The Passerby

I generally refrain from posting about my childhood days. I have a feeling that it might make me feel bad that they’ll never return and I’ll be left brooding over how great life used to be in those days. Yet, I guess I should do this exercise sometime lest all those memories themselves sweep by with the waves of time and age. So here’s a list of some of those things from childhood that I could’ve spent a lifetime on…

My pet: My dog, Hero. We named him after Hero, the horse in the Phantom series. He was nothing short of a roaring cub when I first saw him. He stayed with us for over 10 years and was simply the best looking living being that ever walked on this planet. Ferocious like a wolf at times and as gentle as a rabbit at times, he made coming back home from school that much more special. If I made a list of all the things of my childhood that I’d want back in my life today, Hero would top the list by a mile. You had to be blind to not admire Hero!

Cricket: Galli cricket, to be precise. I used to play a lot of matches in tenth standard in flannels in lush outfields. I was reasonably good and made it to the trials of the under-16 U.P. state selection as well but my best memories of winning are from the matches we used to play in the lanes in front of our house.

Television: TaleSpin and the underdog of a pilot called Baloo, always fighting bad engines, a demanding boss and some wicked people in every episode. I used to identify with Baloo simply because Baloo’s favorite pastime when not flying would be to aimlessly laze around in his room.

Video Games: Contra, Road Fighter and the incomparable Mario, especially the latter. I might’ve become India’s answer to Albert Einstein if I’d spend those countless hours on science and research but what the heck!Getting to the princess was worth every second.

Hunger: There was something about Parle-G when I was growing up. It was a part of a daily snack routine. Once at 11 in the morning and the other pack at 5 in the evening. The other accompaniment to Parle-G used to be this particular brand of rusk biscuits called Madhurima Rusk.

Thirst: Those days, a bottle of Limca or Fanta would be consumed only on special occasions, like someone’s birthday or maybe once a week after the Sunday matches. The common favorite to beat the heat used to be something called a Chuski or the lip-smacking Kulfi.

Movies: Our acceptability of Hindi movies used to be far higher in school days. Believe it or not, watching movies like Waqt Hamara Hain, Aaj Ja Shehanshah, Fateh , Tirangaa and Tadipaar used to give us a kick.

Cycling: Racing on our cycles used to be another cracker of a pastime. The other variants of this would be slow cycling, letting go off your hands off the handles or trying to skid the back tyre of the cycle by braking suddenly and leaving a mark in the ground. The last of the lot used to be most fun!

Women: Let’s face it; impressing women had a different meaning those days. It used to mean a lot special. You also thought your chances with a particular girl were better if you got a few 3-pointers in a basketball game or scored above 30 and hit a couple of boundaries in a cricket match.

Computers: It used to be so hard to get hold of one when I was growing up. I don’t remember a single occasion when I was in a computer lab in school and I didn’t have to share a system.

Physics and Literature: An unlikely set but my favorite subjects in those days. Whitman, Tennyson, Shelley, O’ Henry, Shakespeare, Maugham, Greene used to be names that would mesmerize us. Our group was so impressed with O’Henry’s “After Twenty Years” , that we actually have a pact to meet at a particular restaurant in Ghaziabad in 2017! Newton, on the other hand seemed to have a role in every conceivable principle of Physics. It’d be rather safe, in case you were in doubt, in an exam as to why a particular force acted in a particular way to respectfully leave your answer as: “This occurs because of Newton’s law of motion.”

Sometimes when I look back at my childhood, it’s amazing how much life’s changed. Those days, one of our common grudges used to be “When’re we going to grow up?” and these days, our oft repeated grudge is “Why did we’ve to grow up?”

It’s a funny life...

Here's to Cricket, kid!

Can’t say more.

Posting a compilation of some of my favorite cricketing trivia from around the world.

Jack MacBryan is an interesting name in the annals of cricket. Wikipedia describes MacBryan as " an amateur and right-hand batsman" who also was the Wisden Cricketer of the year in 1925 . He played a test for England at Old Trafford against SA in 1924 , that got washed out after 66.5 overs were bowled. He never played a test again making him the only cricketer to have never bowled a single delivery, caught anything or scored a run in his test career! Wikipedia also describes his test appearance as "imperceptible".

I think a lot of people know about who had the best streak of successive half centuries in Tests. The record belongs to Everton Weekes. However, a lesser known fact is that the best streak in ODIs is that of Javed Miandad’s who had 9 successive scores above 50 in ODIs.

Chris Tremlett of England was on a hat-trick against Bangladesh in a 2005 ODI. Mohammed Ashraful , the batsman strode in and defended with a straight bat, only to see the ball hit the ground and then proceed to hit the stumps. Tremlett didn't get his hat-trick though. The bails refused to budge!

If all the names of cricketers were written in alphabetical order Zulqarnain would be the last name on that list. (His name is also a synonym for “nothing noteworthy” in all languages.)

Of the 12 team captains in the 1999 World Cup, Hansie Cronje was the only one who didn’t wear a jersey numbered 1. He wore the number 5 and since his death no South African has ever worn that number.

Eknath Solkar at 1.96 has the highest catches per test match record. Bob Simpson is next best with a fairly distant rate of 1.77.

When Craig Wishart was caught in 2001 test at Chittagong by Mohhamad Sharif, then 16, off Mohammad Ashraful’s (then 17) legspin, he became a victim to the youngest combination to take a test wicket. ( If you’re thinking that this is quite a bizarre fact to know, you know how I felt writing this! )

Merv Hughes has the most complicated test hat-trick in tests spread over 2 innings and 3 different overs. It was accomplished at Perth against WI in 1988. When I read about it, I thought it was so complicated that the person who pointed out that it was hat-trick must’ve been knighted. Or at least taken out for a beer by Merv.


Apparently, Brian Lara was dropped on 18 once in a first class innings. He added 483 more in the same innings. (Ha… ha… I like the way I've framed this one.) The culprit was Chris Scott, the wicketkeeper.

Two-thirds of the world drives on the right but not one team among the test playing nations drives on the right.

Surprisingly, unlike the best actor Oscar, no one can be a Wisden Cricketer of the year more than once.

One for the Monty! The first instance of a Sikh bowling to a Sikh in test cricket was when Harbhajan bowled to Panesar in a Nagpur test match.

And one for my most favorite cricketer: Brian Lara has scored the maximum number of runs in tests in a 12 month period. It amounts to an astounding 1949 runs between April 2003 and April 2004.

Mike Hussey’s highest score in both forms of the game is 156. His is the highest among players who have highest identical scores in both ODI’s and Tests. The next best is K. Srikkanth with 123.

And lastly, a gem of a freak dismissal.

Over to a Wisden Cricketer archive article : Playing for Warwickshire, in 1948 against Middlesex, Donnelly had reached 55 when a delivery from the left-arm spinner Jack Young hit his foot and bounced over his head, landing about a foot behind the stumps. Strangely the ball then returned to bowl him - from the wrong side of the stumps. The ball may have picked up some backspin, though a bowler's footmark was thought the most likely explanation.

Ah… The game!

Source : The veritable guru, Steven Lynch

Broken Panes

P.S. ( The Pre-Script) : Nothing eventful has taken place in the last 2 weeks to voice an opinion over and hence a garbled mess of a train of thought follows. Proceed at your own risk and do not forget to recommend the following post to your enemies.

Dial M for Murder is an excellent movie. Of the 10 movies directed by Hitchcock that I've seen thus far, I think it's his best. But since IMDB credits him with 66 movies that he's directed, I do humbly acknowledge that the excitement could very well be premature.

I bought "Something Under the Bed is Drooling" today. This leaves me with only 2 more C&H books to complete.

While on comics, I think it's pertinent to mention that as a tribute to Georges Remi's birth centenary, I'm also on track to finish off the remaining 5 Tintin comics that I haven't read. My favorite thus far have been the Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure.

I got hooked really bad to Woody Allen movies last month and the craze hasn't subsided yet. I've run through every Music World, Planet M and Crossword store in Delhi to get some of his movies but to no avail. If you know any place that you could direct me to, please do leave a comment. ( I've ransacked Palika and depleted Seventymm's collection too...)

Me and Bro are huge Sanju Baba fans so when the world said Shootout at Lokhandwala was mediocre while I loved it for Sanju Baba's daredevil fling of the bulletproof jacket, I was a little worried if Bro would think it was over the top too but a short conversation with him alleviated all those fears. ( And now I cant wait for Alibaug...)

Paul Collingwood is easily the guy who's pulled out the best catches of our generation. Youtube can smash any of your disagreements to the above. Your best defence could be Adam Bacher but I said "catches" not " a single catch".

I love the Zen Estilo jingle. I think it really has as much potential as the Hutch song or the Airtel tune. It's just the sort of thing that people would talk about and pass the ringtones around of and I get the feeling that Maruti is clearly underselling it.

If I get to make one movie in my lifetime, I'll flip a coin to decide whether it should be a murder mystery or a story on relationships. And then , the winner of this round would compete against a gangster theme on another flip of the same coin.

My favorite TV programme thus far has been this series called "Exploring the Unknown" that used to come on AXN. Nobody I've spoken this about to, has ever seen this programme. If you know what I'm talking about and you're a woman aged between 24- 32 , you are my soulmate and I'm supposed to be dating you. I know you're itching to call me. My mobile number begins with 9 and just to see if you're of my calibre I want you to find out the remaining 9 digits!

This is an end to your torture. Thanks for being nice. You've inched my blog closer to 7000 hits.

P.S. : Hoping underdog Cavs get past the Spurs...

The List- II ( Of a different kind...)

Call it breathtaking inspiration or cheap imitation, one can’t deny that Hollywood has always served enough for an Indian film maker to directly lift scripts from any English movie. Some acknowledge it, some don’t , some deny and some fret but at the end of the day one can always find that one little scene, that twist towards the end or that line that acts as a complete giveaway.

A couple of weeks back I happened to see Tara Rum Pum regarding which, Khalid Mohammed wrote in the Hindustan Times “…the screenplay of this movie is as original as the output from a Xerox machine”. A number of times while watching a Hindi movie, I’ve jumped from my seat saying, “Hey! That’s a copy…” and while I wish I’d made a note of every single jump thus far , I guess it’s never too late for anything. So here goes a list of my top copied scenes that I recollect sitting in my room in an attempted chronological order.

