Time has come!

The time has finally come… it had probably had quite some time back… it’s just that we didn’t acknowledge. After all we are mere mortals. Greatness is not easy for all to fathom and digest especially for those who are miles away from it. Instead we relish in our endeavors to crush the spirit of the genius. We look for faults where none exist and conveniently sidestep all that really matters.

I talk of one Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. As he completes 20 glorious years, we still don’t grant him what was always his. Perhaps it doesn’t matter to him. Perhaps he is above all of it. What if he really is God as his supporters like to believe? We may never know. But after yesterday Tendulkar is no longer one of the best batsmen in the world. He is the best and by a huge margin. The Laras and Pontings of the world are not even close and the reason is clear - Sachin is out of the world.

Statistics and records overwhelming as they won’t even begin to do justice to the phenomena called “Sachin”. For starters, can numbers ever replace smiles?

Close your eyes and try to visualize his best innings. Remember the joy you felt every time he found gaps in the field when it seemed none existed, when he made a good ball look ordinary by depositing it across the ropes, when you suddenly saw him on 80 * and it seemed like he had scored a half century just a minute ago, when he played the most cheeky shot around and beamed as if he had won a lottery, when he ran twos ( for his partner) on a tired pair of legs, when he made the opposition look hapless and totally beaten. Now realize that around a billion people felt pretty much the same way and you can begin to realize his importance in our lives.

Do a similar exercise for the time he got out and we lost.

A nation laughs or cries depending on a split second decision he takes while batting.

We talk of Gandhi and Mother Teresa and how they uplifted the masses. Sachin does much the same as he wields his willow on the field. It’s just that we don’t realize. Sachin has given us a reason to dream and dream big. Remember the India when he started playing and compare it with the India of today. So much progress has happened and yet the fact that he remains our ultimate role model is no coincidence. With every boundary he has scored, with every record that has come his way, he has lifted the collective morale of a nation.

The crown of the world’s best batsmen no longer matters. Sachin is already past that.

We may not see the halo around him but its indeed time to bow to the Lord!

Even Sir Donald Bradman will agree!

Lull After the Storm

This sequence of events is all too familiar now for most of us. On the 26th of November, we were attacked, wounded and most importantly humiliated by the gang of no more than ten. We watched haplessly as the trauma and the grief ran into minutes, hours and days. We picked up every gory detail of the attacks, we lapped up all that the media fed us, we argued and argued more, we decided in our minds who the enemy was and decided what the best course of action, we looked up the Internet on varied topics from Taj, Oberoi, Mumbai, India's comparative military strength, the origin of our border dispute, the cost of waging a war, the demographic makeup of country, Article 370, Nehru, Gandhi... anything remotely connected to that fateful day. We watched as our political leaders failed us yet again. We called it India's 9/11 (this was a first for us) and thought we had the means and the will to retaliate the US did. We perversely rejoiced at the attention with we getting on the world stage, satisfied with the lip-service doled out to us by the powers that matter. We wrote on chat forums and on our blogs. (As I indeed write on mine now). We changed our orkut and facebook profiles, we joined umpteen number of online groups expressing our support in this time of need. We made personal vows to hurt the enemy in whatever ways we could. We paid our 2 minutes of respect silence and We decided we needed to change... everything. We decided we needed a fresh new start.

And then we moved on.. not instantly but gradually maybe but definitely. They said it was time to move on...i saw the first signs of it when I saw the headline "Mumbai limps back to normalcy"... no doubt the editor didn't lose anyone dear. We saw as the "news" lost its novelty. It was relegated to other more "important" and "news-worthy" incidents like the crash of the stock exchanges worldwide (something that happens with far too much regularity nowadays), the IT meltdown and how Infosys wont hire anymore, England's resumption of the cricket tour... heck even Maradona's coming to India suddenly seemed to be more important than the crisis of the hour. Should the fact that a woman from Haryana gave birth at 70 really be hogging the front page news? How many more 26/11's (another of media's wonderful creation-thank you for giving us memory aids for remembering the dates on which we lose fellow countrymen by hundreds for no fault of theirs. ) do we need before we realize that its not right to forget such incidents in matter of days. How many more lives do we need to lose before we stop treating this horrible breach of our trust as merely an inconvenience and a soap opera all bundled together by the media as a wholesome side-dish to our evening dinners? The enemy is closer than we think, its among us. Its inside each one of us... its called complacence. "Chalta hain" attitude definitely nahin chalta hain. We cant forget what is wrong! It would be doing ourselves and the generations to follow a great disservice.

I am reminded of a stanza from a hindi poem

Khoon jo ab na Khaula
Woh khoon nahi paani hai
Jo desh ke kaam na aaye
Bekar woh jawani hai.

And please don't change channels... Saas-bahu can wait.

A November to remember!

Watching a great drama unfold from the sidelines for someone with limited knowledge but keen interest has its share of pluses and minuses. The lack of knowledge is often overshadowed by the ability to see the things without the prejudice of history and to identify the grey in a sea of black and white.

As an alien in the Promised Land, the Presidential elections slated this November provide me with all the ingredients of a great drama and I have been fortunate enough to witness many of its twists and turns.

