Oh Captain! My Captain!

Sourav Ganguly retired today. For my generation of Indian cricket followers, it is, as aptly put by Sidhartha Vaidyanathan on Cricinfo, http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/376791.html, like the beginning of losing my religion.

To begin with, Sourav was a quota selection, from the then unsporting east. Not once, but twice. The first time is best not spoken of, the second is too often recounted. Even after that dream start, I took my time to warm up to him, having always been a sucker for technical virtuosity. Rahul Dravid, excepting this last phase, has always been my favorite. Sourav was God like on the off side but was always susceptible to give third slip or gully catching practice. He couldn't get a run on the leg side. Then there were the problems with the short ball. There was a period around 2000 when Sourav was most certainly the most destructive batsman in one day cricket but then one day cricket does not earn you respect with true believers. At this stage I should mention that I wouldn't be talking of one day cricket at all in here.

In test cricket, he played a few innings which earned him my respect. The first two centuries are hazy in memory and they didn't change much in terms of India's prospects in the match, the series or the immediate future. India continued to lose abroad, in England, in South Africa, in West Indies and in Australia. The first innings that sticks in memory, is the 98 he scored in Srilanka when India successfully chased down a target of 268. It's one of India's better run chases and it brought us victory on foreign soil, rare before then. He performed consistantly, if unspectacularly in West Indies. The the famous Brisbane century, when he scored 144, is by common agreement, Sourav's best. The ball was bouncing and moving and Sourav before then wasn't known to play well under those conditions. He played the innings of his lifetime, driving, cutting and most importantly, pulling the ball.

In terms of sustained performance, the phase after he returned to the team for the last time was the best. He had lost the fluency on the off side but what he had gained was solidity. In South Africa, in India against Pakistan, the first two tests in Australia, against South Africa in India and his last series against Australia, he was solid. This is when he became an Indian great for me, a solid, reasonably techincally accomplished, gifted Indian batsman. It is no coincidence that his batting average is the best over this period. A little sadly, but only just a little, for Sourav still accomplished enough, the solidity, the calmness came as the physical abilities were waning. Sourav was at his best as a batsman just as the body was tiring. A bit like Srinath, who also peaked close to his end. Sourav ended with the fourth highest tally of runs in test cricket by an Indian batsman and I would rate him thereabouts in my ranking of Indian batsmen.

Sourav's gift to Indian cricket though, was his captaincy. He is the most successful Indian captain ever, the first Indian captain to win abroad consistantly. This can, however be an accident, India simply have had their best team ever in this period. Ganguly wasn't tactically brilliant either, his most celebrated tactical move of irritating Steve Waugh by arriving late for toss began as an accident. He didn't always lead from the front, all his life he ran slower for other people's run than his own, his fielding was never international class. Still Sourav's captaincy was a boon for Indian cricket. What he brought to captaincy of the Indian cricket team were three things: faith, pride and ambition while playing for India, elimination of parochialism from Indian cricket and backing new comers. India began to gain respect for their test peformances, at home and away. Home victories were not always coming on doctored pitches and foregin victories were altogether new. What's more, these changes have come to stay. The team talks of becoming world champions, nobody speaks of regional quotas anymore and the newcomers whom he backed will back future generations of newcomers. This is Ganguly's lasting legacy. To the captain of the Indian cricket team of my youth, good bye and thanks for all the fish.

Friends III

Time went by and I hopped over from IIT to IIM. As to taking leave from IIT friends, we sadly and completely failed our motion picture ideals and a visit to Surd shop, which was incidently never owned by a Surd in my time at IIT, a brief, awkward hug and a shake of hands did it.

I had come to IIM full of noble intentions, determined to do my best, realize my potential, stuff of that sort. As such, building and maintaining a wide social circle wasn't exactly top most on my agenda. A friend or two, to borrow notes or discuss the finer points of Gaussian distribution governing stock returns (nobody will believe this in these days of free falling stock markets but back then we had a most romantic attachment to the theory) was the basic idea. However will power, of seeing the thing to the end is something that I have always found wanting in me and this occasion was no different. Soon I was thrown headlong in five irreversible friendships, with my co residents in the dorm. Considering that each of these aforesaid five guys were also saddled with five irreversible friendships, it made fifteen friendships in all. If you find the calculation taxing, use a calculator. Fifteen is a large number and one would think that we had nothing else to do but make friends. Yet as anybody who's gone through it and has also watched a few Hollywood movies of the right sort can tell you, the first year at IIM Ahmedabad is to academia what the US marines is to military training. One would also wonder that if six guys; three of whom were fat, three wore glasses, plus a fourth whom even glasses couldn't help, one who was going bald at 25, one who had been short ever since 15; to summarize, if six perfectly useless guys can generate so much warm friendship, why are we still having terrorist attacks? I think the world needs more friendships, particularly in early formative years.

