Its been sometime that I wrote my last post. Nearly three months, if I am not mistaken. These have been very busy months though. I have visited three continents as a part of my work and a lot of things happening at the official front as well. I did mean to write about a lot of stuff but somehow I only kept promising to write , but it never happened. I am now sitting in a room in Hyderabad free of the hussle and bustle and this is the right time to pen down a few ideas.

For the last two weeks, the nation is caught with the IPL fever (International Player’s League of Cricket). The new avatar of cricket has gotten the response it expected. With its adrelanin pumping style of format, the 20-20 game has fundamentally changed Cricket as a game. The fifty over format had raised a big hue and cry when Kerry packer introduced it for the first time in the mid 70’s in Australia. He had roped in all the top players in the world to play the game. The cricketing boards accross the world were horrified to see the game being vandalized by sheer power play. There was tremendrous opposition by the purists and there were predictions that the One-day format would not survive beyond the initial euphoria that is generated. But clearly, all of them were wrong. A quarter of a century later, One days games have become a integral part of the sport, so much so that it has started replacing test Cricket as a more fundamental form of the game. Will 20-20 do the same thing to One day cricket?

I often wonder what gives these shortened versions of the game more popularity than the longer ones. I have very fond memories of Test cricket. The languid pace at which the game was played; the adherence to technique and style; the real sportmanship displayed - all these were the connosieur’s delight. But today, I would rather watch the One day’s than the Test’s. Many theorists may have many reasons for this transformation. I will present mine here.

Arts, sports and other various forms of leisure and culture always undergoes a change in perception over a period of time. There is need for a certain degree of senstivity in the public at large to appreciate the finer nuances of a well drawn out Raaga, a beautiful piece of painting, a well played front drive and a fabulous piece of improvisation in dance. And to do that, there must be a sense of security and a way of life that is appreciative of quality living. To appreciate any type of Social liesure , there must be a sense of peace internally (One cannot sit though a musical concert if one is disturbed internally) and the senses must be sensitive to things around. How many of us can sit through a classical concert, not matter how famed the artist is? The long drawn alaps, the slowly but steady immersion into the heart of the raaga and the unravelling of the beauty of each and every note in it,the cresendo - when the artist and the audience are lost in the undiluted purity of the tones when the cleansing of the bosdy, mind and soul happens. Do we have time for all this?????. Cricket is no exception. We simply dont have the time nor the taste to enjoy good cricket. I have had the oppurtunity to watch a Test Match in Bangalore many years ago which sort of illustrates my point. It was a turning pitch in the Chinnaswamy stadium and turning right from Day one. India was playing I guess with Pakistan (I am not sure of that). Every Batsmen found it difficult to find one right stroke. Even an average bowler was made to look like a champion, thanks to the pitch. There was only one player who stood apart and that was the “Little Master” - Sunil Gavaskar. Under the most exasperating conditions to bat on, the Master recorded a score of 96. It was innings that lasted two days and played with a skill and technique that was a honour to watch. History books may say that gavaskar did not score a century, but that is immaterial. For those of us who were priveleged to watch his artistry, it was an unforgettable moment. But who has the time and patience to sit for two days and watch every ball. I may not do it myself and thats the point.

We want instant gratification. Our jarred senses must be soothed. we require sensationalism. And 20-20 is an answer to that. Its a meaningless form of cricket, but it does its job. it gives sucour to the millions of us who require histronics in daily life but unable to find it or do it. We want to see the red sherry (The cricket ball) to be beaten back and blue - A symbolic reflection of our need to beat the System that we live in. In three and Half hours time, we have vented our anguishes, worries and frustrations; all mixed with glamour and sex. What more do we want?

As I am writing this post, I am watching an IPL match. I stop to see the ball hit over the fence and feel very happy about it. Thats how the game is viewed. There is no sanity to it. While I may have sounded a bit harsh on this new format, I will certainly not blame anyone for arganizing this form of the game. We asked for it and we got it. We have lost the sense of appreciation of a long drawn act and now we are fed with small doses of cocaine. It suits us. But before long our senses will get weary of this too and then God knows what’s in store for us. Meanwhile I thank god for still preserving in me a sense of taste. I hope there will never come a day when I cannot apprescate a Gavaskar like innings. That would spell the beginning of my doom. Cheers!!!!!1

Watching Tsongo and Djokvic play was a fulfillment of sorts. I have been watching Tennis since I was a little boy and never after the era of Bjorn Borg and John Mecenroe have I seen a match played with such intensity and talent as the one played yesterday. It was mesmerizing to say the least. I have always loved this sport. My brother still plays it. What impressed me about this game was the gay abandon with which Tsongo played. The Serbian may have won, but the honors still goes to the unseeded Frenchman who danced around the court and entered the finals of a Grand slam open in only his fifth appearance. It took Roger Federer seventeenth such game to to reach the Grand slam final. One only wonders about his future. I personally hope that this augurs well for the game. I surely would want want to see more of instinct rather than reasoning in playing the game of life.