The preceding winter was all about Hillary and Obama and how the winner of this contest would eventually find his/her way to the White House creating some kind of history along with it?
As the winter gave to spring and summer, this presidential race also changed its character for reasons sometimes beyond the control of those in it.

If this election were to be neatly wrapped up into bullets points I would present mine as:
1. What is this election about? Both the presidential candidates would be mistaken if they though the election was about them or the issues that they thought were important. The truth could be the farthest from it. If ever the election was for the common man, this one is. Talk to any American and the issue most close to his heart is the mess that the American economy finds itself in. Spiraling gas prices and job cuts are just the symptoms of something far more sinister. For the time-being Iraq can be put on the back-burner. National building exercise must be done at home first.

2. What each one is saying: This election was the seen by many as the clash of two diametrically opposite opponents, the clash of the old vs. the new. Sure enough both had their agendas and their plan of actions if elected to the white house. But it doesn’t matter anymore. The events of the past month have ensured that whoever is elected to the White House will have his hands full in undoing the damage done.

3. Do they really want the job? The White House is the seat of unbridled power and its occupant is arguably the world’s most powerful person. Who wouldn’t want the job? Both the candidates are on the verge of creating some kind of history if they make it to the White House. But surely they wouldn’t want to earn the dubious distinction of herding US deeper into trouble should things get out of hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if both the candidates have had second thoughts about the enormity of the task potentially ahead of them.

4. Battle of the vice presidents: Once the vice-presidential candidates were announced, they have in their own way managed to overshadow the presidential candidates and the election itself. Sarah Palin has managed to tilt the advantage in favor of the Democrats by displaying her evident lack of experience at this level. By nominating an inexperienced candidate like Palin, the Republicans have lost the moral right to attack Obama’s inexperience.

5. Who’s the winner? When America first went into election mode, it was all about Hillary and Obama. The analysts certain that the Republican regime would end soon; it seemed like a cake-walk for Obama once Hillary opted out. One sensed that the feeling of quiet optimism in the Obama camp gave way to one of overconfidence much earlier than required and somehow he couldn’t connect to the masses in the way that he had during the primaries. The central theme of Obama’s campaign has always been “Change”. Then came the realization that the anticipated depression in the US economy was already here and bigger than expected. In such times, I don’t know if the message of “Change” is the best possible one for Obama, not when he confronts a nation that yearns for things the way they always were-the time of $1 menus, fuel guzzlers, a strong dollar and jobs that stayed at home. But atleast he has a message but McCain sadly has none, not atleast that comes to my mind immediately.

Till some time back both were almost neck to neck. And many voters were undecided. Sarah Palin may have unknowingly helped many voters make up their minds, sadly against her party though.

One reckons it’s going to be Obama on 4th November but only just.

The Great Indian Oscar Debate

Every autumn (or fall as it is known here in the land of the Oscars), a committee appointed by the Government of India chooses the official Indian entry to the Oscars for a nomination in the Best foreign film category. Like anything that is connected remotely to the government, the entire process is invariably linked with controversy and to the common man; the entire process seems a futile exercise. More often than not, the official entry is not the sentimental favorite. That would work out fine if the jury sent sensible films to the Oscars. Previous entries like Jeans, Paheli & Saagar don’t fit the bill by a large margin and one is left wondering how movies like Roja, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla , Satya, Lakshya, Monsoon Wedding or even Sholay never made it to the list.

Going through the list of nominations over the years, the movies that I feel really deserved to be on the list are Mother India, Manthan, Saaransh, Salaam Bombay, Bandit Queen, Earth and Shwaas. Even Lagaan for all its pomp and show, drama, cricket and patriotism made for a poor choice compared to Monsoon Wedding, a crisp 90 min movie that brilliantly portrays contemporary Indian urban life against the backdrop of a wedding.

Agreed that you can’t win all the time and this category is one of the most competitive one but shouldn’t we sending movies that atleast give a correct picture of India. I work in the US and still have to answer questions regarding the great Indian rope trick, child marriage and Sati. This inspite of the tremendous progress we have made in the past ten years. Movies like Jeans don’t help.

This year however seems to be different. The official Indian entry is “Taare Zameen Par”, a beautiful and sensitive story about an 8 year old dyslexic kid. The movie is particularly pertinent in a society like ours that refuses to accept disability in more ways than one and preventing them from being a part of the mainstream. With the kind of awareness that is already there in the US regarding dyslexia, the film may not actually appeal to the Oscar panel but it nonetheless deserves to be our official entry for the role it played in sensitizing all of us into accepting all that we perceive to be “not normal”.

My best wishes to the entire “Taare Zameen Par” team… thank you for the job that you have already done. You are already winners in our eyes.

And thank you to the jury for not goofing up this time around.

Let the Games Begin!

So the great games begin tomorrow on a numerically wonderful date of 08/08/08. A few wishes before the frenzy takes over:

1. Let the rains not ruin the wonderful opening ceremony promised to us.
2. Let the focus of the games be the games and not the quality of Beijing air or such frivolous issues.
3. Let the media bring us the games and not their biased opinion about all that is wonderfully correct or horribly wrong about the games.
4. Let us not be pulled into the frenzy of “USA v/s China” as this edition of the games are being billed as. There are many worthy teams in the fray.
5. Lastly let the best team win.