Our common interests were: carrom, cricket and conversation. Well, there are other things but they don't start with a 'c' and will have to appear elsewhere. Carrom was our game, traffic was so heavy that the boards withered like cricket pitches do in India. Talking of Cricket; cricket is, well, cricket (I have become an expert in doing things in three, learning on the job you see) but the expertise resident in the dorm was extraordinary. The channel nine commentary team is no match to the group that had gathered. Conversation was mostly pointless, therefore highly entertaining and often indulged in post midnight. Now that the c's are done, lets move to other things. Can't keep important stuff out just because of some stupid alphabet. Studying together (yes, no use hiding that shame), movies, eating out (we had some impressive physiques to maintain and the mess food, though the best in Asia Pacific was simply inadequate), eating in, throwing water at random people passing the dorm, throwing water at each other (this had welcome hygiene consequences), singing songs raising the profile of our dormitory representative or simply singing songs in our cacophonous voices were other group activities that received our patronage.

There was depth of emotion, that's the easy bit. Which true relationship doesnt have it. What characterized these friendships was maturity, by a shared appreciation of living the small details, by a shared willingness for being children again. We were all adults, on the cusp of the final plunge in to the world of jobs and responsibilities (indeed most had had the first taste) and fully appreciated that this was our last chance of living freely. So, when we were dunking each other with water, or going for a cup of tea at four in the morning, or playing carrom for hours, it was with the knowledge that all this will soon be over. We lived every moment, knew it was great and knew it will be over. That to me is what made it special: often one doesnt know a great thing when one has it or isnt conscious of the fact that it will end, circumstances ripe for grief. No, this was satisfied happiness.

Breakfast with Reema Sen

After attending a brace of three hour long FGD’s in Hyderabad on Friday, which were, of course, designed to suck the life blood out of keen observers, I took the Saturday morning flight back. At the gate, they upgraded me to business class. I said a polite (usual service, I assure you, unlike the upgrade) and for once, heartfelt thank you and hopped in.

The business class, as the core group has experienced and the junta class has observed, has wide seats, plenty of leg room (though what I can do with extra leg room is a pertinent question), good cutlery and a pillow for every passenger. This pillow I did not like, it seems to give pain to the part of body that rests on it. Just as I had started savouring the business class bar the pillow, a beautiful girl came and stood next to me. Now, moments like these are always moments of tribulation for me. A bit like the case of those Israeli kids who where stuck with a lot of water around them until Moses came around. Boys’ school, long years in IIT, the works, you see. Turns out the lady wants to access her seat, which, as it happens, is the window seat that sits cheek by jowl with my aisle seat. I have already alluded to the ample leg room and the inadequacy of my legs in dealing with them and now wondered as to why the lady doesn’t just sail in. Anyway, since she keeps standing, I politely ask, “Would you like me to step out?” Since she doesn’t say no, I understand it means yes (always a useful policy). I step out. She throws a bunch of magazines on her seat, one of which is the Vogue and shoves her shiny crocodile leather bag in the overhead baggage bin and sits down monopolizing the common armrest between the two of us with her papers. I am feeling much annoyed but being an ardent admirer of Bertie Wooster and inspired by his ideal of preux cavalier, I hold my peace, leaving my arm hanging in mid air. I was looking darkly at the papers that had encroached upon my space when my eyes fell on the name on the boarding pass. I was sitting next to Reema Sen. For those who don’t know her, (Oh! the presumption of wide readership), she is an actor of Hindi and Bengali movies.

Now I have previously been upgraded to business class. But so far, my lot always has been politicians. What else would you expect if you fly business class to Patna, where, I am told by well informed sources, actress of any kind, hue or disposition have not set foot since Ashoka was spreading Buddha’s message of peace and love around these parts. Anyway, the lesson learnt is that one should never stop dreaming, for, guys: ‘the dreams of men, the seeds of commonwealth, the germs of empire’ (Book: Heart of Darkness. Author: Joseph Conrad. And no, the book isn’t about Bihar).
I thought whether I should ask her for her autograph but then the pride of an elite consultant reasserted itself and I desisted. Did you say, “you fool”? I agree. I spent the rest of the flight trying not to embarrass myself in anyway, ate my breakfast with minimal movement, careful not to elbow her. I did squirt a little of the Fruit and Dahi in her general direction but that was faulty packaging, not me. And, mark you, I made no attempts to wipe it off. As for conversation, you are already aware of my chivalrous offer to step out, to which she gave mute consent. Next she asked me if I minded her taking my TOI, to which I replied, in my typical foot in mouth style, “Yes, yes, take it. I only read TOI when I am feeling particularly stupid.” This was of course before I knew she was Reema Sen and she didn’t catch the import of my words anyway.

