Not just another article about Sachin

According to Indian standards, I was a rather late entrant into the cricket fan club. The earliest I can remember was when I used to wonder why are all players named India, as I was unable to read the complicated names of the players (that was a time when I used to read 'national' as 'natio-nal', so my vernaculars were not that accomplished). I used to sit in front of the TV with excited elders without being able to make anything out of it.

Cut to 1996: I was in my village, still no more interested in cricket than I was a few years ago. World Cup was underway then. That was when people were talking about a certain Jayasuriya. People in our village used to say "he is pissing fire". Then one day, people flocked to the only radio (brand Santosh) in our family, shouting every time the audibly excited commentator raised his voice. Someone said, in delirium, Sachin hit a century. My uncle (he was a student then and i remember him noting down the details of every match in his diary) took the radio with him to the hand pump where he had to wash. Only after filling out one bucket, he started cursing everyone as the commentators raised their voices again. Only this time they were clearly heard, as in the stadium there was a pin-drop silence. Sachin, apparently was out on 136. And that seemed to matter a lot to everyone. From my sixty year old grandfather to the "lower caste" guy who worked on our field discussed his innings, his career in detail. The love story began with that match. When i later saw him on TV, he looked so much like us- with such a cute smile. But boy, didn't he look perfect in his helmet when he took guard!

Till this date, I don't think any batsman looks as beautiful as Sachin when he takes guard. I can't explain it in cricketing terms, but there's something about that look on his face, the way the helmet sits on his head, the way he lifts his bat that makes him all the more endearing. For all my childhood, when like all ignoramuses I too believed that test cricket is boring, Sachin's batting was the only thing i could watch even if he played really slowly.

I was raised in a family where discipline was paramount. There was a fixed time to study, fixed time to play and a fixed time to watch TV (which was really less- the first time i watched cartoon was in my college). During ODIs, you could only watch the first 15 and the last 10 overs of India'a innings. The exception was made only when Sachin crossed 50. It was as if Sachin's century was more important than my studies, dad's office and ma's cooking. Even my bed-ridden grandfather who kept asking about the score from his room, would come to the TV room if Sachin was about to reach his century. We would discuss about his innings all day in school. Surprisingly, he was everybody's favorite. I used to read every word about him and the match in the paper the next day.

Sachin reached the peak of my admiration during the 2003 World Cup. The houses of cricketers were attacked, effigies burnt, ads featuring cricketers taken off air (Sachin's TVS ad was still being aired, though) after they had a disastrous start to the tournament. Sachin addressed the nation through a TV channel. He said something on the line of this:

"...we are very proud of the support that we have got from our people back home. We want to assure them that we are trying to perform to the best of our potential. It is your support that we need the most at this moment. Please be patient and pray for our success..."

In the next match against Zimbabwe, he scored 80 odd imperious runs. And for the rest of the tournament, he carried the team on his shoulders, fulfilling the promise he had made to nation.

There will be many great players to come. Even his record may not be permanent. But no one will care about his record when decides to leave the game. People will always remember the way he has made them happy for moments in their very complicated lives. Sachin is etched in our psyche in a way that he will never fade.

Blue Line Blues (...continued)

(The first part of the post was written a long time ago. Read it here before proceeding to read further.)

The metro ride, unfortunately is no longer the fun ride you imagined. One problem is the people. I have a theory about the buses in Delhi. "The capacity of a bus in Delhi is infinite." Most people who use metro these days were commuting by buses before the arrival of the metro trains. Add to that the number of people who still use buses as a means of commutation on the same route on which the metros run. That gives us the conclusion that buses can accommodate any number of people. How is a question which fails physics. And the bigger unanswered question is how on earth are people able to move from the back front to the front in the sea of people where even bacteria can not accommodate?

Coming back to the metro, its a sign of huge serpentine queues now- queues for tokens, queues for entry into the train, queues for exiting the station. There are people smashed against the glass doors, people clinging to the last cm sqr of the rod to support themselves. With seats reserved for the ladies and 'the old or physically challenged', metros have gone a step ahead. That's no respite, though even for the delectable ladies, what with all the boobs to handle and save them from getting squished. Poor creatures, they have to put theirs hands on their chests to save them from the kamini duniya. There should be a reservation for them on the floor too so that they have separate standing spaces.

Men are bastards. No, not because of their illicit love for woman's breasts. They can not not come in contact with women on metro even if they wish to. They are bastards because they fart. (This again is a bold assumption that only men do that, but c'mon, women can't do that in public!)

But the journey sure is quiet. I miss the shepherding of conductors.