P.S. Happy Birthday Mummy:)

Learn to be Still!

My thoughts in the words of "The Eagles"... thank you for the music


It's just another day in paradise
As you stumble to your bed
You'd give anything to silence
Those voices ringing in your head
You thought you could find happiness
Just over that green hill
You thought you would be satisfied
But you never will- Learn to be still


We are like sheep without a shepherd
We don't know how to be alone
So we wander 'round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home
But the flock cries out for another
And they keep answering that bell
And one more starry-eyed messiah Meets a violent farewell- Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Now the flowers in your garden
They don't smell so sweet
Maybe you've forgotten
The heaven lying at your feet

There are so many contridictions In all these messages we send (We keep asking)
How do I get out of here Where do I fit in?
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It's waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will- Learn to be still Learn to be still
You just keep on runnin'
Keep on runnin'

Its not about the beer!

As I sipped the latest offering from Budweiser on a sultry Saturday evening in St Louis, I knew that a piece of heritage would soon to be relegated to the pages of history. Sure enough the next days papers were awash with the news of Anheuser Busch (the parent company of Budweieser) being taken over by InBev, a Belgium based beer conglomerate. What surprised me was not the astronomical money that would change hands ($52 billion) or the fact that the merger would result in the world’s largest beer company but rather the fact that tradition and history had to bow down to economics at the end of the day.

From my office in downtown St Louis, I gaze at the Anheuser Busch refinery and the Busch Stadium (home to the St Louis Cardinals baseball team) and can empathize with the sense of loss that fellow citizens would feel . I am not yet even contemplating the economic loss that this could mean to my current city of residence.

Connoisseurs believe Budweiser isn't the best beer in the business but then Budweiser is not just a beer. No beer has as much history attached to it as the Bud. It’s what binds America together along with Levi’s Jeans , Hot Dogs, Hollywood and Coca-Cola.

To many non-Americans who wish to come to this country and make it big, it is a shining beacon of hope of all that life can possibly offer. To merely dismiss it as a 5% v.v alcoholic drink made from grains in USA would be like calling the Taj a marble building.
I am yet to think of an Indian equivalent of Budweiser- Cricket comes closest to it in terms of its ability to bind a country together.

In this time of economic despair, the take-over seems most uncalled for. And yet the silver lining to it may be the fact that the takeover indicates that the US economy is driven by hard facts and profit motive-something that will definitely help it tide over the current trough.

InBev hopes of taking the Budweiser brand across the world. One only hopes it doesn’t end up diluting the great American heritage.

The Week that was!

Perhaps it’s the indication of the fact that we live in very exciting times and the events that as they unfold-minor as they seem are likely to affect us in a way that we may not be able to visualize today. Or perhaps its just the fact that recently I have had nothing much to write about.

Every week (that is how I would ideally want it), I would like to note a few events that I feel are either
1.Of immense importance to our lives.
2. Are offbeat in nature
3. Make for interesting reading

Ideally I would not like to talk about the spiralling gas prices and the falling stock indices of the world.

Eventually I would like this attempt to not be limited to a narration of facts but rather a commentary on the events around us.

What I hope is that in the process I will be able to form or refine opinions.
This is at best a humble effort and I am the first to acknowledge this.

Now for the first “edition”

The events that made news this week:
1. N Korea beginning with nuclear disarmanament.
2. Bill Gates bidding good bye to the tech world.
3. Passing away of the legendary Sam Maneckshaw.

All of the above events have been well-documented including the last one with the story of the President unavailable for the funeral of the greatest Field Marshall India has ever seen.

What caught my attention however was WALL-E, the latest animation offering from PIXAR. WALL E ( acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class). I don’t really want to dwelve into the story but the movie presents a startling but entirely plausible picture of the earth a couple of centuries down the line if we extraplolate the events as they are occuring today. The greatest takeaways from the film is the danger of the rampant consumerism and how we are playing into the hands of the big companies, Secondly automating everything around is deadening our brains and giving the power of the human mind to machines. Auto-Pilot is probably not the answer to everything.But the most endearing piece in the story is how even two futuristic robots cant escape the power of love. The only thing that is likely to survive the mess that we are creating for ourselves is love and of course cockroaches for company if we are there at all.

The movie though not the best offering from PIXAR so far ,delivers the most important lesson ever delivered by an animation-the time to act and the save the earth and the human race is now. There may never be a second chance.

In this world of chaos, WALL E stands for all that needs to change about this world’s and about us.

I only hope the world doesn’t brush this movie aside as a children’s cartoon film.

Random Thoughts

Adventures in a far-away land… this is how I would have ideally hoped to title these string of thoughts that I have been trying to pen down for a long time now…the truth however begs to differ… it will be close to 3 months here and life hasn’t been all that dramatic as I was half-expecting it to be…. No bite of the big apple, no big city lights, no once-in a lifetime photos from breath-taking places and after the initial anguish not even the feeling of being so far away… Wait a minute this is not meant to be a sad post. The introduction is merely a testimony to the fact that life can be beautiful even when it’s not king-size. To the extent of sounding clichéd, I have found happiness or atleast a reason to smile in all the unexpected places whenever I have made the effort.

