Cricket, Career, Character

I happened to watch a discussion on NDTV yesterday. Is India a better team than Pakistan? At cricket of course... What else. That's what it was all about. Cricket personalities and experts featured on the show and one of them was Ajay Jadeja.

Mr. Jadeja has played the gentleman's game for India and been idolized by millions like me. The match fixing scandal came to light, his nexus with bookies established and out he went with a five year suspension. He attempted a comeback and failed at that.

Well, the past is past. But to put him in an expert panel..... that merits serious thought.Taking a neutral stand, there are two aspects of the scenario to be considered.

Mr. Jadeja was an International cricketer. A good batsman. A reasonably good bowler (if I remember right). He even captained a few matches and won thrillers. His qualification to render expert opinion and views is unquestionable.

Coming to the moral and slightly emotional aspect of the issue, any decent person would opt not to play rather than fix a match. Mr. J is without doubt, not the best of examples when it comes to this.

If he'd been featured in anything else but this, I wouldn't have given a second thought. If it was match fixing he was discussing, my love for NDTV would have increased manifold. But what was this guy doing at a discussion, judging the Indian and Pakistani teams? Mr. J made mistakes. He faced the consequences, severe (?) as they were. What exactly was the channel trying to communicate? Everyone deserves a second chance no matter what? Clueless is the word. Tell me about it.

Of Wrath and Timidity

I hadn't heard it from that direction and with that tone, not before.
I pushed open the bathroom door.
God.... What a mess! The body wash was out of its prestigious seat and lay pitifully on the floor. The shampoo bottle in a corner, and the Dove soap (you shall discover the irony later) on the toilet seat. The soap dish and the toothpaste hadn't been spared either.

The strangest of all, there was a twig in the basin. One twig.

That bathroom was seldom used. It was a spare and came in handy when four people had to rush off in twenty minutes.

My cousin had come over the previous day. No, she couldn't have because we usually solve our conflicts through direct physical violence, pillows and all.

My mom came and so did the explanation. The maid had spotted this bunch of twigs, around ten of them, on the ventilator sill, when she was cleaning up the place. And wanting no pigeon, fiercely guarding its eggs or kids, to hurt or scare a bathroom vistor, she'd disloged the bird's nascent architecture.

It was not all that easy to assimilate. They were the most timid creatures I'd known after little rabbits. They'd become a part of my home, hanging around the balcony and sometimes venturing as far as the door, and we wouldn't shoo them away unless they entered the room. I woke to their coos emanating from the air conditioner vents; gave them tit-bits and grains once in a while. Their noise could be disquiteing at times; I liked them anyway.

Mom closed the ventilator shaft leaving a gap big enough for air but small enough to prevent a pigeon from coming in. She had a point too.

For all I could do, I left a palmful of rice on the sill.

Ad Art

Advertisements! I'm in love with them. I guess I've always been but realisation dawned now.

No, I'm not speaking about the boring ones which we cannot remember two minutes later.
Not the 'Boost is the secret of my energy', 'Bestu kanna bestu', 'Washing powder Nirma' types either.

I'm speaking about real advertisments. The ones which give you a truly aesthetic experience. They are original. They grab attention. They contain creativity, wit, humor, musical and photographic splendour all rolled in one, or atleast a few of these aspects.

A few of my favourites in no particular order...

The Rin ad. Big bro and little sis end up splattered with mud and laughing.

The guy who leaves for office from his second floor apartment and remembers he's forgotten a few things when he's leaving the building. The wife throws them down to him. Spectacles, watch, etc are broken and the frustrated chap goes upstairs to collect his handkerchief. I don't remember the product's name.

Ofcourse, the Hutch ads. All of them. The ones with the 'Wherever you go, our network follows' tag lines. The music troop. Something in their photgraphy, I think.

The kid asks his pregnant mother for a baby dog instead of a baby brother.

Amul with the 'Taste of India' tag line. It goes to more than a minute. I fell in love with the song and the photography.

The Coco Cola ad which filled all commercial breaks in the 1996 Cricket World Cup season. The Taj Mahal, red chillies spread to dry on the ground, the familiar street cricket..... The song, the colours all bringing out the passion of the game.

The Ayurvedic Concepts paati.

Chimman Lal Charlie, SBI.

My current favourite is the naukari.com flick. The guy spells out his boss's name with terms like stupid, idiot, arrogant for easy identification of the alphabets.

The print ads too.
Fevicol ofcourse.
Hutch again....... Hutch orange. The family photo.
A Dalmation without spots. Spotless. No, I don't remember the product.

The others which I'm sure will strike me as they always do at the most unusual of times, I shall put up in further posts.