What Tsongo achieved is not unique to Tennis. The same can be extrapolated to any profession. When Knowledge is subservient to living in the moment., then life becomes an exercise in reality. One has to be equipped with knowledge, but if its not digested and cannot come in handy to live in the moment—-Its worthless. Its better to let go rather than hold on to a false sense of importance. Ultimately, there is nothing to gain or lose.

cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Once again a good Joke to start with:

“A college student needed a small two-month course to fill his schedule and the only one available was wildlife Zoology. So he joined in and after one week of study, a test was held. The professor passed out a sheet of small paper where in each square was a carefully drawn picture of a bird’s legs. No bodies, no feet, just legs.

The test asked each student to identify the birds from their legs. Our student sat and stared at the test getting angrier every minute. Finally he stomped up to the front of the classroom and threw the test on the teacher’s desk. “This is the worst test I have ever written.”

The teacher looked up and said: “Young man, you have not filled in anything and you definitely have failed the test. Tell me, what’s your name?”

The student pulled up his pant to the knee showing his legs and said, “You tell me…”

There is a book named ” Everything I know I learnt in my Kindergarten”. Its a beautiful book that talks of all the irrelevant things that we impose on young minds in the name of education. Frankly, I have never been a great admirer of formal education. If one were to look back in time, one would realize that most of what we learnt during school or college have hardly been of any use to us. Our education system only prepares candidates to pigeon-hole things leading to an atrophy of the innate sense of holistic perception. The sense of wonder is lost in the process. As we age, we become opinionated and rigid. A new born child is a phenomenon in the universe.Everything is spontaneous to it. It would laugh, cry, speak in the rhythm of the cosmos. But once formal education starts, everything becomes knowledge based. Right,wrong;good,bad- takes a deep root in the psyche. The fun that was life is lost and one becomes a machine that functions based on set instructions. Truly blessed are ones who can live carefree like the lilies of the field. Knowledge is required to live in a functional world, but once it creeps into the psychological territory, it dims the light of living. As Osho would say - “If one has lived life fully, then death should be the ultimate orgasm”.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an anecdote that was shared by a person who is my God father. A beautiful attitude in life. Read it. you will recognize why?

Here it is :

A gentleman was once visiting a temple under construction.
In the temple premises, he saw a sculptor making an idol of God.
Suddenly he saw, just a few meters away, another identical idol was lying.

Surprised he asked the sculptor, do you need two statutes of the same idol.
No said the sculptor. We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.

The gentleman examined the statue.
No apparent damage was visible.

Where the damage is? asked the gentleman.
There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.

Where are you going to keep the idol?
The sculptor replied that it will be installed on a pillar 20 feet high.

When the idol will be 20 feet away from the eyes of the beholder, who is going to know that there is scratch on the nose? The gentleman asked.

The sculptor looked at the gentleman, smiled and said, “The God knows it and I know it “.

The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not.

Excellence is a drive from Inside not Outside.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!

Bala

As i was surfing the net today, I read this joke.At the outset, I had a good laugh at it and then realized that it had a more deeper message to convey. Read the joke:

“So let me get this straight,” the prosecutor says to the defendant. “You came home from work early and found your wife in bed with a strange man.”
“That’s correct,” replies the defendant.
“Upon which,” continues the prosecutor, “you took out a pistol and shot your wife, killing her.”
“That’s correct,” replies the defendant.
“Then my question to you is,” demands the prosecutor, “why did you shoot your wife and not her lover?”
“It seemed easier,” the defendant says, “than shooting a different man every day!”

It seems so simple isnt it. Shoot the root cause rather then than the peripheries. When i read this joke i was reminded of J Krishnamurti’s teachings. Jk as he was called was a renowned existential philosopher who broke away from the Theosophical society because he realized that truth is a pathless land and there can be no method to it. I was deeply influenced by his speeckes and writings during my college days. For those of us who have not read him I recommend his Book “Commentaries on Living” (three volumes). Even if you are not interested in discourses, read them for the sheer beauty of his language. In fact, in some schools in England they are prescribed textbooks for English.

