K-K-K-K-Kricket - Part 1

Its official..cricket and bollywood now form the double kesar badam kulfi stick for the fly-kingdom of Indian Mass.Up until a few years ago, filmi junta had happily ignored the glam quotient of the Gentleman's Game and distanced itself from the wind-in-your-hair,mud-in-your-shoes sporting mannah of middle-class India.Recent changes in cricket have really caused a media-inspired churn.

Twenty-twenty format has been seeing a Renaissance unlike few paradigm shifts in sports.Though the 20-20 concept has its roots set a long while back,it seems to bursting with a specially fecund frenzy of late.Why has this happened?How did this Clark Gable-to-Superman metamorphosis set upon cricket?The analyses would be totally lost amidst the hurry to capitalize on this money-crunching phenomenon.The aficonados are no longer subtly condoning the adrenaline-rushing,here-now-gone-then version of the game.I had heard several protests and arguments about the inability of this event to bring out the adroitness of a cricketer.All that was,however, before the ICCTwenty20 cup.What with the emergence of India as the champions,the experts had to quietly close their scholarly speculations and jump in to the money-pool of the subcontinental 20-20 market a-la-scrooge McDuck.

The BCCI's IPLT20 tournament is a carnival to feast your runs-craving,star-lusting consciousness on.Being unaverse to a Broadway-like extravaganza for timepass,i readily agreed to shell out 1,100 Rs. and accompany my college-mateys to the inaugural ceremony in 'namma Bengaluru'.

The Interview

Having pitched tent quite efficaciously back in my hometown,the Damocles's sword of employment loomed large upon me now.A boy can only remain a boy for so long,aunty said.Then he has to start earning bhai!He must have his own place to stay,his own stove to cook,his own tie to fool around in front of a mirror stone drunk,god forbid,beta.These were her words of wisdom as i tied up my shoelaces surreptitiously.Here,eat this,handing over a mottled cuboid that was called a sweet;prasad from the temple.Ramu's wife has no more deliriums.It finally turned out to be a rat's tail that was in the sabzi she was eating.Poor fellow wasted money on two allopathic doctors,one homeopathic physician,two purohits and one astrologer!At least he showed the basic courtesy of getting some prasad on her recovery...anyway you go safely.
The buses in this city are the only Government Transport Services making any profit in this country.I rued over this,waiting a half hour for the right one.Heck,when they come,they come in threes..maybe just to appease our irritation,I thought.One for Mayo Hall please,i said.The conductor looked like he'd gotten one whipping too many from his wife the previous day and wanted to take out his modest anger on us.No change,he said angrily.Collect later.He made a weird glyph behind the ticket,maybe a lewd,symbolic curse on his wife, and handed it over.I sat down and ruminated.It was a long way.I like travelling.The sheer purposefulness of transport is mesmerising.You just have to sit and watch.Of course ,there are others who prefer shit dropping into their ears through FM while moving about.But the sounds of reality are often enough,quite entertaining. I got down at MH and proceeded to the offices of one Spectrum IPL;a 5 storied building in an area that looked like the dumping grounds for the state's under qualified beach-sand.Dust,dust everywhere.Thankfully not inside the premises.The "front office executive" conversed lightly in the native language and after satisfying her,she allowed me into a room that would serve to be my intellectual garrote for the next hour or so.The interviewer was a slender,elderly man.Holding his glasses like a lorgnette at my resume,he proceeded to make his monthly income worthwhile and pounded me,one grotesque question after the other.I have attended interviews far demeaning in human spirit and so,was able to passably prove my worth as an engineer.Wrapping it up,he looked pitifully and applied soothing balm,in the form of peachy questions;for e.g where was i born(!),did my dad NOT want me to study further,had my mom cooked 21 dishes for this year's Ganesha Habba,things like that.
The receptionist helped me limp back to the lobby;allowing me a jolly good pitstop,mineral water et al.In about 15 minutes,another honcho invited me to a room with what looked like a serious ass-chewing intention.The epilogue,fortunately,turned out different.A request,to give him an account of how i had spent these 2 years without a job, saw me tuning my lying skills to a spiritually new high.Interspersing truth and fiction is a most refreshing activity.I recommend it to anybody who likes talking but doesnt know how.
Eventually,the offer letter came out.I took my old 'handsome-hunk of yester-years' photo and gummed it on.Followed by relieved strokes of signature.
Hey momma,look who got himself a job today!

