Thursday, November 13, 2008

More on the Oz series....

Much has been written about the direction in which Test cricket is headed; and, as one writes this blog, much advise is being tossed in the wind - the fact that the turnouts were low, that two matches were drawn, that Nagpur was a showcase of negative cricket - all of which, one was told, had surely ushered Test cricket towards dreary death.

I had always thought that Test cricket could be enjoyed only if one had a different mindset and a different expectation. I remember, in the salad days, sitting through Anshuman Gaekwad's 201* against the WI, in which, one is reliably told, the slip fielders actually fell asleep on their feet! Now, if that did not manage to kill off Test cricket, then what we saw in the just-concluded series was actually engrossing and at times, insightful test cricket. And was I glad to read this brilliant article by Chris Ryan! He argues along the same lines and goes on to expand on the theme with breath-taking eloquence.

A shard on Bhajji - here is he, almost crowing in ill-guised delight at the drubbing that India handed to Oz. This was his comment, 'I think they were busy writing for their books, while we were busy preparing for the series'.

LOLZ, unbeatably raw and pithy - it's sure to send Ozzies writhing into uncontrolled spasms of invectives.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A healthy working lunch - Alas!

A confession: however light I eat during the day, it seems to not make any difference to my weight. It is steadily moving northwards. A desk-and-a-chair job makes is difficult to contrive situations where one can dash about flinging calories hither-thither. A measured approach to lunch (while barely picking at a breakfast) should have (un)worked off much of the adipose. Alas!
A typical lunch is two chapattis, a small bowl of yellow daal and one small bowl of dry veggies. What i would have liked for lunch is not substantially different: A bowl of boiled and soupy masoor daal with chopped onions and chillies and a dash of lemon; a bowl of diced cucumbers and tomatoes with lemon and salt dressing; and a dry brown slice of toast. This would have made me feel sorry though not miserable.

But where to get such miserly meals at work? The canteen guys are anyway overworked. It may be a good idea to be in the Canteen Committee and design the 'Diet Menu' for everyday.....

Boredom?

Growing older one realises that one has lesser things to do. Work no longer is that headlong tip into tasks, chores at home are easygoing chums of old. Travelling could have been a pain, but I am fortunate to walk home from work, collecting the veggies for dinner and dawdling in the pani-puri queue for an occasional snack as I trudge back. Workouts are shorter than what they ought to be but longer than what one would like them to be. Television has long been banished from Pat's kingdom so it is the desultory web-radio, usually tuned to BBC - the plumminess now giving way to a bewildering mix of accents and flexions. And of course the library.

Yet there is more time to spare than ever before. I know I potter round the kitchen more than I would like to and read even though the book demands to be laid aside. However, I do not feel bored. Thoughts and memories fill my senses - a thread of an incident unravelled with the help of recollections and imagination, or a vague feeling of having heard a tune somewhere, and then humming it in various combinations to see where it fits to an existing song. Suddenly I'm awakened from these warm, slumberous cogitations by the clanging of the doorbell or the ring of the mobile - only to realise with a start that the shadows have lengthened and the darkening evening is sending chill breeze and ravening mosquitoes through the window with equal impartiality. Thus is a Saturday woven with idle dreams.

Unless, of course, if there is a 'plan' - then it's the helter-skelter of a movie, or a mall or the company of friends in smoky cheer and sparkling spirit. If I have to be honest, I must say that I love the languorous afternoons, curled with a book, a bowl of amla, some dhana daal and saunf (with maybe a box of Rajnigandha?), a packet of sharply spicy cinnamon sticks, maybe some home-made chivda or just plain muri within grabbing distance from my hand and the rich tones of the chaps at Bush House rolling away at the back somewhere - ah! Bliss!

Monday, November 10, 2008

So we win...

2-0 is a fantastic result. In many ways this has been a pathbreaking series. In Mahi we prolly have the best captian ever (potentially). Time will tell. This series marks the beginning of his era. Fast bowling becomes the primary weapon on Indian pitches for the first time since we stopped having 'designer' pitches.

Mahi is a lucky captain. He is also a gracious captain - his handing over the stumps to Dada and Amit were meaningful in their idiom. So was today's 'guest captaincy'. Brilliant! After all it is Sourav who taught us to win and not whine.