Don't forget to leave your comments on your favourite ads, or just about anything else to do with them. It would make enjoyable reading for the ad lover in the blog reader.

Third of a Kind

"The human species is of two kinds, men and women". I'm happy to announce an update, AUTO DRIVERS.

I'm waiting for the CTC bus. The auto chugs slowly by. Rajinikanth is smiling at me, and the angelic being inside makes an ophthalmic invitation. A journey sans foot stamping, shoves and pushes is very tempting. I weigh my financial options. I sin.

As tradition goes, I haggle. What?! 60 bucks? Six zero sixty? I thank the angel profusely and politely refuse. If you're wondering about a taximeter, forget it... It never was. Then comes the 50 bucks guy. Two insults hit me and whroom! He's gone. And finally the promising 40 buck offer. At this point the odds are 50-50. It works my way. Funny that they all look as old as they demand.

I make my clumsy entry. Huh? I heard him say something. Got it, this must be the 'economist'. A treatise on inflation and the oil markets in classical Madras baashai. I sympathise with spontaenity.

There are also others, like 'griper' who cribs about driving that long for the measly 30 bucks. Wait a second... I shell out 8% of my hard won monthly allowance and he calls it measly?!

The Homely man. He's studied upto the 10th standard. Two brothers with government jobs. A son in school. India is too difficult to live in. Gonna make his son a pastor and send him to Australia. They can be very touching. Some have inspired me.

Khalil Gibran. Live and let live. Do good and be good. Life is short, make it sweet. Always into social work... free philosophy for the middle class customer. Ofcourse, opinions and suggestions for improvement are invited as long as they get along with his.

The Young bloods. Fast and efficient to a fault (no pun intended). You may even get a free Disneyland ride, up and down enormous potholes, speed brakers, muddy pools, and slanderous symphonies drifting to your ears.

The Slow and steady types. Bicycles overtake the tortorickshaw. There is a gap big enough to hold a van, it's honking crazy behind and this guy is in oblivion, busy putting his mandible to work. Spat! I go sick with disgust.

The Responsible Indian Hand builder. Yes, hand builder, like the body builder. He is always toning his biceps and triceps. At every turn and change of lanes, he exercises.

The Parthian shot. Like the calm before the storm, this guy gives a wonderful travelling experience. And when it's time to pay, he attacks. I'm a stinking rich, wicked woman with no consideration for his difficulties, and so heartless as to pay only 30 bucks incl. of service charges for the loooong journey.

And finally the (ab?)normal autodriver. He bargains reasonably, drives smoothly, right speed and gets you to your destination on time. An eventless, meditative journey.

Yet I have this love for auto-escapades. Ofcourse, there is dictum no. 1 'Be careful' (I can say that asleep, thanks to my mom). But once that is taken care of, there is nothing to beat the Chennai aato savari. For inspite of all its eccentricities, there is one unique and charming aspect to it, "Gear up! You never know what's coming next".

Warring History

It started a long time ago in a 7th standard history class.
North Indians (NIs) were Aryans, South Indians (SIs), Dravidians. Well and good, I was a Dravidian. At 12, it was only natural I ignored the ensuing lines.
A couple of years later, I found myself listening to this 'Persian Aryan' friend of mine. I was hardly good looking, I was told, what with my blunt nose, thick lips, brown skin and all. Somehow, peace prevailed .
10th standard. Again the same 'milk and honey', 'mosaic of cultures' ramble, topped up with the 'Aryan Dravidian' jargon. I didn't look like that short, dark, thick lipped description in my book. The topic had gained a pedestal alongside science. It was simply complicated.

Six years later...
History had long succumbed to itself.
I still was a Dravidian, but this time, with access to a blessing called the World Wide Web.
A moment of boredom...
The Google search engine on my Explorer page...
A flash of thought...
My phalanges drumming the keyboard....
'aryan', 'dravidian', 'history', 'ancient', 'india'...
Permutations and combinations...

And guess what...
I seem to have origins everywhere. Some Pagan tribe from Persia... The Pallava rulers... Fusion of the ancient Indian cultures... Modern history... Blah.. Blah... Blah.
Biologically speaking, my 'genes' incorporate three or more races in an undeterminable proportion...
The historical perspective is I'm a modern day descendant of some Iranic tribe which migrated to India.
What the hell...
No, not this time. I couldn't possibly let it happen again.
It's neither my looks nor an 'identity crisis'. Common sense has taught me better.
It's history I'm fighting. History, semi-factual, its myriad gaps brimming with imagination.

Hooray!!!! You heard that?
Yup, I won.

The strategy..... I just let history be.