Exodus

Cities are like people.No matter how screwed our perceptions of it, given enough time(that unequivocal leveler), it grows on you. You begin to see why it is what it is. What promises it had to offer;how unique are its fingerprints. I have had the misfortune of spending very little time in a city I had loved to explore;riding on a 350cc muscle-bound magic carpet,courtesy of the Enfield group;playing back in my mind again and again like the last drops off a leaf that just dont seem to end.
Delhi...A mammoth cauldron of people,cultures,lifestyles,food,greenery,the romanticism of history,the promise of a utopia.Shanty-coloured rooftops that I watched slovenly during long evening walks,watching the sun remove its makeup gracefully and serenely as it set itself to another few hours of unwinding.So many dull-coloured buildings.Blank-painted tanks.Pipes,at various stages of corrosion.Paan-stains.Fiery orange,tattered flags,tied to unseemly poles.Chimneys,blackened with the effort of preparing the inhabitant's meals.Pigeons and kites,hammering out diplomacies in their efforts to forage the day's sustenance.Dishes,by the hundreds,Tata Sky and Dish TV,testimony to the millions of eyeballs dwelling below them.Hoardings,half-painted,almost sagely comical.
Oh Delhi,what have I done to earn your wrath.That I am not permitted by destiny to share my life with you.Who's prayer do you listen to,that takes me far from you whenever I have seek to clasp you tight to my bosom?The banian-clad jawans, who accompany me in my running sessions?The bus-drivers?who wash themselves beneath malnourished taps,beside their giant petrol-guzzling paymasters?The ladies at the park?who undertake peculiar yogic exercises and are more prone to watching physical effort than participation?the chauffeurs?who keep their employer's cars spotlessly free of the muck that they lick on their way to workplaces?the milkman?who sadly nods his head at my sweaty shirt and makes an excuse a day for arriving progressively late for delivery?the goli-soda-waala?who's always grinning and snickering at my fancy watch and and shiny belt?or was it the paan-fucked mouthings off the autowaala?
I'll never know.Not a day goes by that I dont pine for a whiff of this beautiful city.With a desperate stare,I stretch my neck forward as far as possible,standing at the trains door;the wind,flowing in my hair;the blurring city horizon,snatching away yet another piece of my heart,forever;the tracks turning away to block my sight.

Picture Dekho bhai Picture..

Of all things imaginary and insulting,movies sit at the very top of the unreality chain i think. Where the brighter than bright colours of a girl's almost-see-through skirt and the incredible aeronautical stuntmanship of a hero and where the self-degrading fighting for a bus-seat or the tug-of-war over the coupon counter of a McDonalds on a weekend.The paradigms are too disparate to absorb.There have been some good movies though;like that kaala thing amidst lots of dal;stuff that pumps up the joie de'vivre and make you feel that man really knows how to keep himself entertained.
After much haranguing and cajoling,I reluctantly agreed on going to a movie,the novel on which it was based,being an unnecessary waste of trees in papyrus form.I am talking of Bourne Ultimatum.No matter who has anything nice to say about the novel,it truly was a BORE ULTIMATUM.
So it was with some quaint misgiving that i went to PVR Saket to check this movie out.Of course,the saving grace had been its prequels.Matt Damon makes men want to join street-fighting classes and the women to..well..they just want him.
The "multiplex" leaves much to be desired.Seats have been furnished with the assumption that delhiites have the build of a shriveled Vietcong,hungry & tortured; whose legs've been cut off to boot.Which is flattering them too way much,dude.I had to revive my territorial instincts and keep fighting for some arm-rest space throughout the movie.Thankfully the couple sitting beside me were as disparate as chalk and cheese...while the girl kept throwing her torso on her X chromosome like it was her bed, he was truly embarrassed and kept his eyes pn the screen,trying to drown her whining for some fondling with the indifference of a turtle.He could've been a friend under other circs I thought,I dwelt amusedly.
As for the Ultimatum,it finally managed to reveal its esoteric screenplay and sequences by depicting as lucidly as one explains to a retarded child,the reason for Bourne's hyper activeness and penchant for conspiracy theories.The baddies go to jail.Bourne defied all odds and spiritually awakens a jaw-boned CIA assassin on the way to permanent dis solvency and a quiet scenic home somewhere in the world;where he will hopefully remain and save us from yet another sequel!Frankly,I loved it.The pace of the story was Formula 1 material;the intelligent unraveling of scene and strategy were refreshing.The girls were a damned bad show though.No sizzles there.You cant have it all I guess.Why cant hindi movies be as engaging,keeps saying my muse.Or is it that Bollywood really hates to strain the film-goer's sense of logic or common sense?
Leaving the cool auditorium and walking into the chilly Delhi night,I was in good spirits.If only life were as fast as movies..:(

Builders of the World

I wish I were with them

Pehley dinon..