1. Tara Rum Pum: The most recent copied scene I’ve seen. Saif Ali Khan begging for money in a New York pub. Co-incidentally even Russell Crowe was also supposed to be in a New York pub in Cinderella Man. I picked this particular scene because of how Ron Howard used a different shade of light to show the interiors of the pub. And Siddharth Anand was inspired in his sleep to give the same effect in his movie.

2. Guru: Abhishek Bachchan’s trial scene towards the end of the movie seemed a little too similar to Howard Hughes deposing before Senator Brewster in the Aviator. Though many differences can be noted in this case, I think it’s the treatment and how Alan Alda and Roshan Seth act as impeccable judges that make the scenes similar. Al Pacino’s deposition in Godfather-II could also possibly be an inspiration.

3. Dhoom II: Surprised? Well, the scene between Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan over a table in a restaurant and the ensuing conversation was a lift from the Al Pacino-De Niro classic Heat. In my books, I’d refer to this scene by a very special name: Fall from Grace.

4. Sarkar: Another re-make but this time I think RGV did all he possibly could to minimize the damage to the gripping monologue of a man in distress appealing to the Godfather for justice. Of the scenes I’ve mentioned this far, I think this one made me feel least disparate.

5. Aitraaz: The first attempted rape of a guy in Hindi cinema ? A la Disclosure? Would you rather be in Michael Douglas’ shoes than Akshay Kumar’s?

6. Deewane Huye Pagal : While the movie itself was heavily borrowed, the dog-shock scene was a direct lift from There’s Something About Mary. I don’t think however that they got the Border Terrier breed of dog used in the English version. (Yup, the kind of trivia Google can throw up is amazing. :-D)

7. Musafir: What a blatant copy this one is! Both Sameera Reddy and Jennifer Lopez wear red skirts while Anil Kapoor and Sean Penn lend a helping hand to their backs. The difference: Sameera was trying to get inside her house and J’Lo was already in her house trying to fix some drapes in U-Turn.

8.Murder : Diane Lane, you beauty. And to be fair to Mallika Sherawat, you tried ! Funnily, after all the making out, the director made even Mallika Sherawat travel by a train on her way back home replaying what she’d just gotten herself into. If you looking for a subtle difference, you wont be disappointed. Diane Lane had her knee bruised in Unfaithful while Mallika didn’t .

9. Kasoor: “I lied to you. I didn’t want to. But I had to…”. Glenn Close listening to Jeff Bridges’ confessions in a picturesque setting, in Jagged Edge was directly transliterated to make way for Aftab’s disclosure to Lisa Ray. When I told a friend I was planning to write something like this, she hit the nail on the head when she said, “… your list will comprise all Vikram Bhatt’s movies…” . I had to include at least one.

There are a few more scenes in my mind but I’m getting a little bored of this now so just to add a little bit of variety, I want to point this out. I think a few of our film makers are simply too indifferent (or lazy) to the thought of adding even a dime’s worth of originality to anything that they copy. So much so, that even when someone from Yash Raj Films decided to re-make My Best Friends Wedding , he just couldn’t come up with any name other than “ Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hain”!!!

P.S.: For the record, Casablanca is reportedly being re-made in Hindi too…
Sigh! It’s time to sleep.

I so so hate people!

I hate people. I hate organized groups. I hate communities. I hate religion and I hate anything that has a say on my life and the way I want to live my life!

Stories

I love stories. I just love any media that tells a good story. Be it a movie, a comic book or a play. However, songs and poems are not about stories. They're more about expression of a sentiment and less about narration. Yet , when a song does incorporate a story, it becomes all the more beautiful because of the very sublime element inherent in the medium of music.

The medium of music is about no fuss. And when you do have a story to top it off, nothing like it!

"Ten years ago, on a cold dark night
Someone was killed, 'neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the slayer who ran, looked a lot like me

The judge said son, what is your alibi
If you were somewhere else, then you won't have to die
I spoke not a word, thou it meant my life
For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

Oh, the scaffold is high and eternity's near
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But late at night, when the north wind blows
In a long black veil, she cries ov're my bones "

- Long Black Veil originally sung by Lefty Frizzell

Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me...

The scourge of women (Or their allure?)

Babubhai Katara is a despicable man. Last week he was in the news for having been caught red-handed while trying to smuggle a lady abroad by passing her as his wife under a fake passport. What's funny is that he'd cleared the immigration and the customs check and both of them were merrily seated in the airplane with less than half an hour to go for the takeoff and that's when, that's exactly when his crookedly malicious fate decided to shake a leg. A fellow lady passenger aboard lost her passport.

The officials started pulling out all the documents and in a routine check asked Babubhai Katara's supposed wife what her name was and in a lyrical moment, she will rue every single day of her life, the lady blurted out her real name of Paramjeet, instead of the name she should've given, Sarada Ben, the name on the fake passport she’d used. Needless to say, with that swift stroke Babubhai Katara's political and personal life has come to naught. That he deserved it is beyond any doubt. But that the disaster could've been avoided if the woman hadn't been so idiotic is equally obvious.

Now at this point I want you to spare a thought for Babubhai. What wrong did he do in scheming it up? So perfectly planned. And the only thing beyond his control got him into the deepest shit ever for no fault of his. Come to think of it, it's not the first time that a man has got screwed because of a woman around him.

Since the very beginning, women have proved too tempting a presence for man to ignore and too devastating a force to survive alongside with. Think of Eve coaxing Adam to go for the forbidden fruit and damning all humanity in the years to come.
Think of Samson revealing the secret of his locks to Delilah and his consequent capture by the Philistines.
Think of Draupadi mocking Duryodhana in her palatial abode and thus paving the way for Duryodhana to swear for revenge.

Casino, a movie based on the true story of gangster Frank Rosenthal played by the inimitable De Niro, is another classic example of how a man did everything for and yet was betrayed by the love of his life. In Frederico Garcia Larco’s popular play , Blood Wedding , the bride runs away with her childhood sweetheart on the day of her wedding. Her childhood sweetheart and the groom kill each other in the end. One wouldn’t have imagined that Macbeth would murder Duncan if it were not the Lady’s instigation. Everything came to dust. What was the bloody need for Paris to steal Helen and give way to the most important war waged in Greek mythology. Two fantastic warriors, Hector and Achilles were lost in the fight for a woman. To be precise, somebody else's woman.

Whether you like it or not, plays, books and movies are based on societal influences and observations by writers and directors. It’s not as if Shakespeare suddenly got a brainwave to script a character like Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare and his ilk draw from characters they’ve seen around in their society. More often than not, your favorite movie turns out to be something that you relate to. If playwrights long back could identify characters like that, they must’ve stemmed from real characters like Larco’s bride or Lady Macbeth in the society. For the record , the phrase Femme Fatale originated in 1912.

Hell, even Shane Warne could’ve played the 2003 World Cup if it were not for his mother giving him pills to look good. That’s probably stretching it a bit but my point is that when it comes to women , I think a lot of us men stop seeing reason.

What gets me to write on this topic is an advice I’ve been giving a friend to let go off a girl he’s been clinging on to. Irrespective of any advice that I can give him to part ways, he’s been hoping against hope that things will work out. And I can see why. I think women have this innate quality to get men to do a lot of things that they otherwise wouldn’t. A smile here, a nod there , a wink here , a nudge at the back, any little goddamn thing will make men go weak in their brains to begin with, followed by the knees and God knows where else. Try as I might, I can’t get this friend to forget his lady and after a point one has to just leave it at that.

And just at the point when I’m about to curse this friend of mine for not being able to see reason or logic, I’m reminded of Al Pacino’s immortal line in Scent of a Woman:

“Women. What could you say? Who made 'em? God must've been a fucking genius. Hair. They say , hair's everything you know. Have you ever buried your nose in a mountain of curls and just wanted to go to sleep forever? Or lips. And when they touched yours were like that first swallow of wine after you just crossed the desert…”

And I smile and tell G, “It’s alright. Go for her… What can I say?”

Maybe when Neil Diamond paid US$ 150,000,000 as divorce settlement for his wife Marcia Murphey and remarked “She was worth every penny”, maybe , he let the curls and the lips get the better of him, his reason and his money.

Just like all men before and after him and how can we blame him for that?

Funky Chicken Jig!

Way better than the Brett Lee leap or the Shoaib Akhtar bird flap motion or Sreesanth's mid pitch dance!

Hail Langford-Smith! :-D

P.S. : Some pesky browser issues have prevented me from blogging from work. Am on my way to getting a broadband connection at home.

Next post around the corner about the scourge of women, in less than a week's time.

Professional Exigencies

One fine day:

Super Boss: Hi Issac. There’s this interesting new project I want to involve you with. It’s going to be very exciting. It could probably be the best learning you’ve had thus far in HT. It’s blah blah blah blah…. Let me know what you think of it.

Me: Umm…Well… Err… Actually I don’t think I’m the right guy for this. I mean, I don’t think this interests me enough.

Super Boss: Oh ok. Good day

Me: Good day…

Another fine day:

Super Boss: I think you should do a stint in this new department. It’s going to be very unique and challenging and will give you an insight into this aspect of business.

Me: Umm…Well…Err… I don’t think I’m keen to do this. But…

Super Boss: Ah… it’s ok. Good day.

Me: Good day.

Another, another fine day, in office:

Friend: You wanna play on the terrace?

Me: Oh yeah, but didn’t we lose the football we last used?

Friend: I got a new one today.

Me: Let’s go…


So we went playing on the terrace. I was leading 9-5 in the game and the football fell off the terrace.

On my super boss’s head.

:-(

WI lose three in a row...

The Undeniable

The lull after India got kicked out of the World Cup...

I am not of those die-hards who wanted India to win it. I'd rather see one of West Indies, South Africa or England pull off this one. Yet I cant deny the void that's looming around after the disaster against SL...

At Bermuda again!

Little did I imagine , when I wrote a post supporting Bermuda a week before the WC took off, that midway through, a billion people will be cheering for this nation!

The event also went in line with my previous post of "Multiplicity...".