A foreign country with the idiosyncrasies of its people (or this is how it looks to me) has meant smiles and more smiles whenever I have chosen to see the lighter side. (I am sure I have been a source of amusement alike for many of the locals)… my name pronounced as Gotham, Botham or even Doug (where did that come from?), the sheer futility of trying to drink from the water fountain on the first couple of occasions, managing in the land of toilet paper, ordering the wrong stuff every single time, smiles all round from absolute strangers, nodding heads that convey the opposite of what I have grown up to believe, been told on numerous occasions to speak more clearly and slowly, the sheer bliss in anonymity, chasing outrageous deals, the sheer pleasure of snow, rain and golden sunshine on the same day.

And yet some joys are the same regardless of the land or the people. The joy of seeing smiling children aboard school buses, the thrill of an early let off from work, meeting a dear friend after a hard day at work, cracking jokes at the expense of my colleagues at work, that unexpected phone call from a long-lost friend, the early morning freshness in the air, the laziness of Sundays and the joy of long weekends.

Life for me will always be beautiful as long as I seek happiness in the small things. The bigger picture can meanwhile wait.

8:36 to Union Station

All it takes is 24 hours and a new world and possibly a new life stand in front of me. Through my jet-lagged eyes piercing from a body heavily wrapped up and my groggy legs that set foot on the icy tarmac, the enormity of change strikes me…

A familiar face… my close friend… confused emotions… happiness, relief and a wish to take the next available flight home...

The first few things that I notice on my cab ride “home”… traffic on the right side (wrong side for me really), petrol (or gas) less expensive than diesel, no blaring horns, signs and instructions all around bordering on paranoia, no potholes and a chill in the air that could kill…

Quick stopover at “home”… quick round of introductions with my room-mate… first impressions… nice guy… relief the most overwhelming emotion encountered… Step 1 cleared…

A delightfully cooked Indian meal at my friend’s home… me refreshed but a deep sense of detachment lingers… my sense of humor also fails me… my loss of conversation disconcerts my friend… for once I unable to comfort her…

I sleep a jet-lagged sleep… wake up more disoriented… need groceries.... visit a nearby store with my friend…. The same emotion… too much change to register and by the way why can’t they have lesser varieties of waffles? Waffles incidentally become a big part of my life… I begin my day with them…. People have more choices in waffles than newspapers… anyways who cares... I move on… the aisle of bottled water beckons…

My office I notice is in downtown… a concept as yet unknown to me… from my conversations with colleagues and friends; I stumble onto my own definition:
Downtown: You work here and it has all the nice places that you can’t visit till you have a car coz it’s not safe…

Speaking of car, no Zen here for me… bus and metro will have to do…. It feels horrible on the first few days even with company around….. there is no comfort of peths, nagars and colonies… addresses like so and so boulevard, this and that plaza seem too distant to absorb… somewhere in the maze of Wellston, Rock Road, Delmar, the heart craves for Aundh, Wakad, Kothrud….

Must it be so hard?

Human beings have a wonderful way of moving on with life and thankfully I don’t prove an exception to this….

It takes the most mundane thing to help me realize this... coffee… I stumble from my sense of despair… wake up and smell the coffee… this is the land of Starbucks… the land of consumerism, the land where all the case studies of Kotler came from… wake up and explore the world… I warm up to the brands and the malls and the promise of the American dream. The place provides me the ability to see a “better” me, a concept that keeps me pre-occupied. I enroll myself at the snazziest gym in town. Colleagues call me home for “Pongal” dinner. I discover the heavenly bakery treats on offer. Manage to find the locations of the best Thai and Mexican restaurant in town. Start looking for the best deals on offer in Shnucks, try my hand at picking up Spanish. It helps immensely that Americans are a friendly community… their smiles warm up the heart…. They also like my sense of humor :) or atleast most do…

Life I realize is not bad just a bit different. So what if it’s a few degrees colder than back home, so what if no understands expletives in Hindi, so what if milk is available in gallons and not liters … loved ones are still a message, mail or call away:). The heart has the ability to transcend the longest of physical distances…

Comforted by these thoughts and the central heating I snuggle into a peaceful sleep in my blanket or the comforter as they call it here:)

Next morning, I find myself on the 8:36 to Union… I smile as I gaze at the billboard of a popular Vodka brand… “Life is calling. Where are you?”… I smile and thank God for this opportunity…

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"

Some wonderful thoughts brought alive by U2.....

I have climbed the highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run,
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil

It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the kingdom come

Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I'm still running
You broke the bonds and youLoosed the chains
Carried the cross
And my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Mangalore Diaries

The first thing that strikes you about Mangalore even before you deplane is the deep red soil, the magnificent view of the never-ending coastline and the heady mix of blue and the green that only the sea can reflect.

