Cricket, Sachin and me

“Sachin…Sachin” and set of claps… All done in unison and rhythm by a capacity crowd (20,000 to 80,000).. It is extremely usual and routine scene at any Indian cricket venue when Sachin Tendulkar walks on to the field for ODI to open the batting or at number 4 position in tests. It gets louder if he carries on and usually he does. Now-a-days, he gets standing ovation wherever he goes even by other team supporters. Whenever Team India tours some country like Australia, people leave no empty chairs behind. They want to see the match and get glimpses of their hero. The general consensus amongst the crowd is they want their respective team to win but want Sachin to score. Remember “Win the crowd, Maximus” from the movie The Gladiator? He has gone beyond that. People think they have

Just saw a video of crazy fans following Indian team and Sachin especially at Sydney Cricket Ground. One guy trying to cheer said “Hey Sachin, Good luck!”. He has captured the imagination of the whole cricketing world and what we can say about cricket crazy Indians. They think Sachin is theirs. He is their family. His runs are their runs. If you have a bad day at office, one might not sleep well. If it happens to be Sachin, whole India might not sleep well. Since the time he showed up on the scene 20 years ago, one name won’t even be discussed as it will be on everyone’s list. He is the pole star of Indian cricket. Everything revolves around him. He is a decent man and doesn’t like to get involved in controversies or say anything stupid. He has always been like that. So, when Sachin speaks, the world listens. Whatever you write on him won’t be enough to describe his greatness.

How come he is so amazing? Does he know magic or something? Is the God? None! He is just human being who is blessed with some of the physical abilities such excellent eye sight, good temper, etc. He tried cricket when he was 11. He liked it. It became his passion. He worked extremely hard on his game. His definition hard work is freaky and almost impossible for normal humans. He once batted in 50 odd games in a day at Shivaji Park, Mumbai. Even today, after achieving everything possibly one can in cricket, he works as hard as anybody (sometimes more if he thinks there is a need for it) around. What do we learn here?

If you follow your passion, add hard work (touch more than what others consider) ,have work ethics and attitude like Sachin, everything will follow you. Hardly passed 10^th grade guy has earned more success than a PhD can achieve in his/her 10 life times. Some conservative Indian mentalities still can’t see it and yell at their kid for doing well in sport and flunking in a math test. Math and Science is not everything,is it?

He has revolutionized Indian cricket style and inspired lot youngsters. Some of them are his team mates now. How incredible is that! All of this has made already cricket crazy nation to go in hysteria and how I would have stayed out of this whirlwind? I grew watching Sachin play. When Sachin plays, earth stops moving, everything has to stop. When Sachin gets out cheaply, TV gets turned off and everyone trudges back to the business talking how he could have left that delivery outside off stump than edging it. There has to be a new law in physics “Sachin’s runs in match are directly proportional to people’s happiness”.

I love Cricket more than any other sport. I follow cricket more than anything else. First thing I check every morning is cricinfo.com to find out what’s the latest news in cricket world. I can watch a good bat and ball contest between any teams (sometimes it annoys the heck out of friends and family.. Sorry I can’t help it). Moreover, I die to play cricket whenever I can. And it happened today! I got a chance to have authentic net session in Brooklyn. I played on a season ball seriously after 4-5 years. How was it for me today?

Alright! Not too bad!.. my feet were not moving amazingly well enough. I had some problems with getting on front foot and I tried to play one airy-fairy stroke and nicked it. Besides that, I had extreme fun! No swing and misses, no blows on body, no rash shots.. I got in line alright, middled them ok, showed straight bat, played some flicks and square cuts(my fav).Timing was there. Here’s my favorite bit of it. When I was playing, I was totally focused there. I forgot about all the issues.. forgot about everything in the world. I was just watching the ball hitting my bat. Is this what they call a Nirvana? Whatever it is called, when you get into that stage then you know you absolutely love that activity! I was lucky to get it today.

So, we are off to a good start in cricket. I will keep you posted about any awesome updates from my little world of cricket. I’ve gotta get back to watching Sachin’s batting on youtube and if I get enough time I will finish the book by Chetan Bhagat on Cricket, business and a crazy guy.

Thanks of reading this…:)

2009...

What a year it was! Drama, chaos,problems...emotions..success..everything. I have so much to write about. I wish if I can write down about everything that happened but those things are too personal to put it here. I hope you understand.... There will be some post for 2010 for sure.

Take care.....

On 60th Anniversary of free(?) India......

Happy independence day to everyone. Yes , I salute to those who kept this flame of independence glowing. If we look at our neighbor we are certainly little ahead but should we be satisfied with it? Should we feel the sense of accomplishment at this point?

Abraham Lincoln says Freedom is in people’s minds. Can we say that we are completely free at this moment? Lets take a look at the recent issues of banning FTV and AXN in India. Information and Broadcasting Minister PR Dasmunshi told Karan Thapar that the programs shown on these channels were off “bad taste” and then he constantly swayed away from defining what he means by bad taste. Is this a responsible behavior by a minister? Doesn’t it seem like moral policing? Shouldn’t the Indian adults get the right to decide themselves that what is off good taste and what is not?