On a serious note with both India and Pak out, hope to see less of ads cutting through the commentary along with less of match- fixing, doping, chucking and tampering in the remaining days of the World Cup! And hopefully , no more murders...

Maybe both India and Pakistan getting out was a toast to Cricket!

Join in! Cheers! :-)

Multiplicity of an Indian Cricket Fan

The fate of an Indian fan is entwined with the fortunes of other teams. Invariably.

In tri-nation tournaments,we've seen this often becos we would win only one match and then hope that the most dominant team beats the second most dominant team by a huge margin and then we'll eventually go through to the finals thanks to Net Run-Rate or a washout or some stroke of luck, like a Virender Sehwag century.

It's allright in these small tourneys , I'm sure we can cheer for a third team to win or lose but right now we're on an ICC World Cup and we don't know if we'll qualify to be one of the best 8 ODI teams out a game that's played by 10 test playing nations to begin with.

For a start, if I'm a genuine Indian fan today, I'll cheer for Bangladesh. I cry hoarse for them to win it, run like tigers, take wickets, celebrate like chimps , take catches like dolphins and basically beat the sh*t out of Sri Lanka while I eat Hilsa ( I hate it but I'll do it) and sing the Bangla national anthem.

On Friday, I'll obviously cheer for India.

And today if Bangladesh doesn't beat SL, then on Friday I'll become a Bermudan. I'll shout on top of my voices for Leverock and company. I'll want them to beat the sh*t out of Bangladesh. I'll change my identity and scream "Hail Bermuda" with a passion equal to that of Mogambo's sidekick.

I'll do it but even in this age of globalisation, wouldn't transmogrifying 3 national identities, in a space of 4 days, have been quite an ask for Calvin too ?

World Cup Post-its : III

So India got screwed.

Nobody was celebrating the World Record win against Bermuda. Aptly so. Having got themselves in such a bad corner, it'll take a million things to fall in place for India to still qualify for the Super 8's. That group is bloody messed up. Somebody has to beat somebody, somebody must beat somebody by a good margin, somebody must win by not so great a margin, somebody must sneeze in time or somebody must pick his nose before the toss. God knows how many million things must fall in place before India qualifies...

On a serious note, I don't care about India losing out but I belong to the community , the news of which you must've read on the front pages of any prominent newspaper in India.

" Broadcasters to lose 150 Crore if India lose out."
" Advertisers pulling out in the face of India's loss"

And if there's money on the table to be made if India does well, I'd rather see them in the Super 8's than see them lose out and eventually screw our industry revenues.

Once in college , when I was a student, I'd stopped short of thinking in a discussion about money and Indian Cricket. Those days my views were rather simple.
"India should do well in any competition. It makes us feel great and proud about ourselves."

Today, sitting on the other side of the fence I'm thinking:
" India should do fantastic at cricket. It makes us feel rich about ourselves."

Pride?
Well...Umm...Errr...That we can manage at other sports...

World Cup Post-its : II

SA have been wronged every time in a World Cup. Consider this:

1992: Rain rule.
1996: Got docked an over. Lost by 2 runs.
1999: They didn't lose the semi-final and yet didn't make it to the final.
2003: NZ didn't travel to Kenya last World Cup and Kenya got free points.Consequently, SA lost out on the 3rd spot.

I'm not a huge SA fan but if they do win it, I think in many ways it might do justice in the overall scheme of things. So when I saw Boucher and Gibbs and Kallis pounding the sh*t out of Netherlands, I loved it. It wasn't funny. It was hilarious!

However, my moment of the match was when during one of the slog overs Van Troost pitched a ball way too short and Kallis was about to go for a hook over his head. By now, the wicketkeeper who had so haplessly seen every ball hit the middle of every South African's bat had already given up hope of any batsman letting any ball go through to the keeper. At the last moment though, Kallis let go of the delivery only to see J Smits taken completely taken aback by it.

The result: 4 byes over Smit's head. Which brings me to think, would this also have been the match in which least number of balls went through to the keeper? :-)

Bermuda Woes

Bermuda, I thought they'd be an underdog. They seem to be more like an underpest or undercaterpillar. They're nowhere close to being a dog...

World Cup Post-its : I

One swallow does'nt make a summer and one match does'nt quite indicate how the World Cup will eventually span out but here's my take thus far:

I think in some ways this World Cup is going to be like the '83 World Cup. More bits and pieces players will come into play and hence my hypothesis of the Windies doing well keeps getting stronger.(...Or I dont know if I'm making this up because I really want them to win.)

I found out the other day that Danish Kaneria's fielding is probably as bad as Monty Panesar's. A throw to Kamran Akmal during the match was stupefying to say the least. It wasn't even as if the bastmen were scampering for a quick single and Akmal was dying to take off the bails but Kaneria was surely dying to throw. I mean, just throw, you know; like a javelin or maybe a shot- put. I also like the way Panesar cups his hands when he's about to catch a ball. I think its meant to be more like a prayer posture or something. Can't wait to watch him drop another one soon. I think Munaf is also in the same category. A friend once told me that apparently he used to be called Kachra in his college days after that character in Lagaan who with his crippled hands could never hold a ball properly. Funny guys these , Munaf, Panesar and Kaneria. Definitely my bowling trio for the Worst Fielding XI at this year's World Cup.

Say what you will but Tikolo is class. I've seen him treat Kumble with as much disdain as would Lara so nice to see him getting some runs early in the tournament.

There's something about Aussies' fitness regime. Hogg is 36 and so is Hayden and you should've seen them throwing themselves around against a pony of a team called Scotland. And we have Kumble also at 36.

I like Kumble, I really do. It's just a co-incidence that he's at the receiving end of this post. That too twice! Now, I dont want to make it a hatrick. After all , he doesn't have a hatrick to his name anyway, so why credit him with one! ;-)

More post-its to follow! :-D

Max was never set for this! And neither was I...

I did think of bunking work yesterday. Like, I’ve always thought, in school, during graduation and during my MBA. I’ve never felt like doing anything that takes my attention away from cricket on a match day. And more so, infinitely more so, during a World Cup. I know there are millions like me in this nation but this was a first for me. I’m working these days and the difference is, unlike in school and college, these days I get paid at the end of the month. Yet somehow I’d convinced myself yesterday to bunk work.

“Hey, this is the first match of the World Cup; I need to be in a certain state of mind to be geared up for it.”

But when I woke up this morning, the pangs of guilt of bunking work overtook my desire to stay back and I ended up at work. What the hell? Bunking school and college was never this hard a decision. Back then, it used to be a walk in the park.

“Dad, Aaj Match hain and there are no important periods in school today. Is it okay if? ”

What would follow this seemingly undisruptive line won’t exactly be the smoothest of verbal exchanges yet at least I didn’t have this stupid guilt biting me inside. Moreover, Dad would eventually settle in favor of me staying back with an assurance from me that we won’t ever come to a discussion like that again. Now, here I’ve to give Dad full marks. I mean every time, he had to give me the impression that he didn’t see through that one…

Nevertheless, I put everything behind me and was home at 6 p.m. to catch the pre-match coverage 2 hours before the match begun. Now again I’ve to draw a parallel between my childhood here. You know, in those days, you could prepare for all you could but just before the match began one of these things would invariably happen:

a.) The cable would blank out
b.) The electricity in the house would blank out.
c.) An elder in the house would send me on an errand that would take me away from television
d.) One of Dad’s friends would turn up in the drawing room and just yap, yap and yap!

Now given my past experiences, I was quite prepared for a setback when I walked into my room hoping to turn on the television in the evening. But when I turned on the light the sight that caught my eyes was a rather pleasing one. My usually littered bed had a new bed sheet, the books were neatly arranged on the bed and so were the chocolates. My room had a neat look and I think Ms. Bhandari, my landlady was also kind enough to spray one of her special room fresheners around. It just felt like she knew I didn’t want any of those problems today. It was almost as if God thought I’d suffered enough through my childhood and this World Cup, He’d decided to reward my anticipation.

“Superb!” I said to myself, just the way I like it, everything in order and no disturbances, just the ideal way to watch the first ball of the World Cup. Something about the first ball of a big match is so special. I mean it’s as great as your first kiss or your first love. The sound of the crowd, the commentators at the peak of their voices, the electric atmosphere, all combine in perfect unison to give you the feeling that if you’ve missed the first ball of a big match, you’ve pretty much missed dipping your favorite ice cream in your favorite chocolate sauce! And when you’ve done everything right through the day to arrive at this moment, you just thank your Lord that He made you literate enough to understand this game.

Cut to the present. We were soon over with the pitch report and the toss. We went through some tortuous times with some daft dame called Sonali Nagrani but I was sure better fare would follow. After all, times had changed, the cable was working fine and there weren’t any elders around. And soon the moment arrived, Simon Taufel said “Play” and we were onto the first ball of the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup. Umar Gul moved in, I could hear the crowd, my pulse was racing and the heart was pounding. But wait a minute why the hell were the commentators not saying anything? Is someone going to speak something soon or is it going to be “Main aur meri tanhayee...” for commentary?

In the next 3 seconds I said all the prayers I’d ever learnt, desperately hoping for someone to say something and just make me realize that the World Cup was getting underway. And after just another fleeting second I realized, the moment was gone. I’d just seen Chris Gayle nudge the first delivery of the 2007 World Cup towards mid-off or a single without the slightest trace of a commentator guiding me through it. And if that weren’t enough we waited for the third over until the silken voice of Tony Cozier put an end to my muted misery.

Thanks Set Max! Talk of some things never changing…

On a more positive note, I’m not letting Henry Olonga’s expert comments or Sonali Nagrani’s repulsive on-screen presence ruin it for me. I’m here for cricket and only cricket. I shall be strong.

To keep it simple, I’m cheering for West Indies, followed by England and like Shobhit said, (while he has decided to cheer for Australia and South Africa) “...We can always pretend to be happy, if India wins it!” ;-)

P.S.: I’ve a plan to post at least twice every week beginning Friday under the title of a “Caribbean Post-its” series beginning Saturday. Watch this space for some special cricket comments that wouldn’t find its place of pride in any other publication! :-P

Pointless questions and pointed answers

Dreams... Or nightmares can sometimes articulate your fears, way better than, what in your waking hours you'll ever be able to put in words.

