Children and the art of timelessness.

I was catching up on my CD viewing during a recent public holiday. I decided to watch my collection of Hindi songs from the films of the great Hrishikesh Mukherjee for the millionth time. My son Sanjiv decided to skip his afternoon nap and join me for the viewing. Once he decided to do so it became a venture fraught with possibilities.

As we heard the songs, one by one it became that they were lost on my son. The beauties of the numbers form the 1966 film Anupama or the classic songs of the 1970 film Anand did not leave him dumbfounded. When I asked him for an opinion he gave it freely –Bad. On an instinct, I switched to the song “ Rail Gadi, Chugh Chugh” from the movie Aashirwaad of 1968 vintage where a none too young Ashok Kumar mimics the sounds of an train and announces the arrival of one station after another. Suddenly Sanjiv was rolling down the bed in laughter. What is more he kept asking for repeated encores.

Suddenly, this song from Aashirwad which I used to routinely fast forward had occupied the same place in life for Sanjiv that had earlier been reserved for songs from films like Taare Zaamin Par (Bam Bam Bole). A four year old child in 2010 liked a song from a 2009 film as well as a 1968 film. Children seem to love the same thing down the ages. Whether it is songs or stories. That is the reason that stories form the Ramayana And Mahabharata have been handed down the ages. Reflecting a certain timelessness. Like children themselves.

Tendulkar and the Art of Breaking Bulbs

“Daddy, you must bat like Sachin Tendulkar,” said my son Sanjiv just a few days before the great batsman cracked the historic double hundred in a one day international. We were playing cricket outside my brother’s house in a courtyard of sorts. Strangely maybe because he is a child, he showed a preference for bowling.

The suggestion I guess could have been made only by an adoring four year son when it comes to me. To reiterate a point made earlier by me during my college days, my friends recognized my passion and knowledge of the game but not my talent.

Coming back to the present, perhaps inspired by my son’s words I unleashed what by kids’ standards was a ferocious drive. The speeding ball found an unlikely mark—a tube light and of course there was a crash. Why anybody should keep a tube light with a blown fuse (as subsequent enquiries revealed), in a courtyard was of course a mystery. Anyway, any chance that the tube light would at least flicker during its dying embers was put to rest. as it split into numerous pieces. Also for sometime the game came to a halt as father and son retired to the safe precincts of my brother’s house and watched the remnants of the tube light being swept away. Later on when the game resumed, Sanjiv wisely did not let me bat and showed to the world that here was a batsman in the classic Sunil Gavaskar mould when it came displaying a tight defence.

This took me back to my college days when I managed to combine singing (again something at which I am no good at) with breaking bulbs. While humming a popular Shammi Kapoor number of the 1960S I threw the ball in the air in my kitchen only to hear a bang. Of course it was a bulb. I guess old habits die hard. As I have transited from being a college going adolescent to being a father, I continue to be bad cricketer, a bad singer but continue to display a talent for breaking bulbs. The canvas has only widened with the courtyard replacing the kitchen and of course the bulb giving way to a tube light.

Dad, Cricket and Beer

It has been a couple of weeks since my father has been admitted to hospital and finally we have the news that he is likely to be discharged tomorrow. He called me up a few minutes back and while he appeared recovered, he also sounded weak. After kindly enquiring about my wellbeing as only fathers can he came back with the question, “What is the score?” He wanted to know the score in the ongoing second test match between India and South Africa. I could not but marvel that even while in hospital his appetite and enthusiasm for cricket remained undimmed.

This took me back to the magic year of 2003 when India under Soured Ganguly’s captaincy made it to the world cup final in South Africa. I had been married for only a few months at that point and when my wife returned from work she opened the refrigerator only to find a few bottles of beer. This was sacrilege. The pre-wedding script that had been given to her was that I was a teetotaler. She suddenly began doubting whether the Tamil Brahmin she had got married to recently was all that he had been portrayed to be. It was my mother who put her on the right track. It was not me but my dad who had ordered the beer to celebrate India’s march to the semifinals. This of course restored my wife’s confidence in me. My dad of course had one more bottle of beer when India made it to the finals. I suspect he had one when India lost the finals –this of course was downed in sorrow while the other two had been washed down with joy.

This is not to say that my father is prone to drinking. Indeed the only other time I remember him having a glass of beer was after my brother’s engagement in 1996 that too when some relatives wanted to celebrate. At the bar, we ran into some of my close friends and we all celebrated the moment together. I have to concede that a glass of beer did bridge the generation gap on that day. To this day my friends cannot get over the fact that a man well past 60 years joined guys less than half his age for a drink.

Well, all I can say is that he has been a great father and really I have no complaints where he is concerned. In short, welcome home again dad.

Yoga and New Year Resolutions

I don’t break new year resolutions for the simple reason I don’t make them in the first place. This year I would say that I did make one (although would still hesitate to use the term) and more importantly have stuck to it with a certain steadfastness for a month.

