Way 2 go!!

Not going to write bout an idea but about a person in my batch this time round. This fellow's really one heckuva lunatic considering the way he acts in class .. the way he carries himself around. As soon as the prof enters the lecture hall, his eyes widen and glisten with a weird sense of accomplishment as if today is the day he'll get the enlightenment he had been yearning for all his life. Such is his ecstacy that even if the prof happens to evaluate 2+2 = 4, he religiously jots it down in the 300 odd page thick notebook dedicated to that one subject only. Any arbit discussion ensuing in the lecture, this fellow would be a keen observer, bending forward in his seat, slightly tilted towards his left and looking side-on at the prof with a cock-eyed glare that would, I daresay, penetrate into the soul of the prof! :P So much for his enthusiasm in observation, the moment he raises his hand for some class participation, the prof immediately acknowledges and the words that come out are somewhat to the following effect:

"The elemental forces depriving the current market scenario for the business proposition of Mr. Narayanmurthy, border upon the subliminal criteria that underly the essential business functions we define as part of Porter's 5 forces model. Moreover, the point of contention here is not the issue itself but the consequences of addressing the issue through an amalgamated approach engrossing the human resource aspect and the operations faction to ultimately align the outcome of the proposal with the organisation's mission and vision. However, we must also allow for some scope of delay in the enactment of these measures as they require expertise and skill inherent in the top echelons of management, who in turn are unwilling to co-operate on such inconsequential matters. Thus, I'd like to refute the author's deduction that Mr. Narayanmurthy was not bound by restrictions in the current wake of the company's positioning in the IT industry."

Well it ain't half as "OMG" as his is, but you get the picture :P Effectively by the end of the 5 minute monologue the prof and majority of the batchmates are at a loss for words failing to even grasp a shred of what just hit them. Won't say I wasn't taken in the first time too, but since then, have held him in awe, to be able to come up with such a complex delicacy of words that really do make sense is applaudable. However, his antics, or rather 'weird' antics in class have won him the 'laughing stock' title for the batch. And yet it is this very person who made us feel rather small on a day when we were supposed to remember our martyrs, for the only bloke in a reputed institute of 500 odd students and 100 strong faculty, who even cared to distribute sweets in remembrance. And to top it all off, composed a poem for the day, and since then respect this guy a lot, coz to have such sense of pride in our nation is hardly genuine nowadays, and it fills me with pride to say that I study with an Indian who really is proud to be an Indian and says it in the most beautiful of ways:

A composition by this bloke:

Celebrating 1942

It is impossible, they said,
The sun will never set on the empire.
The gentlemen continued with their game of bridge.
Meanwhile, on a dark night,
There was a knock on the doors of
A passenger traveling in a railway train.
Soon, there were sounds which were heard.
The sound of a crashing suitcase,
But louder still was the sound of injustice.
The journey of the traveler thrown out of the train
Had not ended, It began.
Meanwhile, the game of bridge continued,
It is impossible, they said.

The gentlemen playing bridge grow old becoming millionaires,
But the traveler grows to become a Mahatma,
It is a usual August morning,
But the sun comes out, the heavens watch
In silence. There is no sign of a dark cloud.
‘Do or die’, he says, people rise like a tide.
Words are magic. The agents of the gentlemen
Imprison the traveler. But two words
Are enough. All are one in the nation,

A small, young boy runs around,
Shouting, ‘Quit India’. His voice is louder
Than that of the nation.
The traveler watches from behind the bars
Of the prison.
A policeman catches the boy,
Threatens to drown the boy in a well,
Holds him up, Asks him to shout
The praise of the Crown.
But the boy knows only two words,
‘Do or Die’, he remembers. The boy shouts,
‘Quit India’. The policeman continues lowering
Him into the well. The boy keeps shouting back,
‘Quit India.’

It was impossible, they said.
But a young boy has shouted louder than the nation.
The traveler watches with misty eyes.
The nation will soon be free.
The sun will soon set on an empire,
The game of bridge will be disturbed.
And it will be disturbed nonviolently.
The boy doesn’t shoot with a gun,
He merely shouts. And his shouting is sufficient to
Awaken the man in the policeman.


Today our eyes are no longer misty,
We may have lost respect for the traveler,
We may feel embarrassed calling him Mahatma,
But let us remember the boy,
Let us celebrate his heroism.
And let us feel what he felt.

Kudos to you dude ..

Chak de .. the afterthought!!

Vain - the word that comes to mind trying to remember where my train of thought left me the last time I was visiting the world of sports. Much has passed tween the day of the last post and today, India gave a scintillating performance in the T20 world cup, came back from an underdog's position to salvage some pride in drawing the Natwest series to a closely matched 4-3 loss. Ah.."the age old cricket-centric story" I hear you say ;) No offence to cricket as a sport, but temme one thing .. where exactly does India stand in other sports? Do we hold any weightage when it comes to ANYTHING beyond the realm of the bat and the bowl? True, we do not have to excel at everything we might be interested in, but that inkling of interest, a slight shadow of existence, has to be present for us to acknowledge the vigour that goes into an Indian team for hockey, basketball, anything!!

I know it might entail a blame game that am expecting too much of the sportsperson represented by the girls in Chak De if I say, that for all this lack of focus they too are to blame at some level. But I daresay, doesn't the onus lie with the sportspersons too, to actually pursue their dreams and desires in a manner that ensures their efforts realise their true destiny? Sure we idolise strong women and idealistic men of the past, for their principles and resolve but we fail to see beyond the obvious. These people weren't born great, twas through their concerted efforts to make sure that they fought for what they considered worthwhile. It isn't enough in a bureaucratic country like India to simply perform. The initiative rests with you to get the performance accepted and rewarded its due credibility. Sure sounds a lil out of the way and outright superficial, but consider this - if you were the sportsperson, and you achieved something absolutely extra-ordinary, wouldn't you like the world to know that it made you feel amazing, that of all the laurels showered on cricketers, you deserve some too, even if you failed at something but to just reach that level of competition means a lot to you personally and as an Indian?! :)

I know most of my views wouldn't find any takers, prolly the reason why I never trust my words to convey what I really meant. However, there remains the remote possibility of rekindling the desire in sportspersons like the Chak De girls, who have long forgotten the legacy they left behind, to achieve something far more satisfying than the mere sense of achievement. One might pacify the craving by simply stating that these laurels are inconsequential for their personal satisfaction. But alas, wish it were that simple, in a country that runs on word-of-mouth, the need to boast about your achievements becomes incessant. Its not about giving in to the system, its about working around to make sure it does not screw you over. If I, as a total average sports lover, can realise this fact, and actually have the audacity to tell all the sportspersons out there to publicise their feats, I sincerely hope they can respond in the affirmative as well!! :P Until and unless the veterans do not ensure that people come to know of what they did for their country, the future of these sports shall remain bleak, coz deny it as we may, this nation needs a wake-up call - and if being boastful is the key - then so be it! I do not mind sacrificing a prejudice to uphold a virtue! The words say it all ! ;)

Amidst all these thoughts, I reminisce of a simpler time when things must have been so much matter-of-fact to explain. For all these random ramblings, all I can surmise is - if you ever did it for India .. let the people know it .. for there is no other way to go about making people love the sport you once fell in love with ;) And that is the rub .. to become that medium of passion for the sport that once defined you and that you remain to be an embodiment of :)

PS Chak De has become the national slogan for the Indian T20 cricket team .. another wasted opportunity .. prolly am reading too much into it .. or prolly am not ! ;) And for heaven's sake .. tell the director that goals scored in a penalty shootout for hockey DO NOT get added onto the final score !! :)