A sneak preview into paradise is brought to an almost unwanted halt as the plane changes its course abruptly and manages to find an air-strip in what seems like an unending expanse of coastal greenery. Even the airport in its attempt to co-exist with nature is perched perilously on a hill-top. The airport is refreshingly efficient albeit a bit small.

My guest house is almost an hour’s drive and I am excited at the prospect of a firsthand glimpse of the town which to me has till now be in a small dot on the western coast of our country. One of the most rewarding experience for any new-comer to a coastal city is the sheer joy of catching a glimpse of the ocean when you least expect it. I spend the first half off my journey craning my neck with this very purpose in mind, I have no such luck. My driver sensing how I feel remarks that we are atleast 20 kms off the general direction of the coast. Miffed, I sit back and try to concentrate on the more mundane things.

Most roads on the way seem to be under construction and bias is towards concrete. I encounter no working traffic lights. I attribute it to a lazy Sunday afternoon. I manage to sight an MG road and a Moti Mahal restaurant.... India’s most favourite names for a street and a restaurant respectively. The amazing thing throughout the drive is the absence of significantly prosperous or significantly not so well off areas. There are no slums to speak of and at first glimpse; it seems that the Mangaloreans enjoy a good standard of living. This of course is a testimony to the hard work and enterprise of the locals who took advantage of the Gulf employment boom.
In the evening, I go to the nearest beach which is the other end of the town... Panumbur... it’s the Mangalorean counterpart of Juhu... but thankfully its cleaner, less commercialized and substantially less crowded. I miss the sunset thanks to the good trains that blocks the only way to the beach. I am merely amused and attribute it to the idiosyncrasies of small town India. I make subsequent trips to this beach... but strangely miss the sunsets on every occasion. I do the usual tourist stuff and click snaps with gay abandon. In my attempt to capture the beauty around me forever, I later realise that I have missed it altogether.

In Mangalore, you are always surrounded by history. A small walk from the urban jungle and you could find yourself in an area known as Temple Square... and you could mistake yourself for being in Mahabalipuram, Thanjavur or Konark. At every other nook and corner are delightful little pre-colonial era cottages and pristine churches. In Mangalore, the new and old co-exist harmoniously. To my untrained eyes, there are glimpses of Goa or is it the imagination of a tired mind longing for a break.

On most days, I am busy with work and don’t get much time for sight-seeing. My impression about Mangalore is formed by what I see on the road to work and the people I meet. How a city travels, how it makes the outsiders feel, what it eats and how it treats its women says a lot about the city. Mangalore scores very highly on all these.

I use all possible modes of travel... the office, the city bus and the autos. All of them are refreshingly efficient. I am greatly impressed by the way natives have embraced Hindi. It’s the first sign towards making an outsider feel at home. The traffic of course is maddening at peak hours and the horns used by motorists here are significantly louder than anywhere else that I have gone.

At work, I am surprised by the refreshingly helpful nature of everyone around... I also notice that “Pai” and “Shetty” are the most popular surnames:)

Mangalore doesn't pretend to be anything that it is not... It may be a sleepy old town on the western coast... but it treats its citizens well... is a convenient and safe place... some sort of a family man's paradise......To some extent though it lives in the shadow of Bangalore. Most vernacular newspapers have more news items concerning its “prosperous” cousin. Mangalore to me means the much needed time for introspection... this is not a conscious effort but comes naturally... may be its the effect of the sea:)

The human mind usually sets off a trail of comparisons and judgements when confronted with something that is not routine. My stay in Mangalore is one such experience.

As I prepare for my journey back to Pune, I try to recollect the best of Mangalore...it’s not the unspoilt beaches that come to my mind, not the temples or the churches or the quaint by-lanes. I take with me the idea of a life much different from the one I currently lead, much simpler and certainly less complex. Mangalore then to me is not just a place.... but a way of life... I leave with the hope of keeping with me the solace and peace found here forever.

Like most small towns in India, Mangalore stands at the cusp of urban development.... One just hopes that is wise enough to learn the lessons from its counterparts across the country. A Mangalore on the map of India is any day better than another “prosperous” concrete jungle.

While the world ran!

They changed the name of the company and the sea changed its colour... it was all red now... welcome change from the shocking pink of the previous edition... the Pune marathon i.e. .....

Never mind the colour or the celebrities; it was the cause that took centre stage... the cause of spreading awareness against AIDS.

Run for the cause and for your own small cause was the message that was plastered all over Pune days before the marathon. A unique way of motivating Puneites to participate in large numbers..

For me it had started with a promise. Selfishly the thought of running for one’s own small cause kept me pre-occupied and even motivated me through the gym schedules that my body no longer agrees to it as easily.... perhaps it’s finally got a mind of its own... well that’s a story unto itself... back to the main story now...

To the big day now... 2nd December 2007... An early start to a Sunday and soon I was swarmed by the huge mass of humanity engulfed in bright red t-shirts at Deccan Chowk... Pune had responded and how....

I hadn’t the best preparation for the marathon... the motivating factor had gone away and somehow I couldn’t get myself to train the way I used to before. Overindulgence in Diwali and then an untimely illness and I was tempted to not participate at all. It’s too cold for an early morning run, I have work, It’s a Sunday, who cares If I run or not, I am not too well... I had a whole host of excuses.....my body and more importantly my mind was in no mood for this at all...