For those who care, Reema is about five feet four, is dusky in complexion and had bags under her eyes that morning. I would definitely recommend more sleep. She was wearing a black blouse, khaki cotton skirt and flat leather sandals. As for accessories she had Dolce & Gabbana glasses in her hair and a beaded wrist band, this on her wrist. Early morning attire I guess. No nail polish on fingers and faded nail polish on toe nails. And in case you want to ask her out for a casual tête-à-tête over tea, she likes her tea with milk but no sugar.

Bohemia!

I grew up with typical middle class values like:
1. Do things for a purpose. There is no point in doing something only because you like doing it.
2. Spend only on necesscities. Everything else is wasting hard earned money.
3. Pleasure is frivolous/ sinful/ wasteful. Time and money and energy spent on pleasure could be used for more purposeful activities.
4. Plan and work for the future. If its needed, bear pain in the present so that you may rejoice in the future.

Slowly as I grew up, doubtful thoughts emerged. Why should I do everything for some purpose? Why shouldn't I take a walk in the park if I feel like it? Or read a book through the night even though the morrow is a working day? Why not spend on something I don't really need but which I may enjoy, like a car? Why not seek pleasure, purely for itself. It may heal the soul. As for planning for the future: Aren't we always planning for the future? Isn't the present also worth something? In preparing for the future, we ignore the present and remain with unfulfilled wishes. Live for the moment, for pleasure, for non purpose: Bohemia.

I may outgrow this phase as well and my roots may call again. After all, whats learnt early dies last. Do we stop breathing?

Intelligence

I am reading 'Life of Pi'. Haven't finished, so this isnt a review. I would like to quote though,"When an animal decides to do something, it can continue doing it for a long time". When compared to us, animals are so much more powerful. A chimpanzee has five times the upper body strength of humans (so I read at the Basel zoo). Many animals are far more powerful than us. Many are quicker. Many have stronger senses of smell, sight and hearing. I often wonder, were it not for our greater mental faculties, we would long have been as dead as dodos. Its almost a slight, of nature or God, to have made us weaker in body and then to have given us our intelligence, for us to conquer, dominate and bring to the doorstep of annihilation all animals but ourselves, and even ourselves, going by the way we are destroying our planet. Its like those stories in scriptures where the weakling has that one immortal weapon with which to vanquish all adversaries.

Growth in a democracy

I have increasingly been shunning politics, both as a person and as a citizen. However, the recent energy crisis, my stock market investments and the work I am doing these days has set me thinking. In this context, I have been thinking, historians will struggle to explain the mistake we are making as a nation.

I am talking of the nuclear deal. Why won't we sign it? In an conventional-energy starved country such as ours, nuclear power is the only viable alternative. And that nuclear power is currently locked behind the deal. We won't sign it because some political party will make the government fall. Its infuriating. This same party welcomed the chinese attack on India, saying that the revolution is coming.

I came across this website,http://www.growthcommission.org/ . Havent read the papers yet but seems interesting.

Choices

In my school library there were books in which you made your own story. What happened was, that after every few pages, the book would present a choice: go to page 23 or go to page 47. If you went to page 23, the story will proceed in a certain way and if you went to page 47, it progressed in another.

Life, if one thinks of it, proceeds in a similar fashion. After every few pages, one is confronted with a choice which affects the rest of it. Ofcourse, real life is far more complex and there's a choice after every breath so to speak, but if one were to single out the really important choices, one can reach the 'every few pages' analogy.

What were these choices for me, so far? I would exclude chance happenings which deflected me one way rather than the other but include the one decision taken by others to have substantially impacted my life.

These decisions are:
1. To admit me in the best school in town back in class 3.
2. To leave the town for my plus 2 and decide to do it at my uncle's place.
3. To not go to Calcutta for final prep just before JEE.
4. To work really hard at IIM.
5. To not ask the girl I thought was perfect for me if she fancied me.
6. To accept a domestic job and decline going abroad.