The feeling is that of being pinned to the ground. Knowing that choices exist but also knowing that one could've been better off without any choices. One can never know for sure though.

Would you rather have the choice or would you not?

The Loyal Guard

I want to make it official now. For a long time, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve deliberated endlessly and now take this step with conviction. With this decision I might leave my peers dismayed, my parents disappointed and my landlord might even kick me out of his house but it’s time I put down my loyalties on paper. At least this way I would’ve no shame and no regrets. After all, honesty might be a ridiculed yet a desirable virtue to possess in our times.

This World Cup, I’m supporting Bermuda. There’s no looking back now. I’m going to cheer for them hoarse, wear their colors and gun for them to win it even if they are stranded hopelessly chasing 618 runs against India in the group stage.

The whole point of ICC allowing teams like Bermuda to play in the World Cup (apart from minting truck loads of dollars) is to promote the game and which game has been promoted in any nation without a loyal band of supporters?

And I sense Bermuda is short of supporters this season. I mean look at the other minnows. Look at Bangladesh. Before you can even bat an eyelid, you’d be swept by a wave of Bangla supporters shouting you down even if you’re on 1800 MW speakers. Canada had John Davison in the last edition. And he’s back as captain this time. Thanks to him, we would follow that team for sheer curiosity. I’m sure any Irish supporter would be passionately hoping that they kick English ass. They’d love this game back in Scotland. It gives them 6 more hours to drown themselves in good old Scotch instead of a plain vanilla 90 minutes. Kenya; we all know what they’re capable of and Netherlands being veterans amongst these minnows at World Cup, I think has more of chance topping their group than India.

And now if this emotional plea was not enough to inspire you to support Bermuda, I shall present a few more facts to appeal to your left brain (And that is, if your brain is still in place after reading all this. Bermuda does have an uncanny knack to get on your nerves. It did on mine!)

The nation is all of 50 sq. km. Their population is 80,000 and yes they’re fielding a 15 member team. No less. Calculate the ratio of players to population and you’ve the biggest underdog ever in the history of cricket.

I went to a link that listed the “Bermuda Players to Watch Out For”. I waited long. It never downloaded.

On another link a player profile read: He has a lot of determination and with some more hard work will surely emerge as a successful cricketer in the future.
Evidently, he needs our support. Let’s cheer him for at least one match!

Their winning percentage in ODI’s is 29%. Sheer figures suggest they’re better than Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. This has been brought to your notice so that you never feel that you’re cheering for a team down in the dumps. Down in the Atlantic yes, but not in the dumps!

Along with the illustrious Papua New Guinea, Bermuda showed the cricketing world that 400 runs could be scored in an ODI. This was in ICC Trophy in 1986. 20 long and winding years before Australia and South Africa had any devious plans of the same. And this IS TRUE! Here’s your chance this World Cup to cheer for the original attacking cricketing nation of our generation!

They’ve only had one Olympic medal winner so far. Finally, you have a country that’s done worse than India in Olympics. It should do your ego good to support them.

Player names are equally evocative. Their team has one Hurdle, one Cann, a Pitcher, a couple of Tuckers and a certain Minors. Can’t you read the signs?

And if all the above were still not enough reason, allow me to throw some light on state of the nation’s economy. It’s GDP per capita of a stunning $76,000 is the highest in the world.

And I’ve also heard they’re taking the best Bermuda supporter from India to partake a slice of that cake!

I leave you with that luscious thought and when you go to sleep from today do not, I repeat do not forget to shout “Goooooooo Beeerrrrmuuddddaaaa!!!”

The List - I

Most of my close friends have been a little baffled at my fairly insignificant skill of recounting lines and scenes from my favorite movies with ease. Some of them think it comes effortlessly to me. I don’t quite intend to shatter that perception but the truth is that if I like a particular scene or a dialogue in a movie, I end up watching it again and again until I know I can recollect it on my own. It’s like a scaling a summit. The journey is immensely exciting and the accomplishment endearing.

However I realized that over the years, while I kept scaling those summits, because I didn’t keep a record of those scenes and dialogues, sadly most of those impressions have eroded from my mind. And hence, here is an effort to list some of the best scenes from Hindi movies that I grew up to and continue to be charmed with.

Now like in any field, the task of selection is inevitably an onerous task. Not because you don’t know which ones to select but because you have trouble eliminating options. Nevertheless, after 3 hours of thinking, this is what I could come up with.

1. Ashok Kumar wanting to light his cigarette in Jewel Thief in the flight: A charming thief brought to book finally after three hours of gripping screenplay. The Jewel Thief was defeated but alarmingly undeterred. I remember watching and still thinking if there was any way there could be another twist in the tale even now.

2. Amol Palekar’s moustache coming off in Golmaal: Ramprasad is eating a wholesome lunch at Utpal Dutt’s place when his moustache starts giving way. The rest is history. How Shubha Khote managed to pound Utpal Dutt with a club in his own backyard while both of them were looking for Ramprasad cracks me up even now!

3.Satish Shah in a coffin with a drunk Om Puri on the road in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron: I would be betraying the trust of the numerous worshippers of this movie if I even attempted to describe it further…

4. Anupam Kher with a friend coaxing him to drink in Daddy: A loser to the world and a daddy to his girl is about to give a final performance on stage. He’s tempted by a jerk to get back to drinking; something his daughter has painstakingly managed to take him away from. One of Anupam Kher’s best performances after Saaransh.

5.Vijay Deenanath Chauhan: How else could I do justice to this? A TV programme once suggested that when the first prints came out, the distributors thought that there was something wrong with the sound of those prints because of Amitabh Bachchan’s gruff dialogue delivery style.

6.Sanjay Dutt in Naam being told by Paresh Rawal overlooking a busy street in Dubai that underworld is a one-way street: Similar scenes with exact lines have been enacted in numerous movies but none have been as subdued yet menacing.

7. Jackie Shroff in his desperate last scene in Gardish: I saw this movie on cable first and I thought this would be another of those cable-fit movies that you want to devote time to only because you have nothing else to do. All throughout the movie, the father son equation was a stirring tale of emotion. This was a remake of a Malayalam movie called 'Kireedam'. ( Thanks to Tushar, else all of you would have been led to believe, by me, that it was 'Spadikam' ). While the latter happens to be one of my favorite movies, I must say the Hindi version didn’t disappoint one bit.

8. Kamal Hasan in the song Dauda dauda bhaaga in Chachi 420: To add to the glee, the ensemble of Om Puri , Paresh Rawal and Amrish Puri was nothing short of a casting coup. Add to that the return of Johnny Walker and you had to have an eminently enjoyable joyride.

9.The song Tu Bin Bataaye in Rang De Basanti: Beautifully shot, beautifully scripted and beautifully sung. The shot where Aamir and his gang throw leaves over Madhavan and Soha Ali Khan is simply the most endearingly mischievous scene ever!

10.Snow falling over Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee in Black: Right after the teacher tells his protégé, that she’s failed her papers, there’s a moment of silence. The stage is set for one of them to cry and instead the falling snow makes sure that they dance like two kids who just got news they could go home earlier than usual. Absolutely unadulterated!

11.Amitabh Bachchan waving his hand after being released from jail in Sarkar. Sarkar had just got bail and comes back to his mansion after a failed attempt on his life in jail. The foreground in the scene is a wave of his left hand protruding out of an SUV. The background, a huge group of his supporters cheering him on. Together, they signal a comeback. Everyone in the hall knew Sarkar would be released from jail but how was the question.

12. Abhishek Bachchan screaming and instructing his accountant in Guru: “Contractor ka naam gaali ban jaana chahiye. Gaali…” For sheer intensity. A typical scene that Al Pacino would have delivered with consummate ease. We don’t have an equal for the latter yet in Bollywood but at least we’re close to getting another angry young man after ages.


13. Johnny Walker breaking down in Anand: The one scene that has to be my most favorite scene of all time in Hindi cinema. An actor who lived his life making others laugh in all his movies made the audience cry in possibly the only movie he shed tears on screen for.

Like with any list, there must’ve been more scenes that I couldn’t recall while penning ( keyboarding?) this article. Readers of this post, few and far and as disappointed or delighted they maybe are welcome to suggest more scenes. If I think any of the scenes, is worthy of an inclusion, I’ll add it to the post!
As Calvin once said, “Big incentive!”: -P

P.S.: Tried keeping it down to 10. Couldn't succeed. Diffcult to eliminate! :-)

A Questionable Tribute

It took me quite some time to convince myself that I actually didn’t think Sachin was even close to being the best batsman in the world like a lot of his peers claimed, a lot of journalists wrote about and a lot of cricket fans debated on. In my books, over the last couple of years that mantle should clearly belong to Ponting and prior to that it was Lara’s. Barring the summer of 1998, Sachin never came close to claiming the mantle of the best batsman in the world. He would hang around and remind us of what he was capable of but never delivered.

While I do think, that as a cricketer ( and otherwise) he is a gentleman and a complete one at that, a lot of journalists, cricketers and commentators have allowed the nice boy image of Sachin to make up for his lack of supremacy to win matches for India.

In the same context, posted below is a piece written by V. Gangadhar for Hindustan Times today. Sometimes, there are things that you want to write and then you read something that describes exactly, what you think, in the exact diction and tone and sarcasm that you would have penned it in. And if it comes from one of your favorite writers, isn’t that a nice beginning to a day! : -)

Posted below the article:

AS THE third test match between India and South Africa was in progress, the Sachin Chamcha Group (SCG) in the television commentary box was frantic with excitement. Here is the chatter that went on:

Know-All Bhogle: And there is, Sachin, at 34, chasing the ball like a fly, diving full length and stopping it, saving one run. What commitment, what dedication. This one run could be decisive in the match. Why talk of Jonty Rhodes when we have Sachin. I am sure our Little Master Sunny Gavaskar would agree.

Little Expert Master Gavaskar: A great dive, a great save. In fact, you would have noted that Sachin dived at an angle of 63 degrees facing East, which is the most difficult of the dives. While doing so, he braved the wind from the North-east which was blowing across the pitch and he must have hit the ground with a velocity of 34 kmph. Simply remarkable for someone his age. The neck, the arms and the legs were perfectly positioned. A bit like watching Burt Lancaster in the movie Trapeze.