Feels good!!
:-)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Passing On To Eternity

How does one prepare for the death of a dear person? Yes, it was expected (how ugly that sounds!); yes, it was a merciful release from pain followed endlessly by more pain; and yes, the years had taken their toll.

A phone call in the morning pierced through the tendrils of sleep, and a hushed expected unwelcome message; I recall the moment exactly - it went quieter; the cawing faded, the air con hum stilled. After a few moments I called Nagpur. The sadness of the voice when bhabhi spoke caught at my throat. It was the sadness filtering through the phone that made me feel helpless. I cried then, unable to bear the sorrow that had been left behind.

To grieve for one who has parted, to reach those places in the soul for moments of complete aloneness and despair - are these not the purest moments when we are closest to god? If there is god then must it not affect it? Does it cry with us? Does it too, need a comforting hand on the shoulder and a warm cheek to rest one's tears?

Ah! But humankind is strong, it is resilient. We tell ourselves that we shall all perish one day, as indeed we shall. And we tumble into happier memories, of times that smiled and laughed. I did that too, not moments after melancholy. I remembered the stentorian yet rich, 'So how are you, Partho? gaan-taan kemon cholche?' How is the music keeping up (I sing in a desultory fashion when my mood takes me)? And then that Edwardian smile of the handsome man that he was, the crinkled eyes that welcomed me, yet again, to a home that has been my home for the past 25 years. I remembered him gnawing on a tender morsel of paanthaar kosha mangsho (gently simmered semi-dry goat-meat) with the eyes closed, as if in Communion; the half-rocking right knee keeping time with the chewing of the jaws - the sheer enjoyment in the entire frame, an ode to extraordinary cooking as much to the ability of showing pleasure at such wholesomeness.

I was at peace. And I wished and prayed that each one of us who is today grieving for Mesho will also find their own wisp of recollection. For, in those wretched few moments of despair in the morning today, I know my heart was pierced not by an individual grief, but by the arrows of the many who were grieving for him. It was the thought of so much sadness that I found unbearable.

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Onrush of Winter

Methinks there are signs of winter in Mumbai. Yesterday evening I caught the cross breeze in the sitting room; it felt deliciously cool. Plus the breeze carried with it a hint of eucalyptus and the ozony taste of ice. It was just 6. It must be the winter.

Our's is a contrary world where we celebrate winter. Truth be told, it is far easier to combat summer. Losing a few clothes, seeking shade, drinking iced-water (or surahi ka paani) and fanning with, well, anything that is next to you - and voila! the heat abateth. Even if momentarily.

Combating flesh-numbing winter is a different kettle of woolley clothes. It demands luxuries of arrangement that most of even the wealthy don't have in their homes in Mumbai! Not because they lack the INR, not by the long clalk! We simply do not have a clue of what it takes to combat cold.

Its long been a favourite (and reactionary) theory of mine that we do not find too many beggars in the West because they simply die of the cold! Its too difficult to survive the winter - too bloody expensive as well. On the other hand, the poor of India just need to go nanga-panga, have umpteen cool dips under neighbourhood water handpumps and taps , beg from goras, wait outside gurdwaras and other places of worship to get a fair meal, and sleep in the open, under the starry sky of the subs/fumey soup of the metrop. How easy! No blanket, no joota, no topi, no patlun, no hot food every 2 hours to keep the metabolism from freezing over..... You see what I mean?

Imagine a world of Bharat mata, plunging to -20 in Febrrrruary! Imagine Mumbai under 3 feet of snow, imagine each restaurent, each office, each home centrally heated by something or the other (a continuing shower of INR), imagine the fineness of the (exorbitant) woolly patlun on each one of us (woollen undies tooo!!!); imagine the thickness of the (10,000 INR) joota, the fur under the (3000 INR) topi.

What you cannot imagine in this scene are the frolicking urchins at the Andheri junction, thrusting a nosegay or a dud book (who would lower the glass to let the icy wind inside?); you cannot imagine the clutch of families under the Kalanagar flyover, sitting beneath wisps of cloth they call home and making garam-garam bhakri over brick-ka-chulha (Hah!). Nor can you see, in your mind's eye the thousands that sleep on the pavement starting from Churchgate station, along Marine Drive into all crannies and flat land.

And Good Lord! What if it rained ice-cold, razor-sharp slivers of sleet in the midst of all this frozen madness?

Heavens above, thank you for giving me my sweltering, gassy, shirt-sticky summery-winter!!!