I decided that every weekend I would spend two hours learning Yoga. Sure enough I am ready for my Yoga teacher when he comes home in the morning, having already taken a bath. Every Saturday and Sunday in 2010 (alright I did skip one Sunday) I have been learning Yoga for an hour. What has helped me is what in management jargon can be termed as “the customized home delivery model”, which when translated into simple English means that I have a person teaching me Yoga at home and I don’t have to get up early during the weekend and rush to a class.

The truth is also that I have actually been ready to get out of bed and attend Yoga classes and even enrolled in one. This led to a very strange situation where the student was willing but the teacher was simply unavailable. The institute very kindly offered to refund the money as they were having a problem getting a teacher for the particular batch that I had enrolled. I graciously offered to wait. Like all great problems this one too had a simple solution. A yoga teacher landed quite literally at my doorstep. My wife and mother chanced to speak to my neighbour Mule aunty who informed them that she had a teacher come over to her house everyday. Then matters as the great story tellers say took their course and I am finally learning Yoga.

On a more serious note, this perhaps illustrates best what my teacher Shyamji says in practically every session: Yoga is learnt only by those people who are destined to learn it. While doing Yoga has added a certain amount of peace to my life, it has also served to remind me that I am not getting any younger. The Sarvanghasan, (an exercise where one has to kind of support oneself using the neck) which was child’s play when I was a child is now not so easy. In fact, I have already deferred trying it a couple of times.

The body may not be so flexible but still willing. The mind of course is still willing as I continue on my journey of learning Yoga. This is one year resolution which I shall do my best to keep.

Message from Matheran

It was about a quarter of a century ago in Matheran (when I was all of 20 years) that I discovered that the sky was blue. Rather late in the day one might think. If you are however brought up in Mumbai you would have never seen a blue sky. I dare say that this is true of most Indian cities. Finally looking up at the heavens in Matheran that I managed to confirm what I had learnt probably in kindergarten.
It was during that trip to Matheran that I also discovered the meaning of another expression “Blue Haze of Smoke”. All had just started smoking. It wasn’t until I visited what is described as the world’s smallest hill station that I was finally able to grasp the meaning of the expression. Finally, I could see the blue haze of smoke as it wafted it ways across to the sky.
Naturally, the first thing that I wanted to see when I visited Matheran this weekend was to check out whether one could still see the smoke. Forget the fact that I had quit smoking or there is a ban on smoking in public spaces, I could clearly see the person in front of me smoke as I rode on a horse covering the last mile in Matheran. Sure enough the kid in front of me (possibly 20 years) smoking and the blue smoke curling up. The smoke however didn’t travel the distance. I asked the escort\owner of my horse as to whether the climate in this hill station had deteriorated. He answered in the affirmative. This despite the fact that no pollution emitting vehicle is allowed inside Matheran. After all even this hill station could not remain immune to the overall deterioration in the atmosphere.
Over the course of the next 24 hours I had to concede that the place had retained its pristine purity and not fallen prey to commercialization unlike other hill stations. While I rode on horse most of the time, my wife and son rode on a rickshaw drawn by two people. Horses and rickshaws are the only two modes of travel available in Matheran. Since my 4 year old son vetoed the idea of riding on a horse, we had to enlist the services of a rickshaw. This set me thinking again.
Matheran had managed to retain its charm by not falling prey to commercialization. Maybe the decision to not allow vehicles in just had something to do with the fact that the roads are extremely narrow. At any rate, this had resulted in many of its inhabitants having to take up pulling risckshaws for a living. Something against which the very fiber in one’s body revolted. If other hill stations had paid a price for commercialization, the residents of this hill station had paid a price for not going the commercial way. Taking the road less travelled clearly extracts a price too.

Connecting with the Mahatma

This weekend I was at New Delhi to attend a wedding and I took the opportunity to visit Rajghat, the memorial of the Father of the Nation—Mahatma Gandhi. This is the second or third time that I am visiting Rajghat and the experience has always been the same. A sense of peace and quiet descends on me. Indeed it was this search for peace that took me to Rajghat again. It was as though I wanted to reconfirm that I would feel this peace again.

As I closed my eyes before the Samadhi, I saw before me the light (the jyoti) which was enclosed in a glass container of sorts. Till that point I was merrily clicking pictures on my mobile phone. It seemed to be sacrilege that one should click photographs at a spot like this. While I refrained, I could not but see that crass commercialism had intruded here too. A photographer was offering to click anyone who wanted to pose at the Samadhi and give instant photographs for a fee of course. .

While this sight filled me with revulsion, on closing my eyes I not only experienced overwhelming peace and quiet but also felt energized. I think that perhaps I went into brief meditation. This is not something that I have experienced even in religious places and maybe this has something to do with the fact that I am not particularly religious by nature. Gandhiji of course stood for religious harmony which is a strong article of faith with me. The Mahatma is perhaps my shepherd.