Bhogle: Leave it to Sunny to come up with such wonderful pieces of information. And Ravi?

Deadpan Ravi Shastri: Remarkable commitment, but then this commitment was always there, whether he was playing at Bandra MIG Club, Shivaji Park or a packed Lord’s. If there is a Nobel Prize for commitment, it should go to Sachin.

(Later, when Sachin is batting)
Bhogle: Yet, one more perfectly defensive shot played with the middle of the bat. Everything in position. Of course, though India should score enough runs to force a victory, Sachin had scored one run in 88 balls. Why bother about runs, when you can watch such perfect technique. Sunny, did you play like this when you scored 36-not-out in 60 overs in the 1975 World Cup match against England? That was the most monumental innings in one-day cricket.

Gavaskar: Thank you, Harsha, for your fantastic memory which is as perfect as Sachin’s defence. See the left shoulder thrust at right angles to the right wrist and the right shoulder pointing exactly at the vacant spot between mid-off and cover. This is the mother of all defensive shots, I would say even father. I think there is a deep strategy behind Sachin’s approach. By batting like this, he would induce sleep among the South Africans, and when they come to bat, they would just rub their eyes and get out one after the other. There is always planning in Sachin’s approach.

Shastri: I agree entirely. This again reflects his commitment — combined with wisdom, a rare combination. By remaining still like this, and keeping the score-board still, Sachin would make the clouds over the ground still, so that it will not rain and we can win the match.

Bhogle: Look, the South Africans are already lethargic which is what India wants.

(The match is over and India is beaten by South Africa)
Bhogle: That is all from the SCG. Please stay tuned in for ‘Cricket Tamasha’ special.

Viewers: What the hell we were watching till now?

There's something about Marketing!

I specialize in Marketing. Often I’m told, I look the “pakka” Marketing types. I take it with a pinch of salt. I’m never told I’m the “pakka” intellectual type.

Marketing takes me places. Literally, more than figuratively and currently places mean only Delhi and Mumbai. Often I wake up not knowing which city I’m in. There’ve been days when I’ve wanted to go to CP in Mumbai and Churchgate in Delhi

I’ve a great house in Jangpura Extension and an even better company guesthouse in Bandra. I’ve a Mom’s house in Guwahati and Dad’s house in Quilon. Yet, I end up spending majority of my time at my office.

I’ve been on Marketing since the last 6 months. I’ve been a part of a team that has launched a Radio Station in Delhi, a mega promotion in Delhi and am currently working on the launch plans for Mumbai. And of course, you can call a duo a “team”.

I’ve figured out Marketing is 99% common sense. The other 1% is your top-boss telling you what to do. I call it, “Will-power of the Mighty!”

In media in particular, I find a lot of Mallus either in top jobs or surrounded with great babes. Alex Kuruvilla is just “a” case in point. I’m a Mallu and yet to hit a top job and Salma Hayek can never give me time.

I figured it’s fashionable and intellectual to be late in Marketing. Late for signing off budgets, sites, creatives, everything. The fun is when you are actually late. If you do things on time, no one gives you credit. Be a day late or two and you must have done a fabulous job.

I haven’t perfected the art of screaming at agencies, media planners, printers to meet deadlines and budgets but I’m getting there. I can just feel it. I’m only looking for barters, great deals, good money and prominent positions across media and across avenues. I just want to bargain. Even when my maid tells me she’ll give me my Aloo Paratha in 5 minutes, I feel like asking her, “Can I get it in 2 minutes with an add-on of a Gobi Paratha?”

I don’t know whether this is to do with Marketing but I get along rather well with the security guards, housekeeping guys, liftman and the receptionists. The people who I haven’t broken ice yet with are the CEO and the AVPs and the VPs.

A lot of times Marketing has been considered too subjective a topic of discussion in organizations. No one knows where the bang for the buck lies. People are cagey about spending on Marketing. How the hell do we know Marketing has delivered? I agree.
But I find an uncanny similarity to this and “ Hey, I find that babe hot. How the hell do I know she’ll talk?”. At best, you can do your homework and back your instinct and hope your money is in the right place. And that’s what Marketing is all about! : -)

The Escape...

A number of times in my life, I’ve likened myself to a lot of fictional characters. And have behaved what that character would’ve done in that particular situation. Part of this had been accentuated by a wave of Calvin books that swept by me in no time. Calvin thinks of himself as different characters in difficult situations and tries to struggle with his nemesis of the moment accordingly, only to realize towards the end that he actually is not what he thinks of himself to be. Reality strikes and things come back to haunt him.

Lately, I’ve wanted a lot to be like Forrest Gump. If, if I could just run away from some of the things in life.

The other day, I found a couple of lines a friend had scribbled in my yearbook (and I quote) “…you the complex kid, who’s got all the candy the world has to offer and yet...yet the yearning for that elusive chocolate that you missed.” Of all the things that my friends have said about me, this to my mind is quite a close description. And lately while I’m yet to find my elusive chocolate I think the life of this supposedly complex kid has got that bit more complex.

“Can I just run away with you to an island with loads of chocolates, water, a pile of Frasier and movie DVDs, music CD’s , my home theater system, comics and some cricket magazines and books?”

The question to be asked is: If the thought of escapism is quite soothing in itself, what unbridled joy might a real escape actually bring?

The Art of Superficial Science

I have a problem.

Many of my close friends are getting married. The problem I have is I hate attending weddings. And a lot of my friends think that an ideal way for me to express my warmth towards them is for me to attend their weddings. I disagree completely.

If you conduct a dipstick among my friends I think most of them will tell you that I’ve been a decent friend to hang around with. I have smiled, laughed, frowned, teased and listened to all my friends. I’ll continue doing all of that and more all my life but one thing that really pisses me off more than eating Mutton Palak (They serve it in our canteen. I don’t know why!) is that one line that I dread hearing from my friends.

“You can’t even attend our wedding?”

What the bloody f**k?
I brought you home on my shoulders when you were pissed drunk. I let you copy from my notebooks when you didn’t know that Gobi Desert was not a sweet dish but a spot on Asia’s physical map. I was the one who actually told that girl you finally married that you liked her. And I still haven’t told your wife yet that you got rejected five times before by 3 different girls before you proposed her.

So what have I done wrong if I didn’t attend your stupid wedding? What was in it for me anyway? You’re the one who gets married, gets all the gifts and takes a vacation for the honeymoon. How will it help me if I attend your goddamn wedding?

Now the puritan will stand up and give us the explanation that joys and sorrows are meant to be shared. He must’ve heard it from his father and his father must have heard it from his neighbor who in his green fields must’ve heard some donkey braying in Tadzhik (a Central Asia dialect) that joys and sorrows were meant to be shared. This entire world creates a superfluous din about this whole rigmarole of wedding celebrations but nobody realizes why they do it.

Make a grand announcement from Qutub Minar. Carve an invitation card with sandalwood. Let a thousand odd people eat so much that they can’t even shit properly the next day. Decorate cars with flowers. Get dressed in your finest suit and drive your bride away on a rented limousine. Wake up next morning like a pauper, make a list of all those people who didn’t attend the wedding and then call them up and moan, “You didn’t even attend our wedding!”
Just as Robert De Niro’s exclaims in Goodfellas, I’m left wondering, “What’s the world coming to?”

Can’t the world see through the contorted custom, the hollow celebrations and the redundancy of inviting people to weddings? And on top of all of this, the reckless expectation, that everyone should attend these weddings. Sorry, but I fail to get this. Completely.

The last wedding I went for, I cringed and cribbed and cursed myself for the whole of 50 minutes I’d to be there. There was a group of friends who were seemingly having fun. They danced on the streets of Delhi for no good reason with some losers trumpeting distorted versions of old Hindi numbers ahead of them. I shook a leg and wished I had drowned in Red Sea. And then I hear my friends telling me , “Yaar, shaadi mein bahut mazaa aaya…” .

I asked my friend, "Isme mazaa kya aaya?"
He looked at me as if I asked the dumbest thing ever and shrugged his shoulders saying , "Mazaa to aaya..."

Now let’s spend a moment on the logistics. Even if you go for your best friend’s wedding, you can’t speak to him one bit. The guy/girl will have a plastic smile on his face all the time. He won’t be your college buddy he used to be. He wants you to be there, even if he won’t be able to see you. Why? Even he doesn’t know. But his family must’ve told him, “Invite all your friends”, so if his friends don’t turn up, he’ll be questioned and if you didn’t go his level of conviction in the “Yes! They came!” in his bellow won't shine through.

I can understand the importance of big moments and the need of friends around you in such moments. But the moment you’re getting married to someone, somewhere you’ve chosen your best friend for life, so why do you need your old friends to be there physically to gape at you? And if you haven’t chosen your best friend to marry, why the hell are you even getting married?

So my dear friends, get married, have a great life, live long and stay happy! I wish you well even if I don’t attend your wedding. I just can’t practice the superficial science of being able to attend weddings and not feeling hollow about the entire celebrations. Meanwhile, I’ll continue being the friend you could always hang around with.

Like the good old college days, I think…

The rewritten script

I’m seldom taken in by surprise. Even if I am, I act like I’m in control. Nothing bothers me. The best I’ve always done is when there’s chaos around me. I love tough times because when I’m in one , all I tell myself is how soon I’ll recount victoriously the tale of how I survived that phase. I control the pace of everything around me. I’ve a great set of friends and I live like a millionaire even though I’m not one. I always believe there is a way to make everything happen the way you want it to happen. In short, there’s nothing in my life right now, that isn’t in alignment to the script that I chose to write and I thank my Lord for that.

Yet what happened last week is so bizarre that I’m still struggling to figure this one out.

For once, I’m a little stumped by what confronts me. Its one thing that I was never prepared for this and it’s another that even my best preparation would have not helped one bit. Imagine reading a book, that you were told, had pictures on all the left hand pages of the book. You went as far as the middle of the book only to realize that the right hand pages of the book had pictures too.

