Our Cricket - Shakespearean Dramas

Time changes us some say
It does not it only unfolds us some say.....I am not sure and it surely can be a matter of another post but yeah times have altered perspectives truly.

There was a point in time years ago when half of what happened yesterday had happened. India were knocked out of the semi final in 1996....it was a moment for grief...it was funny how passionate one can be when young.Sort of remind me of those lines from the poem "Evening Solace"

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back ­a faded dream;

Well so yesterday it was sort of very cool this time ...somehow quite expecting them to lose...only some part of the old heart buried deep peeped out for miracles.
But reality sure was the flavor of the day and at no point was there any belief that India would be through...and the team did nothing to change that.
Sad part is unlike those days when some or the other unfortunate thing could be ascribed to failure...umpires ...pitch..here it was so plain blunt clear we were just not good enough. Something had somehow blunted out the passion of the whole team....Somehow i usually even in worst moments dont imagine Sachin out but felt so casually that it was gone and thats how it was - gone.

Somehow it seems fitting and actually good that India is out. The whole real passion has died out i felt ...sometimes i ask it it in general or specific to my being old enough to always reflect back on the older days.
I had only one reason to even bother to watch this world cup(huh bother ...there were times i dared not use such a word about watching cricket.) ...this would be the last World Cup of probably the generation of cricketers we grew up on.
Sachin Sourav and Rahul.I agree they did not do well here and if some
says drop them oh well please go ahead do it.

I just have one question in mind though ....and that is the matter of this whole post. Its a job for them in the end and lets say we do badly at our job at some time or actually most of the time......or rather not as well as say someone else is doing how many of us will go ahead and resign?

But yet we clamour that one should retire or give up.I too felt passionately many times esp in the past and do say stupid idiots when they ruin the whole day by some horrid stuff.....should be given one tight slap and other expletives but problem starts when one starts beleiving in them as super heroes.
They would be playing cricket in whatever way they can good or bad just like quitely our other sportspersons play their sports if we did not love them and the game as much...We put them up as heroes as there's nothing as easy because our lives lack them in reality but when they turn out as vulnerable as us we hate them with vehemance.

"They are responsible for a whole set of fans who suffer so many things and watch them and love them" ...
yeah i said that a decade ago.
I wonder to what extent today would one take as much responsibility for the job you work just because all team members and leads adore your work and depend on you...but something somehow needed presently were were beyond the capabilities possessed.

They are humans just like you and me ....and if you ask me a bit better than you and me...cause i am not sure how many among us can resist the huge temptations that are offered to this bunch of cricketers by us or in us the fans name by the real businessmen of this world.

This is not to defend their game but to defend their right to live beyond their job....
Yeah i still say they deserve to value their job a little more and keep up its spirit because after all how many of us have the fortune of having a job we love and enjoy.

One good thing about their losing is this....

This match despite so much money on it in the end was NOT FIXED...
why simple for anyone who watched it.
If India had won almost everyone would have somewhere ascribed it to being Fixed.
Whole day prior to the match i was sick of hearing ..."these bunch of jokers no good will lose if the match is not fixed."

Yeah Sad a relatively(this word is very important) nice bunch of cricketers who gave us joyous moments once will retire without fulfilling dreams....... neither theirs(honestly even a cricketer who might be a match thrower sometime would like to win the world cup once
cause that is the dream you begin career with) nor our dreams fulfilled.

I guess thats why so many writers say cricket is the closest to Life in its intricacies and fortunes...and its Tragedies....and Comedies.

And India Pakistan take it somehow to the heights of Shakespearean Drama.Woolmer's murder confirms that.........Its unbelievably tragic......and somehow so very Shakespearean i guess.

Flowers of India....

There are somethings you come across once in a while and you feel so much gratitude and happiness. They are such simple and silly things some may say,....but neverthless
I had already blogged about how i wished to find about names of certain flowers i see esp the local names and so on here.
In those days i probably spent hours and rupees of carefully allocated time and money on internet searching for something like this and never did find it.Sometimes i used to look them in the University library but how mch can you find in a university thats more a technical one. Then last month i found the site http://www.flowersofindia.net/ by sheer chance . Its a lovely site and it wonderful to see some on compile it so lovingly.Flower names in Indian languages with pictures.

Like it was so nice when i saw that blue flower i often looked at and wondered what to call ..... it is called "Aparajita" or Butterfly pea.Sadly very few people know the Indian names . We are so used to the names we read in English.

And one tree i always wanted a snap beneath but never seemed to happen somehow is this very pretty Amaltas. Its so very pretty.

Or there's a flower that i sort of loved a lot as it has memories of my childhood. The harsingar or Parijat...the orange white flowers we used to pick when we were children.
There's this stupid fantasy of standing beneath it while they fall down all spoiled by my friend when she remarked...oh there are way too many worms and insects in that tree they all will fall too. Now i'm too scared to try anything like that ever.
But In the last home i lived there was one just outside the gate and every morning i used to find my path strewn with them.
Here's a pic i took then.Hmm i miss em......