As I walked away from Rajghat and went about the daily business of life and living, I could not but think of Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech after the assassination of the Mahatma—The light has gone out of our lives. After beginning with these lines Nehru says in his speech, “The light has gone out I said, yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to inuumerable hearts.”

Gandhiji had fallen to an assassin’s bullet many years before I was born. The light at Rajghat not only gave solace to my heart but enabled me to connect with the Mahatma.

Sachin Tendulkar : Man or Myth ?

This week I too but cannot celebrate the genius of Sachin Tendulkar. I am reproducing below an article I wrote in 2005 when Tendulkar was out of the game with an injury and facing tremendous criticism for his alleged lack of performance.

Article:
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At sixteen he burst into a nation’s collective consciousness Sixteen years later, the nation is questioning whether he has the right to occupy that consciousness.

Today, as he grapples with injury and hears questions being asked about his legacy and indeed even if there is one, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar might be forgiven for thinking that he lives in an unfair world.

The knives are in many ways out for this man who the great Don Bradman said –reminds him of himself . Tendulkar is in many ways being asked to being prove himself all over again. The man who owns practically every record in the books ironically finds his greatness being questioned for precisely being buried under the weight of runs. Records are fine his critics say, but where are the match winning innings ? What is the use of the solo shows, when it did not translate into wins for the team?

Haven’t his contemporaries achieved more ? Lara at Barbados, Laxman at Kolkata and Dravid at Adelaide ? Further, how many times has Tendulkar pulled India out of trouble a la Dravid, played that defining knock Laxman knock or simply redefined batting like Lara?
Also, can this man display the bravado of a Sehwag or play with the abandon of a Gilchrist when the chips are down?

By the way is this guy as tough as Gavaskar.? Didn’t the original little master play better quality attacks especially the famed west Indian quartet and get runs by the ton.? Is this little man really as great as Vivian Richards ? Is the to be or not to be version of Tendulkar a patch on the king who reigned for much of the seventies and eighties.For that matter was he ever that great at all ?

Finally, isn’t this guy who gazes out of cola ads and plugs cell phones a pure creation of marketing hype? Have Sachin’s over enthusiastic spin doctors done the little man a disservice by creating a level of hype that perhaps helps him earn millions but also created the image of a fairy prince who was slated to lead the nation out of the cricketing morass it found itself in for a large part of his career but simply couldn’t?

Instead even while one associates a fairy tale victory to Mohammed Kaif and Yuvraj Singh like the Natwest trophy final at Lords in June 2002 the enduring memory of Tendulkar is perhaps that of the man who almost pulled it off against a rampant Pakistan at Chennai.. Indeed Chennai has in many come to characterise the Tendulkar cricketing story, runs for the man which couldn’t prevent ruins for the team..

There is merit in all these arguments. A Lara on song is probably the best batsman to have played the game after the Don. Dravid continuously redifines mental toughness while Laxman seems to conjure up the big one just when his team needs it the most.

At Kolkata his innings turned a series on its head, while his wand of courage in the last one dayer at Pakistan ensured that India beat its arch rivals in a series in their own backyard for the first time in history.

Further, it was Sehwag’s triple hundred that set the tone for the epoch making series win in Pakistan. Bowlers round the world have described Gilchrist as the most dangerous batsman in the world.

Certainly, Tendulkar has not faced the same quality of attacks that Gavaskar did. To be sure, Richards imposed himself on the facing some of the best bowlers in the history of the game in a way that Tendulkar hasn’t.

Make no mistake though. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is not just one of the all time greats of cricket but sport. No man in the history of sport has been subjected to the pressure of expectations that this man has been. For a billion Indians watching Tendulkar is not about witnessing one of the finest feats of batsmanship but an act of catharsis.

For a nation that has been perenially starved off heroes, watching Tendulkar was not about witnessing a divine feat of batsmanship
but an escape from a dreary and dull existence. In some ways watching Tendulkar bat was for a billion people a fulfilment of themselves. In some ways, in the satellite television era Tendulkar more than the afternoon matinee hero, the man who allowed India’s billion to surf their dreams.
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The greatness of Tendulkar is that despite being subjected to such wild expectations he carried on with the business of scoring runs. Inspite of being part of a team that played during circket’s darkest hour, Tendulkar still played two innings at Sharjah against Australia in 1998 that was his own version of operation desert storm.

Remember that Lara who too faced enormous expectations almost fell away. Don’t forget that he too has had to go through his version of trial by fire. There have been times when he has just got away from the game and worse has had his own team mates say that he considers himself larger than the game.

True Dravid and Laxman have delivered when the team needed it most. Further, Sehwag and Gilchrist play with an abandon not witnessed in the history of the game. Where however were the expectations.?

Sachem Tendulkar unlike communism is not the god who failed but a man who has faced expectations never experienced in the history of sport. Despite this he has performed and well has retained his sanity cum humility. Don’t forget he came back to shoulder India’s burden in the 1999 world cup just after paying his last respects to his father. Greatness is not just about winning matches. For Sachin Tendulkar it has just been leading his life.