame that such a talented team should come up with such a shoddy performance. It's not the defeat that hurts, it's the manner of going down!

At this point, I can assume it's only frustration that has led you to make such unsavoury comments, but remember that the Aussies are the ultimate masters of the mind games! You'll need more than just 'below-the-belt' remarks to put them off their game!

Hypocrisy!

Well, there's been a very large hue and cry over the whole Shilpa Shetty incident. We have cried ourselves hoarse about how it was unfair to the "poor" dame and very conveniently declared everyone from a commoner on the street to the Queen of England a racist pig!

I think it's time we did some introspection. Who are we to call anyone else a racist, when even in this day and age, we have divided ourselves on the basis of various castes. Even educated people in urban areas resort to this kind of intellectual poverty when it comes to choosing the "appropriate" bride/groom for themselves/their kids.

Now isn't that even worse than racism!
So fellow Indians, stop showing such double standards and be a little more open-minded.

Regularity needed

Whew! It's been almost 3 months since I've posted anything. The funny thing is I've had a lot of time on hand of late, and still haven't written anything.

A promise to be more regular in the future...