Now, would you turn back all the pages to look at all the right hand side pictures as well? Or would you go ahead and keep looking at the pictures on the left hand side of the book? Or would you look at the pictures on both sides of the book?

But what if, to go ahead you had to choose only one side of the book to look at.What would you do?

Imagine waking up one fine morning and being told that you actually had two identities. Two lives. Two separate lives...

Looking back. And ahead

Since I’m back after a long time, need to warm up to blogging all over again and hence this is going to be an attempt at flashback over the last month.

1. My radio station finally hit the airwaves in style. The media campaign has been received well and Fever104 FM is on its way to Bombay next. After weeks of long hours at work, I’m retaining sanity and with it signs of survival.

2. Lately I’ve been in love with rickshaw rides as the weather in Delhi is an absolute ripper these days. Have also been spending some gorgeous Sundays between newspapers, movies and friends. On the flip side, I’ve had to quit my theater group.

3. And lastly, there was one and only one thing I thought and dreamt I’d buy for myself after getting a job on campus. It was the only thing that I wanted to own. Not a car, no shoes, no clothes and no watches and no laptops and no cell phone. There was no looking forward to any of it. Just this fervent anticipation in a beauty called a Sony Music System. Last week I finally uncorked the splendid lady in my room. In a tribute to my idols, the first armory I played on my system comprised a Dire Straits tape, a VCD each of “Taxi Driver” and “And Justice for All” and the Floyd Pulse Concert DVD.

And the last bit of it only reinforces what I always believed in. A dream is at best a trivial pursuit but when you get there it does feel right. :-)

A 100 Wishes!

My cell hasn’t stopped buzzing since this morning. I haven’t written the latest bestseller, neither have I scored a half century at Lords nor have I found out that Bin Laden is still alive. I have still not breached my boundaries of a fairly simplistic existence in any manner and yet my cell has been incessantly buzzing with messages wishing me and my family a prosperous, happy, safe and what-not Diwali.

Having immersed myself in some of the Freakonomics theories to quite an extent, I found myself asking the question, “Why do people send these mass messages/e-mailers wishing others on festivals like Diwali?” My question is specific to only these “mass dispatches” and not towards people wishing each other on Diwali and the like on a one-on-one basis.

I even mapped the profile of people who sent me these messages. Who exactly are these people? I didn’t get too far with this one. There were all kinds. Vendors, agencies, bosses and friends. There was no way I could find a common thread in this diverse group of people. My next step was to map these people on demographics. Here too, there was no skew towards any gender or age. So this theory also went for a toss. As a last resort, I shall try to put in my understanding of this phenomenon.

But before that, a basic truth of our times. Technology has infinitely increased convenience and killed the warmth between people. Earlier, Ms. Arora and family would either meet up or call Ms. Bhandari and family on Diwali day. Today, Ms. Arora finds the click of an SMS to be of immense convenience to make up for that meeting or call or that greeting card. Now this is between friends who’ve been there for each other for some time. There’s another side to it and this is where I think I might be jumping into a controversial net. But let’s see if we can think this through.

These SMS/Mailers have helped people who hardly know me to wish me. This has enabled these people to cast the net of their acquaintances wide without any incremental cost. The downside being that if I hardly know anyone, receiving a “Happy Diwali” SMS from these people is not exactly my idea of the beginning of an endearing relationship with such people. I’m sure these people are also aware of this fact. If they are, then why do they still do it? More importantly, do these people expect a reply from us? In case of mass e-mailers, am not sure if they do or not but in case of SMS’, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that they are expecting a reply. This means I receive an SMS from someone wishing me “Happy Diwali” which doesn’t excite me at all. As a gesture of simple courtesy, (I make it a point to always respond whenever approached on mail/call/SMS/Orkut) I reply politely wishing the sender as well. Now this is obviously personalized because I’m replying to someone’s message. The sender feels good having received this personalized reply. It is now that the whole exercise of wishing people through mass mailers/SMS’ seems that bit of a farce to me.

Firstly, you put me in a mass basket.
Secondly, if I reply, you’re happy about it.
Thirdly, in this whole exercise, I didn’t feel special at all getting either wished or wishing you. Nevertheless, you’re the one who walked away with the personalized reply.

It somehow hence seems that the people who actually were sending these mass messages want to be wished themselves. I’d agree that no one consciously sends these dispatches thinking that ‘Since I want to be wished let me send out an SMS/E-mail to the 312 people in my address book.’ But the more I think about it, it appears to me that the singular underlying motive for which people seem to be sending these “mass dispatches” is self-gratification.

While it might be a coincidence, a majority of my friends, who sent these messages were also single. This also leads me to believe that for such people their need for self-gratification was even more than the average 24 year old who was committed, engaged or married. These were all nice people but probably lacked that constant backing in their life that keeps them informed about how nice or good or great their own existence was. Consequently being wished in return on an occasion like Diwali just happens to be an occasion to feel good about themselves.

A loophole in my explanation is that why do I feel obliged to reply. I could rant about courtesy but my simple view is every action has a reaction. My reaction is against the stimulus and here I’m trying to pin down the reason for the stimulus.

Another view that might go against my theory is that these people wished others on a mass basis because they simply thought it’s a nice gesture to wish everyone with least effort. That’s all!

To which my reply is, if someone is that special enough to deserve this nice gesture, what’s a little extra effort in sending a simple personalized SMS/E-Mailer? And if someone is not that special enough then why even bother?

The Declaration

"You put all of them together , add an extra 10% and if they can do better than me, I'll never... ever... ever give another shot at this in my life! "

Did Howard Roark ever make such a statement?
Would I?

Bend Over and Dont Scream

Launch. Radio. Vendors. No.No.No.Exciting. Getting fucked. Transmitter.18th Floor.King of Delhi.What am I doing? This is Great! Fuck! Theater.Screw the Virgin! Fantastic.Intellectual.9 am to 9 pm. Calvin and Hobbes.Shirts. Sony Deck.Radio Sets. Bitch! RJ's. HT House. Merchandiser. Jack Daniels. FM104. No Network. Voice Artist. Pyongyang. "Been there myself!". Marketing. Three cubes of Ice. Building. Updates. Music.

Post launch, shall be coming up with an autobiography on the making of the marketing launch campaign for 104FM titled, "Will Survive, Wont Survive..." :-)

And I am...

It’s been a long time given my working hours in the last two weeks. Since, in the meantime, I couldn’t find enough time to write a story or think of something worthwhile to write, this post is a random collection of useless trivia. The format of this post is inspired by the column titled “Gleanings” that appears in the Cricinfo magazine.


Friends
I’ve trouble managing my friends because I’ve trouble mailing and calling them and I can never manage to meet all of them

I find the celebration of birthdays and wishing friends on their birthdays meaningless. There are 364 other days and numerous other ways to make my friends feel special.

My best friends are those with whom I’ve spent time roaming on bicycles on the streets of a town called Ghaziabad.


Love
I’ve been in love once. It was beautiful.

Women
The first time I proposed a girl was in Std. II. I think her name was Bournvita. Or something like that.

For me, an intelligent and humorous conversation with a lady is as good as making out.

Work
I always do better than my peers when there’s a lot of uncertainty and chaos around. If I‘m given set pieces and structured guidelines I’m just average.

I can’t understand why journalists and salespersons are not paid well. They definitely work harder than me.

I think I’m becoming more conniving with every day I spend at work given that I act like a war General always negotiating budgets and deadlines.

Wine
I’ve a special affection for Jack Daniels.

Fun
I prefer being at home reading comics to things like river-rafting, rappelling and trekking.

I hate attending social functions and weddings

I love dogs far more than babies and kids.

On an average, I’ve about 10 ice-creams very week.

Views
In my books , if you can’t be punctual, your existence is irrelevant.

I believe there’s more goodness around than the world credits itself with.

It’s easy to find morons everywhere. I mean everywhere

I’ve been told by people that I’m mean and think too highly of myself. I disagree with the latter because if there’s one thing I know for sure are my limitless limitations and mediocre strengths.

I’m very possessive about my shirts, books, comics, cassettes and CD’s.

Dreams
There are only two things I badly want to do in life.
a. Provide live on-air cricket commentary with Sunil Gavaskar.
b. Make a movie.
I came real close to the first. The second, I haven’t started working on.

I want to do the Tango once with a lovely woman on a cruise a la Al Pacino in a restaurant in Scent of a Woman.

And…
I used to be a great liar in school. They never caught me except my Dad.

I always root for the underdog. Most of the times in my life, I’ve been one.

Someone asked me once what I’m best at, I didn’t have an answer. But if it counts, I think I talk alright.

There’s nothing in my life that I wouldn’t do all over again.
I think I’ve been real lucky in my life to say this.

The Remixed Halo

When I chose HT 5 months back on-campus, there was a certain halo associated with it. Today after the 3 and a half months after I've spent at HT , I think I'm just glad that the halo has'nt eroded. I think if I were on campus right now fighting for a job in Final Placements, HT would still be my #1.

I interacted with the the entire Management Trainee batch after a long time today. I used to categorize my friends as school friends, college friends, SP friends and Dell friends. The latest addition is this batch of "MT friends". They're all kinds in there. A normally distributed curve of individuals yet they're nice people. All of them. You should meet them! :-)

And you would agree for a company that went to campuses for the first time ever recruiting for an MT batch, picking up 15 students across every B-School that counts in India, HT Media Ltd. did'nt do too bad!

5 months after I selected HT, the halo is remixed. Just that bit jazzier than before...

Money Money Happy Returns

Inside Dome-2, I was fielding questions from one of the directors of the BPO division of Hexaware Technologies.
“So you really think the idea of being a big fish in a small pond excites you and hence you want to join Caliber Point?”, Guhan asked.
“Well, actually yes. I think your company has tremendous potential. Joining Caliber Point at this point of time makes sense for my career because I like the idea of being in this high growth BPO Sector.”
“Hmm… so is Caliber Point your first choice?”
“Yes. Among BPOs, it is.”
“Among BPOs… did you say? What about among other companies?”
“I think my #1 company is HT Media. I want to go to Media. ”

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me the oft-repeated, staid and stinking question of: Why Media? Thankfully, he didn’t.