Its so wonderful to be able to put in such effort and come out with such a site. It looks like nothing much but i am sure it gives immense personal happiness. Just seeing the site made me quite happy.

Oh well some common wishes

well I happened to mention to someone that i have lots of materialistic wishes left and hence not
yet feel like charity . ...which required an explanation......
Well actually i am quite uncharitable why will be a seperate post.

So as they say time changes everything so here for this time what i think are my materialistic
wishes.
Firstly i ask myself am i materialistic ....well not exactly i know
but i wish i was ...life is so simple that way.

I am soo swayed by emotions ......and to have it my hearts way if i can which is mostly never
i try swinging it using all logic...thats the way i seem to have become these days.

Materialism if if only if that were the only thing is so simple and defined.

Anyways what is materialism ...is it being money oriented...Well lets put it my way as of today.
Its not money that is loved...its is the sheer ease of life it brings in so many ways especially
in a country like ours.
Money buys you the most inavaluable thing of all "TIME"
of course more so if dont spend the time earning it...huh sadly its not so in my case.

Money allows you to hire a cook a maid and hence time and energy saved.
Money allows you travel with ease esp if you dont even have to drive again time saved.

Actually money even saves you the trouble of being charitable...they just deduct a small part
from your salary and you are contributing to charity(How terrible can corporate culture
get....if ur not interested remove your name from list on the intranet....huh as if one is going
to do that )

Now in the Time saved if you love to doze off or watch prettier things in this world instead of
making this world a better place done by charitable people in that time saved you are
MATERIALISTIC i guess .

All the materialistic things specifically i can think of is a lovely house which i wish to spend
a lifetime filling with all the pretty little things i love to shop around.

I used to have this dream of a very small house with a very big garden...with the real estate
prices the way it is its sooo far off. Hard to own an apartment forget a house with garden wellllll.

I'd love to just wander and travel all around the world....or live in some nice beautiful cottage
in the flowery hills(ok thats a straong Ruskin Bond stories influence)......
and this needs money yeah yeah you can go around the world in just a few dollars or whatever but
i mean for real without looking like a freak which needs what MONEY.
Money means you avoid nosy neighbors , colleagues who need explanation of what and why
where you come and go and offending them is a strict no no due to family and that extended
family called Office.

I dont add my absolute crazy idea of owning books almost like a library with glass shelves
ahhhhhh...this just doesnt seem materialistic in anyway ...books cant be associated with
materialism no not in my mind.
And anyway i will fulfill that dream anyway one day though with my progressive myopia(Doctors
they are the most scary people in this world to me with the terms they hand to me) how much i
will be able to use them by then is another thought.
But i trust in science as well miracles so that should be just fine.


Of course to each their own .......
My sister really beat me to it when after quitting her job standing at the balcony she said.”You see that building i m sure that is a office stupid people why did they not build it fast so that i could have tried a job here...i'd have worked for a few bucks less. So nice so near to our house.
Come home for lunch have a sleep and go....kya life hotaa..
I dreamt of this since school days when schoolmates living behind school used to go for lunch.”
The kids been as lazy since ages then its proved....but she made a wise choice unlike me
HR is the place to be for such wonderful dreamers like her.

Weekend Browsing around

I have a very good habit... whenever i have to meet a friend and then
plan how to spend the time i usually prefer to set the meeting point at
a bookstore or mall with a bookstore. It saves me a hell lot of
impatience and irritation with my friends because most of them are
lazier than me and never come on time. Rather than calling them and
asking them to hurry up or feeling bad about being stupid to turn up on
time and wait...i actually make myself so comfortable in the bookstore
that even if they don't turn up my day has been well spent.

Such was the case this weekend. As i browsed around the bookstore...it has been long actually this time...since my last visit to a bookstore.

So i looked up all the new books ...i always try following a pattern but thats about it TRY. my eyes sort of never want to do it so methodically...they love an absolute quick scan and then wander around to their interests. Books with lovely covers...interesting themes or reviews i'd read about.
The new cricket world cup book shaped like a ball and such stuff in new arrivals.

I also have this so very queer habit of a very stupid game i play with myself. Close your eyes and open a page and whats the first word or line you glance(I used to try this on the dictionary at home earlier). Anyways a book which has been praised a lot i guess i will look it up some day is " The Last Song of Dusk ' by Siddharth Dhanvant Sanghvi...I'm delaying it mostly because it seems so exotic but i tried my little fun on this book there.

It was a lovely line which i read goes something like the below...i've forgotten the exact line
" may be thats what Innocence was meant for - to be lost and may be that is how love essentially is - something to be longed for "

I guess i agreed quite a lot and liked it enough to decide to read the book at the first chance .