Well coming to my point. Many times in our lives we seek to avoid the root cause of unhappiness. This is a fact. We keep finding reasons to either subvert our problem or try and justify it to ourselves. For instance, we are angry with somebody, we never observe this feeling of anger completely to understand it ,but would rather distract ourselves by doing other things hoping that the anger would pass away. But on reflection, we will understand that we have only allowed the feeling to take deep root in ourselves and we keep nurturing it on every possible occasion. By and by, we become victims to it. JK used to say that every thought has to have a beginning and an end and it is between the gaps that arise across thoughts we could experience the true continuity of life. True silence is possible only when we begin to observe the thought structure that we have painfully built over years. An impartial observation. No pigeon-holing, no Justification, no opinions - just allowing every thought to arise and subside. This requires real courage because it completely belies the entire value system that our society is built around. But it needs to be done. All the mystics and saints that we revere across religions are ones who have broken the shackles of thought and touched something within themselves that is refreshing and everlasting and have tried to communicate it to the world. but unfortunately, words can mislead or misconstrued. Words cannot lead us to the wordless. When words dissolve like salt in water, the wordless emerges -unannounced,silent and refreshes our body and soul.

So let’s experiment with root causes or otherwise we will keep shooting more strangers than the wife who is the actual problem. Cheers!!!

Another few hours and we enter the year 2008. One more year has faded into history. When I was young, a new years eve used to be fun. Weeks of preparation would go into planning on how best we could meet the new year. But as years go by and one mellows down with age, Things take on a different perspective. Delhi is buzzing with activity. The city is full of events to welcome the new year. Else where in the country we have Dance shows by famous actresses charging a exorbitant amount and cultural events organized aplenty. In short there is a lot of bonhomie around seemingly to welcome another year.

A curious thought entered my mind and that is basis of this article. We have become so accustomed to thinking in terms of time - weeks, months,years.We have started measuring our happiness and success in terms of chronological time. I personally opine that although for all practical purposes, we need to be in tune with linear time, but its absolutely essential that we live in the moment. It is the elixir of life. The moment has no time. It has no past or future and if one can live as it dictates the then we are not in the grip of time anymore. Having said that it cannot be a conscious decision to live in the moment, it has to happen spontaneously. And thats the catch here. When Oscar wilde wrote a century ago ” The best way to overcome temptation is to yield to it” , he meant the ecstasy of living without the encumbrance of time. When every moment is lived completely giving everything one has to it, then every second becomes a new year celebration, a party , an explosion of joy and fulfillment.

Well, I wish that this new year will bring joy to all around. Let all of us live and stop planning to live. Planning involves time. Lets experiment with timelessness. Cheers!!!!!

Benazir Bhutto has been assasinated today at 6.15 P.M. I do not know why I am slightly shaken by it. For some strange reason , when she decided to come back to Pakistan, I had a vague feeling that she may not return. Perhaps, its this thought that has moved me a bit. This is the third such incident in my life time. I was quite young when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were brutally killed and and I was quite puzzled by the reaction of the masses. But as I grow older, I have began to realize that such incidents can drastically change the face of the nation. The Bhutto family is a cursed one i guess. I personally liked Benazir Bhutto. She was charming, articulate and had a mind of her own. Bought up with the knowledge of the merciless hanging of her father, she somehow seemed to me as a personality destined to do something for her country. I may be wrong here, but thats my opinion.

I have earlier mentioned in one of my articles that violence is taking deep roots in Mankind’s societal fabric. The world is very quickly becoming a very unsafe place. One on hand we are becoming financially comfortable but on the other hand our lives are becoming insecure day by day. Meaningless violence, unnecessary confrontations, unhealthy competition and a sense of despair has become the order of the day. History is witness to the fact that unless Human beings realize their inner selves , we are doomed. That is the purpose of Philosophy. Not to blindly follow dogmas and beliefs but to understand our position in this universe.

What have we made of this world?. Suicide bombers,communalism, raping and pillage all over. Is this mankind’s true destiny. We have to as individuals rethink on this issue. We have lost another good leader to the blind alleys of terrorism. Hopefully Benazir Bhutto’s death will bring about the needed introspection and transformation in Pakistan. Its a hope. But I believe that Hope is life.

May Her soul rest in peace. I for one would fondly remember her for a lifetime.

Yes, I am back again. Sucked into the whirlpool of Corporate life, I didn’t have enough time to put my thoughts together. I recently watched a couple of films - “Saawariya” and “Chakde”. The first film was miserable. if Sanjay leela Bansali cliams that its an adaptation of a Russian short novel; then I am sorry to say that the film is nowhere close to the original. Russian writers have a strong sense of tragedy and its is pretty difficult to translate that into visual media. Even the best of directors have failed to capture the spirit of Anna Karenina on to the celluloid film, despite their best efforts.. I watched this adaptation of Sanjay with closed eyes. I was waiting for the film to get over .If not for my niece, I would have walked away from the cinema hall in half an hour. Having watched “Black” - a truly wonderful film, “Saawariya” is show stopper. Raj kapoor would have turned in disgust on the outcome of the film. I still have hope in Sanjay’s work. the last one may be an aberration from him but I am looking forward to better dreams from him.