It was all to too easy to give away... but there was still a small part of me... the part that still clings on to the beautiful memories of the past with the hope that the future will be much the same... urging me on....

And so I ran...luckily my legs didn’t freeze or I didn’t faint out of exhaustion as I had half dreaded...in the end it was over before I realized... it may have just been 4.5 kms but the finish line seemed more monumental and significant than that at that instant.

And I as waited for my tears to mingle with the sweat, I felt more relief than happiness... while the world ran, I had kept my promise ...the motivation was back....

Of Jelly Beans, Howel(s) and missed chances

The recently concluded test series between India and England ended in a 1-0 win for us. For most cricket lovers around the country, it may mean our team moving that much closer to the utopian concept of the world’s best test playing nation. I will however remember the series for all the non-cricketing (wrong?) reasons. My 2 years of B-school education followed by more than a year at a leading IT organization have somehow molded me to think only in terms of bullet points. So here it goes:

1. Jelly Beans:

Main Entry: jelly bean
Function: noun: a sugar-glazed bean-shaped candy
Being a child in the pre-liberalization era was never easy. One of the disadvantages was never getting the chance to get close to a jelly bean. A jelly bean was round and sweet… or so I gathered from the Enid Blyton books.

All this changed during the course of this test series…. Messrs Prior and Peterson decided to revisit primary school, play the clown, and poke some fun at Zacs by “bombarding” him with jelly beans. They ended up in annoying the big man and the rest is history.

My word of advice: Things that are meant for eating should be eaten and not thrown at others. If you have food to waste, please think again. You are no longer our colonial masters… 60 years should be long enough to understand this fact. And yes… thanks for the wonderful Independence Day Gift. Like they say “Hum Lagaan Nahin Denge”!

2. Umpire Ian Howell:

A newspaper headline summed up my feelings:
“Not Elite and it shows”

My question to the ICC, how do you decide who officiates in test matches. Do you have a proper policy for umpires in place? If so, please revisit it coz one Mr. Ian Howell should not be allowed within 2 km radius of a cricket field, let alone officiate in one. By the end of the series, most people expected wrong decisions and the correct ones were greeted with a surprise usually reserved for finding an empty seat on the 7:13 pm Andheri fast local.

I would recommend the following training sessions for Mr. Howell:
a. “Umpiring for Dummies”
b.“LBW”: Introduction (including full form), Meaning, Practical Case Studies and of course revisiting past mistakes.
c.“The Art of Player Recall”: Issues, Challenges and virtues of fair play.
d. Don’t raise your finger unless it’s out”. - A practical guide to giving up the temptation of raising your finger just because it’s yours.
e.“Don’t Play God”: The Do’s and Don’ts of umpiring.
A small word for Umpire Bucknor: Is it not time for you to play cricket with great grand children? And by the way thanks for bailing us out in the first test match. It doesn’t however mean we are ok with your decision to give Sachin “shoulder before wicket out”. I hope you remember that. That was hilarious, now that I think of it. You have a sense of humor after all.

3. Monty Singh Panesar:

This young man won the hearts of millions of cricket fans as he huffed and lumbered across the cricket field. The monumental cheers he received whenever he touched a cricket ball or bat or merely “waltzed” across the field bear testimony to the fact that an earnest albeit a gawky striver is appreciated by one and all. His comment to Sourav after the latter hit him for a six was particularly endearing “Yaar bacche hain, thoda dheere se maro.”

4. Where have all the centuries gone? :

India reached scores of 201, 282, 481, 73, and 664,180 in the six innings of test matches it played. And surprisingly only one century and that too from Anil Kumble. The Big 4 fired at times but never crossed the three figure mark. Perhaps not the way they would have liked to finish up with in their last series in England. May be a sign that experience must give way to young Turks??

5. Warming the bench:

This series was perhaps unique in the sense that there were no substitutions from either team and the same teams battled each other for three test matches. Few lucky people had an all expense paid holiday. Oh heck we won so no one will complain.

6. Coach anyone:

A full fledged tour and no coach? Sounds funny right? Move over Guru Greg, Grandpa Borde is here. 74 year old Chandu Borde was handed over the role of the manager of Indian Cricket Team. I wonder what cricketers 50 years younger called him. It is said that Chandu Borde has a habit of forgetting names, calling Sourav Ganguly Gaurav Ganguly and Wasim Salim (I assume he remembered Salim Durrani). May be what he brought to the dressing room were peals of laughter and that lightened the mood.

A neutral observer of the game would probably not rate this test series as among the best. It was after all the battle of two relatively weak cricketing teams, a battle between an ageing batting line up and a bowling attack sorely missed the Harmisons, Hoggards and the Flintoffs but for reasons best known to me, I’m going to tell Gautam Begde Jr. all that I will remember from the 2007 Series just as my old man told me about the 1971 series :).

8 Facts about Me!

I have been tagged by Nandita….here goes….