Then for the moment i started off reading "Inspite of Gods" in there...again a interesting book...i mean even the title is nice Inspite of....

You really have to know Indians and India well to use that word INSPITE ...they succeed inspite of all oh so many things....not because of them...though after success we always say the reverse....."that it is the GOD ...that it is the well wishers and good intentions of all and sundry".

Hmm finally i wandered off sometime into the Glass and candles and such artifacts segment...my favorite. I do love clear glass and all the shapes its moulded into..something again i feel crazy about with no specific definition.
God bless those people who once in a while let you wander in peace without that wonderful gesture " May i help you ".

Then at last arrives my friend and she just has to ask hows life and i start off all the dramatic stories of my professional pains.
Finally i realise we had met actually to discuss her side of the story and so i keep my mouth shut and she tells her tale....ah well its the same with a different twist.
Then we wander off into a artifacts expo and i feel like immersing all my hurt in the beauty of the oh so many lovely things and i shop...well i look more than i shop...and its a torture for my company at such places...she inevitably says...you are worse than me at such shopping.

I advise her to leave for the day ...as i'll spend some more time...she's so nice not to leave me but i oh so wish she did...as we leave half way through.
My sister at home adds the perspective to it. well your friends dont know you love to wander off and browsing/shopping all alone and so may be she'd have been imagining how bad it feels to leave a friend and go and hence did not go but you have such strange ways. Ummm yeah.

This year though is gonna be very lonely i had though at the begining and it sure seems to be going on the same way.Friends move on to different places...different worlds...i'm moving on ...
or rather should move on.

Not all who wander are lost....not all who are lost wander i guess

I am amazed at people who remember every joke from movies seen decade ago and actually it seems the only timepass for quite some....an evergreen rehash of the jokes esp in regional cinema. I feel inadequate to comment on this being good or bad them but yeah a whole of them are not to my taste. I mean relating every thing in life to some movie comedian.
I saw some last hour of this movie and well it was a nice one of a different era. What i remember
is though some of the last lines of the movies. rarely do i remember dialogues from movies or
even books. Some just strike a chord......and just stay on.
One was this from the movie "Monalisa Smile"

Not all who wander are aimless
"I've heard her called a quitter for leaving......an aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition...... beyond definition..... beyond the image."

Re-read this again and considering my aimless feeling it sort of touches.I deny that i seek some
great truth or want to make a difference but yes i wander in my own spheres of mind,aimlessly in
this very sharp aiming world for some reason something beyond my words.......some thing that i
seek out beyond what seems traditionally perfect..it is not selfless...in fact it is something
very selfish.At least ive been very clear on that in the past few years of my life.Yeah i seek to wander out but when i cant in reality i seem to wander in my mind and hence have been aimless.
Anyways that led me to the original quote...thats the charm of google for me
All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;

Another very nice point i pondered upon......

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's
self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance,
learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.-Thomas Szasz,author, professor of psychiatry

Why even even the best after a point stagnate.Self esteem's not a bad thing to have unlike a
super ego but for learning further yes even self esteem may be need to be sacrificed at some
time......only point here remains how much and of what you are willing to learn.Ignorance can be bliss in oh so many cases....Learning is painful.
Choices...its all our choices....
to be meek, nice to others and lose oneself...to be kind and get pained....
to be brave for oneself and may be hurt others.......
to give up a lifetime's peace for a moments charm.....
to give up own dream for a chance to be a part of someone's dream.......
to wander...to lose....to be aimless.

Hyper emotional day

You tell yourself that you’re professional

You’ll take things in your stride

You seen quite enough of corporate workplace/jargon

You’ve gotta give it straight to them

And yet if you’re emotional

You just are it

After a whole range of self motivating nonsense

You know it when you almost

Have a lump in the throat due to being upset during an appraisal meeting.

No one knows and would know that its actually an after effect of

The messy past week in my life and not this bloody appraisal discussion.

But heck why did it have to be triggered at that moment.

Probably that’s why I don’t practice this useless nonsense of telling myself all’s gonna be well when it isn’t.

It all comes off pouring out at all the wrong moment and then you seem so stupid and vulnerable.

I hate myself 2 hrs after being in those ultra emotional moments. But it’s the way I’m wired. Too old for change….But aren’t old people supposed to get calmer and have a hold on their emotions. Hmmmmmm

Areas of improvement: Positivity among many more

Sure Sure I need it because if had that honestly I doubt I would have been sitting there, I ‘d have gone out and found a positive response but I lived on with my fears my negativity …not that the events in the past week have helped me be any more positive.

But I hate myself …… heck how could I be so like deeply hurt and emotional….talking with people whose business is to be unemotional in the most emotional way.