On the other hand, ” Chak De” is a marvellous film. I have never been a great fan of Shah Rukh Khan. But the film smacked of seriousness and a sense of purpose. Choosing Hockey as game is a great idea;And especially Female Hockey. It had the right recipe for success. It was inspiring and entertaining to see the evolution of a disparate team cohesing into one unit and the dynamics behind it. The role of a an expert and his commitment and passion towards his job was awe inspiring to say the least.
Leading a team is not easy. To be tough when needed and to throw one’s arm over the other’s shoulder is a difficult choice to make.
Buts thats what great leader’s are made of. The art of management lies not in the MBA’s that one has acquired, but in the capacity to see things as they are. Their is no science to it. Its an art and can never be replicated across organizations. Each team has its own dynamics. Its upto the manager to tap it. When to play the right person, When not to is a decision that comes not from formal training but a deep down instict that “knows” what is right at this moment and what is wrong. There may be hurdles along the way but a true leader recognizes them and finds way to surmount them.

Watching Shah Rukh play the role of a coach who has a point to prove and his way of grooming the team is a revelation of sorts. Chak De inspires one to do something. The title song categorically states that the time has come to do something. Thats the Mantra for today. Lets not languish in apathy. Lets get into action. Right or wrong, we have at least done something. Thats the litmus test of life. Chak De !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Delhi - the capital city of India. The fragrance , the demeanor of the the pivotal city is definitely different. Coming from a land where IT is regarded as “Divine” profession, Delhi can be pretty humbling. I had a chance today to ride through the main thoroughfares of Delhi and what stuck me was that fact that here lies the corridor of power and the people living here reflect it. They know that the the nation depends upon the decisions made here and it is visible in their every act. Every one that I have interacted with here has the pride that I am a member of the Capital city and they are proud of it. Its good to see that.

For a person coming from the southern part of the country, Delhi could lead to a cultural shock. For one, Language is a great barrier. But by and by the city absorbs one. One learns the rudimentaries of communicating here. The well organized residential colonies, the utter professionalism in interactions - brings about a change in oneself.

I am a cosmopolitian person and I believe a stint in delhi would do one a lot of good. I will elaborate on this later.

Sanjay Dutt goes back to prison for another five years today. It is going to to be tough for him this time. The last years has been a roller coaster ride for him. Never in his career has he touched the heights as much as he has today. His Macho image has completely vanished and in its place a compassionate, sympathetic persona has taken over. But destiny is inevitable. He had to pay the price for he foolishness of possesing arms and the stupidity of giving it to underworld criminals. No one is above the law. Yes, a touch of pain is there to see him disappear from the scene in his prime. Things will not be the same when he returns. Last time around he had his father’s support - both moral and political, but this time around it is going to be a pretty lonely sojourn in prison.

I have often wondered why people sometimes do what they do?. A single moment of indiscretion can ruin’s a man’s life.The only answer that I could fathom is “destiny”. Try as we may to overcome it, it finds a way to creep into lives. One feels very scary to think of it but thats the truth. Ramesh Balsekar - a renowned sage , often used to say that dissolving into the cosmic will is the only thing then we do. Now, what that will is? or where will it take us? is something that we cannot find an answer to. But sometimes, i feel it gives us a lot of peace to accept this fact. No matter what we do, it is not going to make a dime of difference to the world. So why not keep doing whatever we are doing with fun and passion and leave the rest to destiny.

The problem with this attitude is that it can very quickly turn into a fatalistic way of thinking. But fatalism means inaction, whereas what I am indicating is total action as needed in the moment. This is the principle of Zen buddhism. In fact the entire refrain of the Bhagavad gita is also the same. The concept of Good and Bad, right or wrong is only for those who seek an end. But the moment has no beginning or ending. It is one continuous flow and there is no way to dissect it. Since all of us are used to linear thinking,physchlogically we want to believe that there is a past and a future. Destiny lies in the moment. The thread of life is pristine pure. Those of us who can find anchor in it will find peace in the most adverse conditions and a complete acceptance of the cosmic will.

Well , Last time around, when Sanjay dutt came out of prison; he was a changed man. The travails in the jail had mellowed him. I hope, this time he will take this burden in a more matured way and come out and continue the good work that he has been doing.Five years is a long time, but one never knows what awaits him after the time frame. Whatever happens I am sure Sanjay would still be welcomed with open hands by the people and his fans. Knowing our judiciary, he may be let out much before the official period of time. Well, thats what we will call as destiny!!!!!!!!!!!cheers.