In the next post, I would list the chance happenings that have had the greatest impact on my life. These chance happenings, if one were to keep the same cut off vis-a-vis impact, are many more than the decisions. Importance of chance in life!!

As I finish college

I had written this about 13 months ago, about the time I was graduating. It is incomplete but I will leave it as such since it cannot be finished in the same frame of mind.

I have completed my college education, at least for now. For the first time since I entered school on 21st February 1985, I will not be student.

In the meantime, USSR fell and the Soviet communist propaganda magazine in Hindi that we used to get at home stopped coming. Its Hindi was quaint and I used to like it. All the stories were of workers great struggle against the elite. How the façade fell in a couple of years. Around the time, Doordarshan showed a serial on Nadia Comaneci and I was in love with her.

I was at my Mausi’s place when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. I was the first in the household to look at the newspaper at 5:40 in the morning. Of course, the magnitude of the event was beyond me. A couple of years ago, in the 1989 elections, Rajiv Gandhi came to campaign in Bhagalpur. I wanted to see him but nobody was ready to take me to the ground where he was going to make a speech. I was miserable and, if I remember correctly, even cried. My Uncle took pity and we set forth for the meeting ground. Only we were too late and Rajiv Gandhi’s helicopter was already in the air by the time we reached. Thus I was never to see him. I might not see a lot of India’s Prime Minister’s but I don’t think I will miss seeing any of them as I missed seeing Rajiv Gandhi that day. Such are the emotions of childhood, brief but intense.

I had started reading the newspaper a couple of years before Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination when there were communal riots in my town and for one whole month I had nothing to do. I could only read the Hindi newspaper then and don’t remember what I read. I was in awe of a cousin of mine who would copy passages from the English newspaper. This prowess of his was a matter of discussion in the extended family.

Somewhere around the time petrol and LPG became scarce. Kuwait war was on. I remember going with my grandfather to get petrol for his car. Some days we will not get petrol. Similar was the tale with LPG; only that it was my mother who was more worried this time.

The 1988 and 1992 Olympics gave me my first idea of India’s position in the comity of nations. Sporting success and country’s well being became intrinsically linked in my mind. All the economic progress of recent times has only dimmed the idea.

A lot of changes happened after the liberalization of 1991. Lehar Pepsi had come to the market. Coca Cola followed suit. Soon it bought out the Parle group. After initial attempts to shelve the Parle brands, Coca Cola found out that it cannot do without Thums Up. However, the rest of them, Gold Spot and Limca did die a quiet death. Cable television came in. For the first time we had five instead of one channel on TV. Oh, the allure! I used to wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning to see India being blown off by New Zealand, a nation of 3 million people but I could see India play in foreign grounds all right.

Economic progress became the watch word. Newspapers started giving GDP growth numbers, inflation statistics and stock index movements more prominence. India was soaring by the mid nineties. The space program was also making decent progress. It was the first round of hope.
There were problems too, chiefly relating to violence. Kashmir kept burning although the fire in Punjab as put out, partly by force, partly by statecraft but majorly (not a word) due to the fact the inciter found a better incitee (not a word). Babri masjid was demolished. There were riots in Mumbai, not once but twice. Only a nation as desperately poor and ill-educated as ours could die and kill for religion.

My first car trip

I drove down to Pune last weekend. The car's new, the driver's inexperienced and was a little scared. Well wishers scared him further by talking of the rashness of the traffic on the expressway and the distance to Pune (220 Kms against the actual 160). Nothwithstanding I started. A hiccup near Panvel, the symbol on my luggage space lever and fuel tank lever are swapped resulting with the tank mouth not opening and the fuel running too low to go anywhere, resulted in fair amount of panic and an hour of delay. Once this was resolved and my car was fed and its pressure checked, I was on my way.

What a joy it was. Once the expressway starts its sheer joy. The road is good, surprizingly people maintain a fair degree of lane discipline, and, if you can dare to look sideways, the view is also spectacular. I, of course, had my sights firmly on the road and my foot on the throttle. Normally somebody who's accused by friends of being too slow on the road, even I could hit 140ks. Most of the way, except for the Ghat section, I could drive at 100+ and the entire 93 kms stretch took an hour ten. At times, on curves and at higher speeds, one can feel the steering wheel shaking against the arms. The whole body is focussed at the task, there's nothing but the road and the machine and you. In that one hour, I got the essence of motor racing. God! I wish we have more roads like these. Doing Mumbai Goa in five hours would be an experience. :)

In Pune, I met up with cousins. We talked, ate, roamed around and watched Narnia. Its so easy to talk with cousins probably because you have been doing it since you were in shorts. All in all a very pleasant weekend. The second Narnia is as good as the first one. I love fantasies anyway.