“So do you have an offer from them?”
“Umm… I don’t know. I’d just finished my interview and had to rush into this room.”
“How did your interview with HT go?”
“Excellent, actually.”
“So you’re expecting an offer…”
“I’d be surprised if I don’t make it…”
“All right, Issac. I like the fact that you’ve been honest with me. I think I should do the same with you. I think you should go to Media yourself.”

I laughed to myself. That was the zillionth time I was told that I should be going to Media. The catch being, no Media Company, save HT agreed to come to campus and the ones I’d applied to off-campus had already rejected me for lack of experience.

Guhan continued, “You’ve my number. So let me know if you don’t make it. I’ll make you an offer to join Caliber Point. Thank you for your time.”
“Thanks Guhan. Will do. It was a pleasure.”

I came out of Dome-2 and what ensued in the next 15 seconds rank as some of the most memorable moments of my time at SP and there have been quite a few in that campus. I saw Megha waiting right outside and Vivek was standing with her. Somehow one always tends to notice what the girl has to say.
“Issac!!! Spot Offer, HT!!!”
“Phew… Finally. Thank God.” I said to myself and smiled.

More and much more out of relief than elation. I walked down the stairs and saw Martin, Archana, Aparna, Nikhil and KP and others. Each of them impeccable in their formal attires. Somewhere, they were waiting for this moment as much as I was. I heard gushes of various forms of Congratulations as I walked down the stairs.

“Why aren’t you jumping?” Appy asked.
Archana rationalized. Martin came up with a wise-crack. KP smiled. Megha could hardly keep her feet on the ground and Vivek just stood there, happy.
Guhan followed me down the stairs. He knew something was happening.
We didn’t exchange a word. He glanced questioningly. I nodded. He came close, shook hands and left. Nice, honest chap, I thought to myself and we left for lunch.

What a moment! Beautiful. And this was mine. And being in Placom , I was fortunate enough to be able to share the joys of 146 other of my friends getting their jobs at the Mega Job Fair technically referred to as “Final Placements”.

This was on February 17th and today I’ve completed 3 months at HT. It’s been a steady journey through a maze of Media wisdom. And hence I write this with an understanding of the Media Sector, the standard placement process in the top B-Schools across the country and from my interaction with students from these B-Schools, now settled in their jobs like me.

B-School students across India would never consider Media as a priority sector. It’s bizarre and funny as to how myths and half-truths about Media being less paying, riskier and inflexible for career growth abound even amongst the cream of intellectual capital in India. So here are 3 simple questions and answers for anyone who’s still reading.

a.) Why do B-School students consider Consultancy, FMCG and Banking hot compared to Media? Now if the most obvious answer to that is the fact that Consultancy , FMCGs and Banking on an average pay more than Media, my next question would be :

b.) Were all these B-Schools formed so that students enter into the highest paying jobs in descending order? If the answer to that is Yes, my third question would be thus.

c.) Are we creating about 5000(and more…) money-hungry Management Post-Graduates every year in India?

The fact of the matter is for every B-School Grad, money is a foremost priority and rightly so. Who wants to take up an education loan of 5 lacs and end up with a job that pays peanuts? I’m no one to question anyone’s choice but if the choice of a particular student in a B-School going through his Final Placement rests solely on the expected bank balance at the end of the month, there is something wrong with the MBA education set-up in the country. I refuse to believe that the so called “quality of work” is better in consultancy firms or the training in FMCG’s is world-class. Bullcrap. At the end of the day, your job, your business and your corporate success depends solely on the amount of common sense you’re able to allocate to your immediate deliverable.

Unlike what Dilbert’s bosses would have him believe , it’s a sham to think that there are traces of rocket science in any stream of Management.

I’ve always encountered substantial opposition within my peer group whenever I’ve said that 80-90% of B-School students in India place money as a top-most priority in their choice of jobs.

Maybe I could write a paper on this , sprinkled with enough data and send it to Levitt and Dubner and ask them to pay me 9 lacs p.a. as royalties plus a signing bonus and an undertaking for a Social Security-cum-Provident Fund along with a variable component of 25% on the above quarter on quarter ... Jeez, there I go!

The Irony

All throughout school, I listened to my teachers.

All through college, I listened to my professors and wardens and principals.

At work at Cadburys, Dell, Progeon and now HT, I listen to my boss.

At times I’ve also listened to my friends as an obligation.

When I was seeing someone, I used to listen to her.

All my life, I’ve listened to my Dad.

At church, I listen to the priest.

If God spoke to me, I would listen.

If Satan did, I would be just curious to know what he has to say, so I’d end up listening.

Why cant I just be silent and let somebody else listen now?

What a stupid thing this life is?

All your life (at least till you’re 23 ) , you grow up listening and by the time it’s your turn to talk, it’s not even worth it...

Dude... Where's my Pluto?

I find even the name funny. I’ve Walt Disney for company. He has a character named after it. Pluto.

And I find the backlash against the International Astronomical Union (IAU) for demoting Pluto to being a ‘dwarf planet’ even funnier. What got me thinking about this was an article in HT about how different groups are coming out in support for Pluto’s planethood. In it was a mention of a society called “Society for Preservation of Pluto as a Planet”. I find this funniest.

Different people, different views. It is also one of the reasons why the world is such a fascinating place to be in. I, for one, couldn’t care less about it. And the way I see it for a substantial percentage of people in the world, this hardly means anything as well. Apart from this chunk of astronomers and those students who are still in school. Even for the students, it’s just another line added to their textbooks which they’ll forget right after their next exam. Calvin was right on the money when he said that all he learnt in school was to “cynically manipulate the system.” For instance, I learnt about a figure called the Rhombus in school. I never had to recall that figure after that. It’s also unlikely, in the near future, that the Rhombus will have any material or spiritual impact in my life

I find the Rhombus phenomenon being applied to Pluto as well. A good number of people will ask us to oppose the demotion. People will wear T-Shirts ($25) , put up bumper stickers ($4), sign online petitions, hold demonstrations, raise a catchy slogan and shout on top of their voices, “S.O.S. Save Pluto!”

My question is: Why?

Do these people think that IAU is conspiring against the planet? Did Pluto give these experts’ from IAU nightmares? Was Pluto pulling their ties and taking down their pants in conferences? Was Pluto bewitching the families of these experts’? Is there a hidden agenda in the demotion? If the answer to any of these questions is “Aye”, I stand up for Pluto. Else, I’m already bidding my friend a warm goodbye.

I think in all of it, there’s a lesson. All of us have a problem when something is taken away from us. We might not need it, yet we want it. We won’t even know what to do with it when it’s with us, but we would want it.

The way I look at it, sometimes it’s just nice to let go off things with a smile.

P.S. : If I actually get a nice Pluto T-Shirt, I’ll buy it.
Paradox, you say? Well, I think it’s funny!
And if it’s there, I’ll just want it!

The Poetess

“Hi… waiting for someone?”

“Yeah, you too?”

“Yep. Same here. It's funny. Some people just can’t be on time!”

“True. It’s weird. My friend even stays close-by while I traveled quite a distance to get here, yet I was on time.”

“And who wants to go for a movie, half an hour late? I’m actually thinking about chucking this movie now. You wanna take a walk?

“Yeah, but I can’t go far. My friend would expect me to be here.”

“Ah… that’s okay. You study or work?”

“I work for a small company in South Delhi. What about you?”

“I’m working too. Work for Hindustan Times. Just down the road…”

“So… You an engineer?”

“Naa… Graduate in Arts.”

“Hmm... Which college?”

“Correspondence actually… And what do you work as?”

“I just joined the Radio Division’s Marketing Team. What’s your name?”

“Kaavya. And you are? ”

“Issac… I-Double-S-A-C”

“Hmm... does it mean something?”

“Yeah… something like a smile in the Hebrew language.”

“You know, it’s interesting how names come about. In India a lot of names are derived from day-to-day words of Hindi and Sanskrit while in Western countries I’m not sure if that’s the case…”

“True, very true. Now that you said this … Ah... here comes my friend… (How I’d love to continue talking with you! Sigh!!!). Will see you some time then.”

“Yeah, nice talking. See you!”

There’re all kinds of people in this world. Some happen to be just so simple to talk with.

In a city of 14 million people, what are the chances that I’ll meet her again?

None. :-)

Mr. and Mrs. Arora

Mr. Arora wouldn’t mince words when reminded of his childhood days.
“Yeh poora Nehru pariwaar kameeno se bhara hain…”

He was born months after Partition and could relive those days like yesterday. And every time Mrs. Arora would listen like never before. She must’ve heard this story a hundred times yet wouldn’t fail to take her place on the sofa when her husband would recount those instances all over again.

This time, Mr. Arora was narrating the story to his newly moved in South-Indian neighbor, Mr. Swamy. This was a Sunday morning and they’d invited the Swamys for a breakfast. Ms. Arora’s culinary skills were legendary. The last time she’d invited her relatives for dinner, food kept flying into the plates till 2 in the morning.

Nevertheless, to return to Mr. Arora's story, he was born in September, 1947. And at the height of the rioting in Noakhali and Punjab, his father was trying to get in touch with his mother. His father owned a flourishing cycle business. Flourishing, because the British actually bought and paid for these cycles. Mr. Arora’s father wouldn’t have been able to take care of his wife and hence sent her to Gujranwala to her relatives during her pregnancy, thinking that at the time of her delivery he’ll call her back to Delhi.

She was said to deliver in September and all throughout August, her husband tried in every manner possible to get his wife back to India. He sent her air tickets and got it announced on AIR. Back there in Gujranwala, Ms. Arora was shielded by a close set of relatives. They would massacre her if those goons on the streets found out she was a Hindu. Mr. Arora’s father sent a trusted aide on train to Gujranwala to bring his wife back. He never returned. He was a Hindu.

“Forget the fact that she was pregnant, it was getting suicidal by the minute to stay back in Pakistan for any Hindu”, Mr. Arora recounted with pride.

“All this because of Nehru, that bastard…” Mr. Arora roared. “He wouldn’t let Jinnah become the PM and because Gandhiji trusted Nehru blindly, he could get away with it.”