Mahatma Gandhi said "Freedom has come to the Indian nation, not to the Congress party." I don’t think congress party really cares about this. Political dynasty and nepotism are their ways of working. If you look all the young MPs from this party, you will find that they’ve gotten the tickets because of their fathers and not themselves. By choosing people like these are we not jeopardizing our freedom? Common man will always suffer because of this.

Are we safe in India? According to IBN reports, anyone can buy an Indian passport for Rs.7500. Anyone can become legal Indian citizen with all the valid documents in around Rs.25000. Has the system become so corrupt that it is not ignoring safety and security of nation? Indian soldiers fight for us and officials in Government offices just blow their efforts in seconds for some thousands of rupees. Are we really safe in India considering the growing rate of corruption?

Are we free to learn? Answer is no. Even after 60 years of independence we still rely on caste based reservations in education system. When will really deserving person get a seat in IITs?
Shouldn’t be this reservation system be only economic? Are we making the matters worse here?

I have great respect for those all who fought for the freedom. The question is do politicians care about them except taking advantage of their deeds? Why do we still hear insulting remarks about Veer Savarkar or Bhagat Singh from so called responsible people like Union Ministers?
Is the independence was credit of only one party? There were lots of external factors responsible for involved as well which are often ignored. How about the effect of Second World War on independence of Britain’s colonies? What about Franklin D Roosevelt’s condition of freeing the colonies after the war for the help to Churchill?

I think, though we have 60 years of independence we are still very young as a society. We have a lot to do.

(I wrote this as a response to Rajdeep Sardesai's blog.He is India's leading journalist.I don’t know if this response will be selected or not. )

PS-- Oops I almost forgot... anyways.. for those who dont know "Oowach" is a sanskrit word which means says...

Have fun guys..

"Rishtey - you are into"

Rishtey:


Rishtey, Relation, and in my own Marathi we call it “ Nata”. What exactly this word is all about? Has any one completely understood them? What does it mean to you? Who can have relations? Do we need to have relation with people/things all the time? Not having relation is also a kind of relation right? Wow…. Barrage of questions… do you have answer to them?.. ok let me start putting my views about these…

There are two types of relations from my point of view. One is blood relations and other one is acquired one. Let me start with the blood relations. We take birth and first thing or person we look for is “mom”. I remember one very cute and relevant scene from movie Dr.Doolittle starring Edy Murphy. Baby alligator comes out of egg and starts calling every animal in front of it mommy. One animal(I don’t exactly rememeber which one was it) says “Hey I am not your mommy”..Dog next to him says “ don’t look at me”.. It was very nice and emotional scene. Anyways, what relation do we have with our mother?
Books are written over this special relation. For me I think, Mom’s place is the safest place one can ever imagine on earth. There is guarantee that she will never ever allow her child to get hurt. I know irrespective of their age, everyone would always love to be there all the time. We still have unfortunate exceptions to this. Then there is father. He affects your life in different way altogether. For every kid his father is like a hero who can take care of every situation. Collectively mother and father as parents affect the life in different manner as well.

Now how this relation with mom and pop get affected severely with time. I am sure that every young guy in his early 20’s thinks that his father’s gone crazy. Every girl in her 20’s thinks that mom asks too many questions and keep giving suggestions which are not required. I read very one very interesting thought as one of the Subhashitha (versa) in Sanskrit Subhashithmalas( poems). Roughly it was something like this. Up to 4 years of age, parents should treat kid with all the care in the world. Parents should make his/her every wish come true. From 4 to 10 years of age, he should be beaten/slapped if he makes a mistake. From 10 to 15 he should be explained and taught about the mistakes. After 15 onwards parents should become friends. What a beautiful thought but how many parents follow it? Are we forgetting our own teachings? Anyways, we saw relation with our parents changing with our age. One can also say that their own age matters to it as well. My question is are will it be same for us? Are we set up to go through the same things that our parents are going through? What will our children think about us? Alright then there is one other blood relation ;siblings. Brother and sisters. Well I would not like to talk much about these.I have decided to keep the lenght limited so these guys will have to wait.