The way back was every bit as enjoyable as the onward trip. If anything because I was anticipating it, I enjoyed it even more. At the end of the day, the trip left me very tired. But it was the good kind of tired. I am itching to do many more such trips. Ofcourse the road wont be as good everywhere but we will live with it. Sadly, I am going away for a month. Let's see when the next opportunity comes up.

Alcohol or survival of the fittest, drunken stupor

I love alcohol. In the otherwise conformist life, this is one streak of rebellion. With the growing acceptance of social drinking its not much of a rebellion anyway. But my case, I would like to believe (vanity you know) is different. I love alcohol, as against consuming it to observe social protocol. I don't like the taste, rather mask it by making cocktails. What I like are the after effects. Not the ones in the morning. Those I avoid by drinking humongous amounts of water during the night. I like the immediate after effects. The relaxation, the heightening of the senses and the slowing of the movements, the courage and the abandon.

Of course, according to public wisdom, a drinking habit is a flaw. I dont quite believe in the wrongness of it. It satisfies my needs and I fulfill it of my accord, just like an animal sourcing its own food and drink. What makes anything wrong or right any way? There are three answers to choose from:

1. Rules of the animal kingdom (but we arent animals, vain descendants of chimpanzees)
2. Universal ( of course, the Homo sapeins universe) ethics
3. Laws of the land

Most people would say number two. It is human vanity, belief in the species superiority over every other, despite the fact that we live in a way that is going to destroy our very existance within the century. Let it be. I quite like the animal. Survival of the fittest.

Friends II

It's been a while and the fact will show, one fears. Therefore I pick a topic closer to heart than most so that the piece is not altogether rubbish. Alternately there's the danger of not doing justice to something important but I will take it.

I came to IIT Delhi on 19th July 2000 and stayed there for the next five years. Stayed more than studied but no regrets, it did not leave me ill prepared for life . Life is made agreeable not only on the basis of skills acquired in the past but also on the basis of pleasures and warm memories acquired in the same past. Importance of having a good time and gathering warm feelings is something we often ignore, at our own perils, in our preparation for the future. For then we are left extremely capable but also extremely empty with a lot of time gone by. It's a delicate balance: prepare for the future by working but also by having a good time today. It is a philosophy that took me many years to learn although I was, unconsciously and due to institutional tensions, living it ever since I joined IIT. Of course, the awareness of it makes life all the more sweeter now.

Pardon my digression and let me jump to the topic. IIT has vast expanses, of space and time. There are many places and much time to sit and talk. And there's nothing like talk, drink and food come second and third, for forming deep, life-long friendships. My core group was made by the intersection of the department and the hostel but it was clearly the hostel that was the determining factor, for then, we were spending practically all our hours together. A second part of the group was made of hostel guys from other departments. There were other people, unrelated through bonds of either hostel or department, that are friends. As I said, there was enough time and space to form as many friendships as possible. Glad to have made full use of the resources.

We attended classes together and often agreed together to bunk them. Exams were tided over through model cooperation and minimal effort. Movies, eat outs, sports, card and computer games, booze sessions, inter hostel events, applications for internships, cribbing about professors, insipid coursework, bad mess food, archaic hostel laws and administrative bodies were on the agenda. Conversations on girls, books, politics- institutional or national, anything. Taking people's "case" filled in if all else failed. No one was spared. We learnt to talk, only thing people compliment me on these days. After some time, it became unnecessary to talk for we became friends who could enjoy each other's company regardless, reading a newspaper together for example. I got so used to always having company that to the day I can't stand being alone. On getting a job, the first thing I did was to find flat mates, for I couldn't bear the thought of living alone. Whenever I go to Delhi, the treat is to meet my Delhi based IIT friends.

Yesterday, a larger group met in Delhi. One of the guys had come over from the US. It was great. None of us are the kind who write mails, chat on gtalk or call and there's always the fear that next time when we meet we may meet strangers rather than friends. But all that is not to be. The roots run too deep and when rains come all the leaves and flowers come blooming out. We chattered till we were crazy, relieved and happy that all was as should be. Some others were missed and it would be nice if we can all be together. But till that happens there is no fear, for we are friends for ever and the conversations will flow forever.