2 weeks in delhi..kuch ho raha hain mujhko..either the goddess of learning has decided to pinch my bottom ya phir meri bhaasha,vidhi ke anusaar se hash,mash and smash ho rahi hain..i have only to blame my sweet motherland,karnataka,for this...making us so flexible and adaptive of tongue and temperament to suck on an alu chaat, conspiratorially spit on benches and jostle for space in buses with lovely women within a fortnight of arriving here!something about karnataka makes us congenitally cosmopolitan..
Atleast the romanticism is wearing off nicely..with heat being a decidedly terrorism-inclined element in the north,some more days need to go by before my piss turns less smiley-yellow that it often is!The first thing that impressed an adjust-maadi-bangalorean like myself is of course, the shameless obesity of space..such wide roads,such luscious greenery,such big big potties.Its a city built for grandiose civilization.I see why people who live here for long,...well..live here for long!
Another beautiful cushion for this city would be its market locales..not the decidely goliathan malls..but the clusters of plaster-mottled buildings..of the few that i managed to get pulled to,the lajpat nagar mkt,the sarojini nagar mkt,i.n.a,meher chand mkt,khanna mkt,munirka mkt...the ethnicity is just oozing..even from its tits(by that,i'd mean..if the collective market bunch be mapped in a all-to-one fashion,mathematically...to be a pair of breasts).......i DID find the roaming about quite amusing and refreshing..
Notice how the language is deviating more towards profanity and vulgarity?..its that metamorphosis i was talking about..if i dont call a dilli autorickshawallah a behenchuth/madarchuth/lowdeykebaal amidst te humble request to take me someplace(amma please forgive me), he is greatly hurt/aggreived/suspicious of my intentions!

I'll write more often now..its the last vestige of pride in my hingleesh that i can retain by doing so..sat sri akal

The Road, better, less travelled..

I like Salik. Its as close as you can get,vernacularly to a curse and yet, it innocently alludes to another meaning altogether, in its own lingua. The S. that i'm pleased about today is the name for the new Toll-Gate fee program that is being levied by the government for our tax-free-AED-earning bourgeoise, from this day. The papers, local and otherwise(only in the GCC area), have proudly displayed in sets of 5 and 6, glorious photographs, taken by wizened and 7Up-gulping media men who saw no other earthly event that could possibly outshine the paparazzi horizion of July 1st. The pictures show the long stretch of a beautifully black road that will see lesser Pirellis and GoodYears due to the imposition of the 4AED toll. Not to mention the huge billboards above this road at various points, repeatedly pounding our visual acuity with "SALIK" so much that i sincerely felt they were really referring to the word "saaley" in a snub-bish fashion. Now 4AEDs,by international standards, isnt too hefty on our wallets. However, being an Indian, it is sure as eggs is eggs that i immediately start a economically-driven process in my mind, to tally it with the Indian Rupee(1AED=12.36 INR, the 4th time i glanced back at the Financial supplement section). If going on a path that i can bypass with the able assistance of 4 other paths, also bypassing the 49Rs.44p. that i have to dish out thanks to Salik, is what aliens do, then i had NO complaints with the government. Sadly, i've not landed here from any one of those planets from The Hitchhiker's Galaxy, with a towel and a tiny manual, and so, it stands to rationality, that a mild hysteria did dawn on me. I use this strip for 4 times a day, since i end up back home for lunch, gentlemanly refusing to gorge insipid grub at the company's canteen. This pig-headedness to eat my curds and pickles in my own premises would out my monthly bare Salik-sashlik bill at Rs.1067.88p. Of course, not being a mathematician, i have removed all the irritating,small extra costs and conditions that we'd rather not calculate. Like petrol, maintenance, insanely-distant shopping malls, religious colleagues with their pujas and the invitations to them at venues that're best described as beastily-kilometred, sight-seeing-seeking relatives("hey lets go to the desert yaar..lets see what's there..you're an ass...staying here all this time and not getting adventurous enough!"). I'll have you know that the government here is a good one. It pays excellent attention to the complaints of us,expat white-collared workers and the not-so-white-collared manual employees. So let me post my bitching here and hope some authoritarian comes across it someday and realize that we DID suffer and we DID adapt. That's what Indians do. Adjust maadi. Inshallah.