A black canvas and nature's painting on it

It's 3 in the morning and it's one of those nights again when my eyes refuse the overtures of sleep. I lie on my bed, naked. My room mate is away, which gives me a chance to be in the state i love the most to be in- nature's state. A scooter rattles by, breaking the silence of the night and a brilliant flash of light passes through my room. I get up, sit down and look out of my window. Yellow, green, white- on one big black canvas- how i wish i had a paintbrush in my hand and i knew how to paint! The white tube light glowing under the green plastic shade of the cycle stand is giving out a magnificent green fluorescence, reminding me of the tube lights wrapped with green and red foils, dotting the streets of my village whenever there used to be a marriage or thread-ceremony (janau or upanayan) and which always fascinated me.

The street bathes in yellow light cascading from the street lamp. The leaves of the tree branch enveloping the street lamp glows with shiny yellow, the tree enjoying the limelight. Some lights flickering on some houses punctured the all encompassing darkness, darkness which fills every void, every space that is visible in the day light. Darkness fuzzes the contours, dissolving everything into a big, continuous object. It smoothens the rough edges, making it easier on the eyes and the mind. And that's why you can think in darkness, you can reminisce things or try to forget about them, you can meditate, you can day-dream. Because, darkness with it brings silence, crassness around don't bother you anymore, your mind is uncluttered. There is coolness, lightness.

A faint light enters my room through the window, the shadow of the window grills falls on the opposite wall, with the shadow of the leaves dancing in the breeze. What a painting!

A guy is roaming at this hour on the street, talking on the phone with his love. And oh, did i tell you- love blossoms in dark?

Just Yapping

• Time has whizzed past by this year, too many events in too short a time. That is the reason for me not writing? Yeah maybe or it may even be sheer laziness. The only place i have been putting my mind to writing has been my Facebook status message. And you guys, don't freak out yet. I won't be turning my blog into an almanac. I won't always be telling you what i did the whole day today, what did i have for lunch and stuffs- you are not my girlfriends, after all. This is just to refresh my blog page. So bear with me and read on.
• It's disappointing on my part to have never mentioned BAJA on my blog. It was something very special and deserves a separate post. While the world was partying on New Year's, we were breaking and remaking our car. Much more on this, very soon.
• Then Tata Steel came for internship. I scampered from here to there, collecting formal trousers, black shoes, blazer, tie, certificate folder (some guys even scampered for certificates), knowing all this time I don't have a chance in the world. I just scraped past the shortlisting criteria. GD was a cakewalk. Interview was the concern. if it was technical, i was a dead meat- it was clear as daylight. The interviewer started with my hobby. I knew the game was on my home ground. "Blogging and reading, sir." After that he served and i returned with grace. Blog, books, suspension- couldn't have been easier. They beat me like savages, like a mob beats a thief. My butts, my thighs, my balls, my eyes- I am sure they wouldn't have stopped even if i had died. 17 degrees, chicken, alcohol, expensive alcohol- the usual routine.
• February started real sweet. You pretend you don't need it, believing you are doing just fine. But only when you get it, you realise it was this touch you had been wanting all this while. The smell somehow lingers for a long time.
• I have resumed reading. Just got over with To Kill a Mockingbird, though i had already watched the movie. And i am flirting with non-fictions again, after having failed in my attempts earlier. India After Gandhi and Jesus Lived in India have been added to my book shelf.

ISM Dhanbad or IIT Dhanbad?

In the raging debate on whether ISM should be renamed IIT Dhanbad, we need to ask the correct question to reach to a proper conclusion. The question can be: ‘Does ISM deserve to be an IIT?’ or ‘Does ISM deserve to be changed into IIT?’

Does ISM deserve to be an IIT?

The answer is a resounding no. ISM is no doubt a world class institute for earth sciences (mining, petroleum, geology etc.) and it has been so since it’s inception in 1926. But ISM falls woefully short on innumerable counts if we talk about the institute as a whole. It has been about 10 years since ISM became a full fledged engineering institute. Still none of the new born departments can claim to hold the candles against the IITs.

Much has already been said and written about the shortcomings in ISM Dhanbad. This enthusiast here has put up a litany of points which can easily fit in this space. This blog has bared the ISM infrastructure to the bone. Though things have been exaggerated at times, still this will give you a clear picture of the point I am driving at.

Does ISM deserve to be changed into IIT?

By this I mean, does ISM deserve to be treated as the IITs are treated, and developed on the same lines as IITs? You see, changing the name can not be the answer to all our woes. I agree that a layman will assume you are a mining engineer once you mention ISM, companies like Microsoft may say “we do not recruit mining engineers” and “an ISMite” does not sound as impressive as “an IITian”. But come to think of it, is it only because of the name? If the Computer Science Department was as good as one of the IITs’ or some of the NITs’, corporate world must surely have heard of it. Don’t they know about petroleum engineering which probably is even better than mining in Indian School of Mines? Let’s be honest and face it- our engineering streams are not half good as IITs. So, time and energy must be invested first in making the institute world class, rather than renaming it.