Ok Now I move to other type of relations Acquired ones. What the hell are these? From my point of view, this is how it works. Besides blood relations, we attain some relations along the way. We sometimes unintentionally or intentionally spend time with people. We exchange our thoughts. We discuss our views. We exhibit our mind-set. We share things. With some, you think that the other person is jerk and you cannot get along with him/her at all. With some, you don’t have to think anything; you just spend more time with them as you like the company of other person. Then after some time you pass one stage of being acquaintances to attain more meaningful relation called friendship. With your best friends, have you realized any time that how you guys have become very good friends ? Amazing isn’t it? With these “best friends” you can share anything. You tell them everything. You trust him completely. You help each other out without any condition. One day I was talking to my budd who I am friends with since school days. He cracked a joke on something which needed a reference of a thing happened with us 10 years ago and I picked it immediately. He never had to explain. It was very good feeling. Then about these best friends you always talk you summarize your rapport with words like wavelength, frequency etc. I would like to go into physics a little bit. I call it resonance. When objects with same natural frequency come together, one starts vibrating other joins it, this is called resonance. You must have experienced this with your friend million times. Sometimes things get on peak like sachin’s form in 1998, you say same things at the same time. Then we think how the hell in the world you also said the same thing? To other’s envy, you always seem to be talking nicely with each other. Some guys try to make your relations murky. Initially you also fell into the trap but the strong bond brings you back. For me friedship stands tall above every relation. Like said before parents also should play part of friends upto an extent after the 15 years of age.

Ahan one other interesting point I came across is this. We often see men childhood friends who keep their friendship till the end of their life. We sometimes call them “langotiya yar”. They remain friends forever. Why cant we see women childhood friends that often? Forget often, I wonder if anyone has seen such women friends at all. Now please don’t raise ridiculous point about the attire the friendship named after.. My dear friends, please put your light on it especially girls. Just reminder, I am not raising any stupid male/female issues. I am just putting a things I came across with supported by the observations. I don’t have problem if I will be proved wrong here.

Now, Do we need to have some relation with people all the time? I think even if we like it or not we do have a relation with everyone. It may not be good but we have it. I have seen people sit together whole day share office, room, apartment, etc but they hardly have any relation. They hardly talk with each other. Sometimes they never fight nor they like each other. You may say that well then there is no relation. I call it neutral relation. For me, it is the dullest type of relation.


Then there is one interesting type of relation which has become very famous now a days\, E-relation or online relations. Everyone now a days seem to have atleast one friend who they just chat with or exchange social network messages (orkut scrapping). They exchange everything again but there is no necessity seeing each other or meeting each other. You sometimes share almost everything. You sometimes have nothing to lose as you guys don’t have any common friends or something but sometimes you lose everything. It can be dangerous. Here what I mean to say is this. It can also become meaningful and good relation. I personally have few very good online friends. They are not only good to talk to but sometimes they also have come up with very good suggestions when needed. To summarize this one I would say every coin has two sides so be careful.


Well, I like to analyze situations and give suggestions if asked. In past, people have always felt comfortable in discussing their problems about their relations with me. I think it was because of trust. I have some bizarre truths with me but they will never come out because breaking trust is the last thing I can ever do to a person. This doesn’t mean that you should start sending me emails about it right now.. so chill… You might be saying “ Ya ya whatever…enough . move ahead now”.

Then people have unusual and extraordinary relations with non human things. Some may love their age old traditional house; some may love their vintage watch, car, sports instruments, pets and what not. About pets I won’t be able to talk much as I never enjoyed them much. My friends have so they might be able to comment on their relations. Anyways things, I have very special relation with some things. The cricket bats I have and had would be right at the top for me. I never ever liked anyone else to touch them. I was and I am very possessive about them. Currently I have three of them though I am not playing much of cricket. I like grooming them. Then I have my Ferrari set. I am crazy about it. Their scarlet red color has done some voodoo on me. I have collected their accessories, their uniform and…………………………………………………………………………………………..
the car itself…

You must be thinking what? He has Ferrari? The guy is talking anything now. It is Sunday night…. He needs to sleep… but my answer is yes I do have a Ferrari. I have Ferrari’s 248 F1 Formula one car used by Michael Schumacher himself in 2006. Recently my caption on orkut and gtalk has raised lot of eye brows and I received lot of questions about it. For those who haven’t noticed it , it is something like this “ She is beautiful. My dream:18 come true”.. Intelligent people must have gotten what I am trying to say.. for others I am writing the next line.. I have 1:18 scale model of Ferrari and hence Dream : 18 come true. I know those who read the previous line must be thinking. They have pushed me down from Mount Everest with my little beauty…

The point I am making is I have some strong connection with Ferrari and all the collectibles I have. I take that car, examine it, clean it everyday and then I think if I were born in Marinello, Italy( home of Ferrari).

Do u have any connection like I have with Ferrari? I would love to know that.

And then I think of one greatest thing man has ever developed. I just cannot live with out it. We have some extraordinary relationship. I am thankful to it for giving me opportunity to earn my living at the moment.


(PS – I know lot of folks would be saying I missed out one type of relation i.e. love. I ignored it because of two reasons. First it is hackneyed and hindi movies have already given enough “gyan”(knowledge) about it. Second, it is infinite chasm in which if you fall, you can hardly return and hence making the discussion endless. Lot of people must be wondering with the blogs name. Oowach is sanksrit word. Intelligent people figure out the meaning.. others find answer in next one...lol)

Sorry for the Grammar mistakes and other small things.