“Jinnah was fine with Patel becoming the PM as well but Nehru would have none of it. Being the Congress President himself at that time, Nehru did command considerable clout. The country was plunged into the agony of partition, all because of him. While my mother was trying to save her and my life, that bastard celebrated his post of Prime Ministership sipping a glass of champagne with the Mountbattens. Countless, such stories lie untold… ”, Mr. Arora paused for a while.

“Finally, on a train that had men and women perched everywhere from the toilet to the roof, she came with her brother to New Delhi on 21st August, 1947. It was a Thursday. The train was late and my father had slept off on the platform waiting for her. He woke up with the commotion at the station. It was impossible to sight her amidst a sea of humanity. My father’s residence was also burnt down so unless he met my mother she wouldn’t know where to meet my father. Those were the days without pagers and mobile phones…”, he said this with a smile.

“They kept looking for each other for quite some time and couldn’t find each other. Utter chaos held sway over the platform. It must’ve been difficult. They called Dad a number of times from the station too but no one picked up. How could anyone? My Dad was also on the station naa…”

“My uncle suggested to my Mom, that they leave for Bhiwani, another relative’s place. It was important that my Mom went to a place devoid of riots. Delhi just didn’t seem right. And my uncle said they would call Dad later and ask him also to come to Bhiwani.

Mr. Swamy was listening with rapt attention.

“So my uncle took my mother to Bhiwani. And thankfully this time around, things went to plan. My Dad joined us a few days and I was born finally. The troubles my Dad and Mom went over, for my birth. And to think of it, countless, such stories lie untold. At least, my Dad was rich and we had caring relatives. What about others…?”

Mr. Swamy nodded and looked around the house. He didn’t quite know how to respond. He saw a picture on the wall, that of a young lady.
He asked Mr. Arora, “Is that your daughter?”

Mr. Arora replied softly, “She was. In ’84, on the streets of Karol Bagh, she was burnt alive by cronies of that bastard family because she was seen with a group of her Sikh friends.

His voice choked.

“Saala poora Nehru pariwaar kameeno se bhara hain…”

Smitten

A number of times, I have thought of this and refrained from posting it. As I had mailed a close group of friends this was lest it be seen as a sign of an emotional weakness rearing from a casual and jovial demeanor.

I’d been to SP for a couple of hours last weekend for a rather basic Placom talk and since then I’ve been on a rather different plane altogether. What affected me was probably having seen the juniors’ AKB video and them orienting the batch of 2007. There’s very little, I can compare that feeling of thrill and excitement of being in Second Year at SPJIMR. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing in my life that can ever equal that. And for me, if you’ve never been at SP, you’ve lost out on an education unparalleled, unseen and unfathomable.

Something about the place is mesmerizing. The languid feel of the place cocktailed with the dichotomy of the hurried sense of being at the Bistro is near inexplicable. I think even a Salman Rushdie, if he were an SP alumni would struggle to capture the intangibles of being at SP. And then there’s something about being from an SP family that only another SP member can relate to. Given the fact that our institute’s been around for less than 23 years there are so few SP alumni around in the industry anyway that only a select counted children of a higher God can relate to Dome – I, Audi, Bistro or a baby named AKB.

And as I recollect those images again from the video I was given by our juniors, I’m on that plane when logic gives way to emotion, disinclination gives way to camaraderie and fun gives way to sheer nostalgic ecstasy. And while I do keep kicking hard at that air of nostalgia that engulfs me, it is one hell of a ride!

Simply put, proud, bloody proud to be an SPJIMR thoroughbred! :-)

News is that!

For over a month now, I’ve been an employee of a leading player in the print media landscape in India. Having observed from close quarters, an industry that thrives on news every single minute of the day, here are my top ten reflections from the industry I depend on for my daily bread. (…and butter and jam and the occasional sandwich!)

1. Being in the newspaper industry isn’t just as glamorous as it seems. It’s just that bit more you never thought of. Suddenly Vir Sanghvi, Mrinal Pandey and Farhad Wadia become your bosses and you also get to flaunt that ‘PRESS’ sticker on your car.

2. It’s okay not to be entirely committed to it. As long as you are okay fiddling with news you can get away with a lot of things. E.g. the landmark Bombay Times, the trendy HT Style and the challenger in DNA After Hours.

3. Working for a newspaper is like playing a One Day Series. The catch being you never get to choose whether you want to play a day game or a day and night game. You just play along!

4. It is the only industry that makes money between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m.

5. It’s the antithesis of the wine industry. You want the newspaper served the moment it’s distilled.

6. Selling more and more units of papers in this industry is like risking your life every time you have sex with a new woman. It just about feels right but the more you sell, the more you lose on every paper.

7. This goes without saying but you are unlikely to be considered fit for the editorial team unless you have an unshaven look, can smoke and sport a low waist rugged jeans without a belt.

8. There are some news that can’t be bought. For everything else there’s a Page 3 in ToI. Actually I'm being kind here ; you could have their editorial space too!

9. Most days I love my job. The days I don’t, I love flirting with it.

10. I’m running out of ideas. Help! :-D

These are the best of times for newspapers because being challenged across media means that the newspapers have to pull up their socks every single day to stay ahead of the net, TV and digital forms of media. These are also the worst of times for that very reason. Either way, two years from today newspapers will never be the same.

Now, that’s fairly exciting! :-)

Disconnected

Something’s moved me immensely and it’s a train of unconnected thoughts. I was winding my day at the HT office at Mahim when a non-descript gentleman at the office declared that there had been a blast at Khar Station. While people were just reacting to that, another voice boomed, “Blast at Mahim too. It’s serial!”

And before we even knew we were rushing upstairs to the Editorial floor. It was on Television. 4 blasts had rocked the western line of local trains ripping through the heart of Mumbai. Anywhere in the world such news would be depressing but watching the events unfold on television monitors on the editorial floor of Mumbai’s HT office was nothing less than spine-chilling. After this, I don’t know when exactly this evening, I felt disconnected from everything else.

Myself and my colleague walked the distance from Mahim(W) till our Bandra Guest House and in between I spoke to my dad disinterestedly and lost my temper with my colleague on a discussion that on an average day would have been settled in my favor without any recourse to high tempers.

The events that followed touched me deeply simply because the worst one can feel in life is when he/she is completely helpless in controlling things surrounding him/her. People at office frantically trying to reach their loved ones, the Editor telling a reporter “Find out whether people jumped off or if there was a fire…” and the bubbly girl, with a bag around her shoulders nodding with a smile and walking out (while news of only 4 blasts had poured in) or the sirens of the ambulances on our way back, everything had a forbiddingly grim sense about it.

It set me thinking a bit about a lot of things and I cannot help but stay perplexed at the motives of those people who engineer such pusillanimous acts. What exactly must be their reaction to all of this? Do they feel vindicated? Or are they plain happy? Are they celebrating their success of giving 198 innocent souls a horrific end to their ordinary lives?

I went out for a walk at 11 this night and in my more than 2 years of knowing Mumbai; I’d never ambled through a quieter time in this city.

Travelling Mist

She stood there.
And he thought to himself, “She’d be one hell of a woman to make out with…”

She looked familiar but he also knew of this theory he used to console himself with. If you kept staring at a girl, she would seem familiar in no time. For that matter Sameer also knew that if you kept staring at a girl, it would also seem that she’s staring at you. Nevertheless, in this case it was only Sameer who was gaping at the lady.

He’d nearly finished his daily dose of business news in the Metro. He must’ve been so engrossed in devouring those stock market tips in the paper that he didn’t even notice when and where she got into the train. His was a daily 52 minutes ride from Dwarka Sector 14 to Barakhamba Road and all he did every day travelling in this train was to finish off his newspaper for the day. He quite preferred it that way. Morning would be such a mess with Sarika, both racing with each other to beat the clock to get out for work.

Both of them had a rather small courtship period before deciding to tie the knot. It’d been less than two years but they sure weren’t bored of each other as yet.
Marriage seemed to be turning out fine, he was finding out. But right now, one and only one thing caught his attention. And she stood tall and effortlessly stylish.

Wearing a white top and a pair of blue capris she seemed nothing less than an absolutely sizzling celebrity. Perhaps, a Keira Knightley or a Kirsten Dunst. She was resting her shoulders against the corner of one of those compact compartments. Her tall legs were crossed with her left ankle resting against the shin of her right leg.

For a moment he was reminded of Jessica , his college sweetheart. She had much shorter hair though. They went around for probably less than a year but it definitely was the most memorable of all his flings. It used to be disturbingly passionate during those nights. Sometimes Jessica wouldn’t even give Sameer a moment to breathe. And as they reached a crescendo she would whisper ever so softly in his ears…
“Sam, are you happy with me?”
And often the answer to that question would be only another spell of silence accentuated by another of those frequent lip locks. He could’ve gazed at her for ages and listened to her for eternity.
What a pity that the light of day had to follow every such night!

He returned back to the present as the train halted at Rajiv Chowk. Even as he kept staring at this gorgeous masterpiece every five seconds, he could guess she was engaged or committed to someone. Sameer used to study body language as a hobby and he thought she was giving it all away in the way she was talking over her cell. It was a Motorazr. He could see her smile behind the flap of the cell, which would occasionally hide her luscious lips.

Must be her boyfriend. Maybe they are meeting at CP.

Sameer had no such luck. Being the Creative Director gave him little choice but to set an example to everyone at his office by being dot on time at 10.

Today, unusually though, the train wasn’t crowded to the hilt. Yet he’d to really struggle to see her. He was making some serious effort in craning his neck but smiling to himself, he wasn’t quite complaining.

“Damn, I still can’t see her”, he muttered to himself. If he were in college he would have at least given her his phone number. It never hurt him back then. On the contrary it used to turn out quite well. Now he even had a dashing business card.

Alas! As expected he alighted at Barakhamba and he couldn’t sight his morning Goddess anywhere. That’s the last I’ve seen of that stunning dame, he sighed. He dumped his token card and was thinking of his fussy client he’d to speak to in ten minutes from now.

Just then, someone tapped his shoulder. It was a lady. She looked familiar. He saw the Motorazr and he knew it was she.

Something was even more strikingly familiar. Then it occurred.

She spoke smilingly, “ Sam, Remember me? "