Now you may ask, shouldn’t then every engineering college in India be fostered like the IITs? The answer is ISM should be given first preference. Practically speaking, it's not possible fot the government to invest such amount of money in every institute. The students coming here have qualified IIT JEE; it is obvious they should get into an IIT level institute. ISM attracts talent from all over the country only because of its affiliation to IIT JEE. Why would someone send their ward from Kerala to Dhanbad to study had it not been for this exam?

Some of us are worried about the opening of new IITs and consequent attrition in ISM’s intellectual capital because only lower ranked JEE qualifiers will opt for ISM. The concern is palpable but the reason again is not the name. People won’t come to ISM because ISM is not as good. Period. Let’s not fool ourselves that IITs are famous because they are named IITs. It’s because they have achieved excellence in their field. They would be as hallowed as they are now even if they were all named ISMs. The argument that people don’t know about other streams because we are named a mining college is flawed. Now that you are in the college and you know everything about it, that there are other branches, would you suggest someone BITS Pilani or ISM? If you’re be honest, it’ll be BITS, right?

I have never said that ISM should not be renamed as IIT as some of our alumni zealously argue. My point is transform ISM into IIT and then rename it rather than just renaming it. It can only be for the better, and if anything it certainly will not hamper ISM’s brand image, as they (the alumni) believe. How can an IIT tag be detrimental to some college’s brand?

The White Tiger: An opportunity missed

No wonder Aravind Adiga did not get the welcome Indians bestow with alacrity to any “Indian” achiever. We have a habit of thrusting Indianness on persons who have nothing to do with India except the fact that they happened to take birth here. Adiga missed out on a lot of print and prime time hours wasted on him where febrile media-men hail the “son of our soil” once again “beating the world” and immediately proclaim the “coming of age” of Indian cinema, Indian art, Indian writing in English, Indian Diaspora, etc etc. Adiga, on the contrary got a rather cold shoulder and at times, vehement criticisms because he held a mirror to our face, or at least he tried to.

This exactly was the reason why I was looking forward to The White Tiger. All the good stories about India’s emancipation, growth, advancement when you could see abject poverty all around you had started to make me feel nauseous. I had this feeling all this time that there a lay a great work on the poor of India, the kind of poverty which held no hope, gave you no chance to get out of it- “the darkness”. And Adiga’s book for me held promise. I brushed aside all the criticism of the book, believing it was merely a reaction because we can not face the truth.

But, unfortunately Adiga squandered the opportunity. The book starts off wonderfully. The anger, the frustration is palpable when he calls Indian democracy “a fucking joke”. But that was all to it. The novel then becomes an account of everything that is wrong with India, jotted down without any imagination or story. It starts looking more like a work of a journalist than a novelist. He miserably fails to portray the life of poor villagers, which according to me could have been the USP of the novel. The atrocity of the landlords and exploitation of the indigent seems to be taken straight out of a bollywood movie of the yore.

In the second half, the book completely comes apart. What the hell was going on in Delhi? What was your point, Adiga? That drivers need to do all kinds of household work, that ministers take bribe (that won’t sound like news to anyone), that rich people should not fuck whores, that killing your employer was the only way you could make big?

It’s not Adiga’s fault. He wrote about India, but he didn’t write for Indians. Whatever we see around daily may make an interesting read for Americans and British. So, in that way Adiga is even successful. But an Indian will be disappointed after reading this book. If you have to read about the smaller India, I would still recommend English, August. Chatterjee surely knows more about the India of “darkness” than Adiga can even imagine.

Now the big question: did The White Tiger deserve a Booker? First, what does the jury try to look for in a novel?  Those of you who have read Life of Pi will agree that if a trash like that can win the prize, any other novel can. I seriously think the credibility of the prizes is questionable. It’s hard to believe that Life of Pi or The Inheritance of Loss were the best books written in the whole of England and CW nations in the years of their winning. And a Booker for The White Tiger? What a fucking joke!

९६९१

निलांजन बनिक
याँत्रिकी अभियांत्रिकी
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ताप और भार/g भगा दिया

Banik is terrible when it comes to Hindi. So, when he set off to write HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER in Hindi, he managed this. His logic: Hindi for weight is भार. Thus MASS= भार/g. And poor soul, all he could think for TRANSFER was भगा दिया. Way to go nange!