I have been thinking about this for quite some time now. Probably for all of the 27 years of my existence on this planet. Surprisingly it wasn’t as easy I thought it would be. I guess it’s difficult to mould and cleave the truth to present 8 socially acceptable and impressive facts about oneself. So here it goes 8 facts…. The truth about myself as I know it:

1. I LOVE my name: I love to spell out my whole name-Gautam Prabhakar Begde. I sign out my full name at the smallest opportunity with a flourish worthy enough to put to shame rock stars, sports stars and business tycoons all put together. I love to see my name in print and visualize my name on all the important notices, emails, letters, offices etc. I feel my name gives me some kind of a cosmic edge over everyone else.
2. I LOVE numbers: I love to dazzle people with mathematical calculations. Close friends are targeted most often. Saying something like “If you add 9 to 4743 and multiply the result by 33, u will get the square of 396” gives me a great high.
3. I set impossible targets: I love setting impossible targets for myself. Something like running a half-marathon or trying to be the most well read person among all the people I know. Usually I fail but I end up with a lot more than I had expected.
4. I LOVE the Sea: There is no sight more beautiful than the ocean with its infinite shades of blues and greens all contributing to present a spectacle that man can never replicate. I love the calming effect of the sea, its magical effect of relieving one of all his/her worries and feel one with the world. I love the sea… and loathe people who regard it as just a huge body of sea.
5. I am great fan of sweet corn soup… A Chinese meal or if I can help it any meal is incomplete without it. It’s a habit bordering on the verge of addiction. A friend of mine used to think its extremely endearingJ.
6. I talk a lot to myself…. Even during a conversation with someone, I tend to trail into a conversation with my inner self. Not many people notice this but people close to me find this amusing and sometimes extremely irritating.
7. I strongly believe that Tendulkar batting at his best is as close as we will see God in action.
8. I love pampering people close to me. I like transforming people close to me into imaginary kids that need to be taken care of all the time. It borders on madness… some people will vouch for that.
9. Oops I have come to 9… couldn’t help it…. I love no 9. I think it’s the most balanced number in the number set... Another fact-my destiny number is also 9.

My Biggest Learning

The lights are dim, the AC strong and the conversation incoherent for my unresponsive brain. The stale coffee is my solitary refuge. Why I am doing this? My mind trails off in a chain of random thoughts ranging from my current crush to the BCG Matrix. My few minutes of solitude are broken by a request to do something I don’t even understand. It’s like answering a question when the question is in a language unknown to me. This time around the language is a computer one. I nod and trudge back heavily to my cubicle. It’s going to be an uneasy time... all over again. This is happening far too frequently for my liking. I look at the watch… it will be over soon... I assure myself.

Here I am. My typical work day is summed up in endless java commands and the much to my anguish the omnipresent IE500 error screens.

Flashback a couple of years or even less than that. I am surrounded by theories of manipulating the 4P’s to achieve marketing excellence. My mind absorbs all of what I read and parallelly my heart subconsciously paints a future for me… a life content with selling toothpastes, cola drinks or potato chips. It seems like the perfect picture.
Fate however has other ideas. I finish b-school and end up with code review, code rework; patch installation and loads of excel sheets thrown in for company. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning strategies are thrown away.

I have two options… sulk or make most of it. Sulking seems easy and comes naturally to me. Wait a minute… the code is running just when I am going to give up.... Some up there likes me. I am finally getting somewhere.

It must be a sign (I am the kind who lives his life by these signs). Its coding that I must do… it seems the correct option.

I have just learned the biggest lesson of my life…. “Unlearning is the biggest learning” Kotler and his theories will always be a bitter-sweet memory.

Sweet Memories!

“Whenever you go for ice-cream, let the lady choose the flavor. That way it’s not just the ice-cream that seems sweet to her”

It was not even in the scheme of things and yet it seemed perfect as it unfolded. For the outside world, it didn’t seem too much. For the two people it was the happiest moment of the day.

Let’s have ice-cream was the unanimous verdict that was reached even before lunch was ordered. Lunch was a delightful combination of great food and each other’s excellent company. The conversation was carried through not just by the words that were spoken.

His mind was in an eternal quandary. Should he finish the lunch fast and move on to ice-cream… something which would bring that beautiful smile onto her already pretty face or eat slow and enjoy few more minutes of her company. The Pasta she was having made up his mind for him… or rather the black pepper seeds in it…. There were far too many of them to let them continue the meal. So the pasta abandoned… they moved onto sweeter things.

She could never make up her mind…. How he liked the confused childlike expression on her face. It seemed to have the magical property of transporting them back to their childhood, when life was so easy, where life seemed complete with just an ice-cream cone in one’s hands.
Narrow your choice down to two… he pleaded to her. She would of course take her time…. And in the end chose her ice-cream and unknowingly influence his also (not that he ever complained… it was always sweeter to eat what she chose for him).

The difficult task over, they found a place to sit in the food court, which was not difficult since most people were back at their desks. Ice-cream then it was for the two out-grown kids in a world of adults. She invariably preferred the ice-cream he chose. He loved this part the most. He would leave the best part for her… always. It seemed the best thing to do… her smile was what he enjoyed the most… the ice-cream by comparison a distant second.

Like unwilling kids, they went back to their desks. But they knew they would meet again…. And there would always be ice-cream and the beautiful time all over again.

Illusions!

It has been an unusual day, an unusual Saturday. I have spent a major part of the day in office and then at the gym. Tired and wary of the sun that that seems to shine at its prickly best even though it’s almost time for it to pass on the baton to the night sky, I seek refuge in the air-conditioned environs of the on campus departmental store.

The strong A/C is enough to numb my senses and ignore the wise adage “Never enter a shop without a list or at least a purpose” and I soon find myself walking the endless aisles lined with products that promise me a “better life”. I succumb eventually and as I turn to the stationery section, I have consumed almost the whole of a high calorie chocolate effectively negating my entire gym session in a matter of minutes.

I turn my attention to the writing material on display. I haven’t had an idea to pen on paper for some time now and yet I’m drawn to it almost for some kind of inspiration.
It’s the name that catches my attention. I ignore it but it seems to be all over the place. Some marketing manager has decided to name a particular series of registers “Illusions”. What an absurd name I think to myself. However on second thoughts it seems extremely appropriate. We do really live in a world of illusions or rather we live our life through a maze of illusions. The meaning of our existence on this planet will always be clouded by the illusions painted for us by the people who chose to live theirs in them. Let’s begin with this piece of writing material itself. Market it as a ladder to success and some gullible student will fall for it, brainwashed that a good academic career ensures success in life. Somewhere down the line he will mistake success for happiness. Thus even before he can understand the meaning of “Illusion”, he would have started living his life in one.

My train of thoughts is interrupted by the store-owner who is looking at me impatiently. Its past closing time. “Do you want anything or you just wanted to enjoy the A/C” his eyes seems to ask me accusingly. I hurriedly buy myself one of THE registers and another of those chocolates. I smile as I do so. Atleast I have worked past one of my illusions..”..I will never be the next Sylvester Stallone”

Where is the Life I wanted?

Each day I am awake with that same feeling
A small part of me is leaving
Each day seems like the end of some beginning
Somewhere in this crowd, it’s my identity that I’m losing

My mind’s full of questions no one seems interested in answering.
Where am I running?
Why am I running?
Where is the life that the glib talking salesmen were selling?

It’s that same empty feeling
The one that seems to have no meaning
The one that cannot be filled by the riches I’m accumulating
Yet I feel it like my own breathing
I fail to fight this empty feeling
It’s that time which I’m longing
When I no longer feel this need of running

I ask for the beautiful moments to freeze
Give myself a few seconds to breathe
But somehow I’m not at ease
Something somewhere disturbs my peace
Why do I hang on to things fleeting as these?

I lie, but never sleep
Not for me those beautiful dreams
I twist and turn
It’s the morning sun I yearn.

And yet morning brings the same old feeling!

Cursed!

Do you believe in the supernatural? Ever had the feeling that some unknown force up there knows all the cards in your hand and deals out the game exactly the way it wishes.

Well I have been feeling this way for some time. It happens with such uncanny knack that I am convinced that some thing out there is working against me. I would like to refer to this force as “CC” for the time being.

It’s a long story… I will begin from the start. The story is more about the house and not so much about me really. I just happen to live there. And that is something that CC doesn’t like I think. We have a beautiful house… tastefully done up, a welcoming patio, small green area in the front and back, a great location, friendly neighbors, a lovely breeze all the time, a wonderful view of the night sky… enough for us to take up the house without much persuasion. It seemed too good really at that time. Little did we know the price we would have to pay for it?

I still remember the day it happened for the first time… we were watching a much awaited India Australia cricket match… and the lights went out… … we missed most of the match including Tendulkar’s masterful innings. We attributed it to our bad luck and thought nothing about it at that time. Little did we know CC had started its work.

Then it happened again… this time the cable connection was lost and we missed the entire match. This happened 2 days in our row…enough to drive me to the verge of madness.

Then CC decided to get meaner…. It allowed us to glimpses of cricket but only when we played at our abysmal lowest. CC was particularly harsh on Sachin…

There is one thing I have to acknowledge… how CC came up with novel ways to deprive us of our dose of the nation’s favorite past time. Sometimes we had no cable connection because the cable got stolen. On other occasions it rained like cats and dogs on match days in places that otherwise are known as mini-Saharas.

The final nail in the coffin came with the World Cup… Ashwin got sent to US on business…which meant he would miss the majority of the world cup, Himanshu is not really the one to sweat about wickets and runs, so technically I was bracing for the full fury of CC. What would CC dish out this time? Volcano? Or perhaps a cyclone in Pune? CC was smart… not one to lift a finger without reason… we just go knocked out in the first round… I could almost picture CC beaming as the last Indian wicket fell.

I have never seen an hour of good cricket ever since I have shifted into our house… CC has won…I no longer watch cricket at home… rather catch glimpses of it standing in front of electronic shops… I think its helping... we are doing better these… we just beat Bangladesh twice over in 2 keenly contested matches…. May be we can make it three in a row…who knows… CC I hope you are not listening.

P.S: For the uninitiated, CC=Cricket Curser.