Chattering monkeys

It is natural that idiots who speak without listening to others during conversations will be hated, if not completely ignored. I fear I have now become one such. As ever, circumstances are to blame.

Disappointing, Only

So, it has all ended up like this. With one month to go in the World Cup, the Indian team is back home. Uncountably infinite articles and blog posts have discussed, despaired, contemplated and ranted about how the unimaginable has come to pass. Of course, this is only the beginning of the madness.

I missed the Bangladesh match but watched all of the deciding Sri Lanka fixture. Without getting into the messy details, my feeling about was lacking in the Indian outfit - team spirit. This was almost the same team that played so well in 2003, but back then it looked like a close-knit, cohesive unit. This time around, all the controversies over captaincy, confusion in team composition, division over the coach's methods, aging stars, non-performing stars, all combined to make the team lesser than the sum of its components.

Personally, apart from feeling a bit flat that India is out of the world cup so soon, I don't care for all the criticism heaped on the players. Sure, there are issues to be addressed, most crucially to ensure our cricket does not fall behind, failing to adapt to changes in the game (and go the way of Indian hockey), but I only feel sad for the players who must surely be hurting more than everyone else. All the outrage on display by "fans" has nothing to with cricket or sport. My smug take on this is that life is mind-numbingly boring most of the time and being out of the world cup deprives us of the distractions we crave - entertainment, adrenaline rushes and vicarious feelings of euphoria.

Holy Smokes! What all has happened in 4 days time!

I had casually mentioned upsets by minnows in the previous post, but Ireland knocking Pakistan out and Bangladesh pushing India to the brink has changed the whole complexion of the tournament. All this took a back seat though, due to the shocking death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer. He was truly one of the most influential figures in international cricket and as the first laptop-wielding coach (with the super successful South African team of the late 90s), pioneered the use of technology in the modern game. Inzamam resigned as Pakistan captain and retired from the one-day game. An inglorious exit for a great player who has seen both ends of the spectrum in World Cups, having announced himself so emphatically as a 22-year old in the '92 edition. Pakistan cricket is in a state of complete disarray with the PCB chairman and the board of selectors handing in resignations. Freddie Flintoff's latest drinking binge got him dropped for a match and also stripped him of the England vice-captaincy. The poor guy reportedly fell off a pedal boat and had to be fished out of the water. It might be a blessing in costume, the captaincy stuff was cramping him as a player. Andrew Strauss seems like a better option as England captain.

As for India, the Sri Lanka match becomes all-important now. The match against Bermuda was good to get some confidence back. The batting lineup showed resolve and blasted to India's first 400 plus score. I distinctly remember the match when India went past 300 for the first time. This was against Pakistan in Sharjah and Azhar launched into Ata-ur-Rehman's last over, carting a couple of sixes and a brace of fours. Azza was in the midst of a form slump and this burst came out of nowhere. He was shaking in nervous anger and for some reason, seemed to be mouthing off little Sanjay Manjrekar, who was at the non-striker's end.

World Cup Opener

So the big event has begun!

The first round is difficult to be excited about, with too much minnow bashing in prospect. But these matches have thrown up huge upsets in the past and do get newer teams into the fold. The Windies came out on top in the clash-of-the-mercurials opener with Pakistan. Marlon Samuels is a great talent and seems to have gotten over his inconsistency.

I am kind of sick of all the predictions for semi-final berths, so let's not go there unless some of you are just dying to tell. Almost everyone expects India to be in the semis though and the team has a lot going for it in terms of experience, class and balance. This Cricinfo feature lays out the statistics. Really mind-blogging, those numbers for India.

Tail piece: I couldn't get down to blogging for the last few days because of a journal paper I'm working on. The thing was stuck in my throat for a long time, but finally beat it into some shape for a decent first draft. I don't like to boast, but this paper of mine destroys the theory of relativity and disproves the existence of gravity.

Sam and I are setting off tomorrow to see the Grand Canyon, just in time to get something out of spring break. Will put up some pics if we manage to capture something special. Also maybe a travelogue of sorts.

Chandrahas Bey has a post on the best Indian cricket writing(click here). From what Chandrahas writes (and also from what I've read before), Ramachandra Guha's work stands apart from the rest. Among recent books, Rahul Bhattacharya's Pundits From Pakistan has received praise from all quarters. It's been lying on my bookshelf for a while now, should get to reading it soon.

PS: Too distracted with work for purposeful blogging.

Life and Timepass

A deep insight has dawned upon me. Timepass subsumes everything. It gives meaning to our life. Whatever we do is for Timepass only. I spent a considerable amount of time on trying to think of one, just one voluntary activity in my life which cannot be categorized as Timepass. From drawing a complete blank[1], my conscious mind[2] segued into the Eureka! moment I mention above.

In this light, I was greatly tempted to correct the name of this blog, at the least by flipping the order of the two words. I have restrained myself with superhuman effort, for the sole purpose of ensuring a continuity in the lives of its millions of rabid readers and followers.

[1] I want to ask you to undergo similar introspection and let us know the results.

[2] As opposed to the subconscious, which must have known for a while now.

Games of old

As I wondered what to post given the lull in cricket action, my thoughts wandered to the more exotic games we played as kids. I wanted to make a short post with a couple of lines on the games I remember being fascinated with, even if for a short time. As I began writing, I wanted to add more and more detail, reliving those memories in the process.

Maaram-Peeti - All that was needed for this game was a rubber ball and a bunch of players. Whoever has the ball in hand can freely hit the others with it, no questions asked. When the ball falls to the ground, anyone can grab it. The game involves constant careful judgment, you either reach the ball before the others or decide to run out of hittable distance. Of course, sometimes your judgment fails and you run the risk of ending up really close to the ball-wielder. There are different ways of trying to handle this situation, in order to escape a stinging blow. If you fancy your swiftness and cunning, you can run away, making sudden and random changes in direction, hoping to cause the ball-wielder to miss. Alternatively, you can stand face to face, backing yourself to pull off a Matrix type evasion or psyche the attacker into a wild, misdirected throw. It was implicitly macho to refuse to express pain or rub the unfortunate body part which received the latest painful blow. Also rated favorably was showing off the red/blue patches of skin suffered from the champion's[1] throw, but only after the game ended. In 4th and 5th standard, my gang at school was addicted to this brutal, but ultimately beautiful game. We would play: when we got off the school bus till it was time for the 9am assembly, during the 15 minutes of the 11am interval, during the 30 mins of the 12:30pm lunch break after quickly finishing our lunch in 5 minutes, during any "free periods" and finally during the 45 minutes of the 3:00pm PT period.

Gilli-Danda - One summer, we (a bunch of cousins and the 10 year old me) went to an uncle's place in Nizamabad. This uncle worked in the sugar factory there and lived in quarters which were surrounded by trees and bushes. Their maid's son was also our friend and a lively, enterprising guy. He fashioned a grippy danda and flippy gilli out of a tree branch. It was unbelievable, someone making a gilli-danda set just for us! To get started, we draw a circle(with danda length as radius) on the ground and in its center scrape out a small depression, about 5inches long and 2 inches deep, the width according to the thickness of the danda. Players take turns as the striker (danda bearer) in round robin fashion and the rest are catchers. The catchers stand a certain distance away from the circle in an appropriately chosen direction. The striker places the gilli perpendicular to the depression, turns his[2] back to the catchers, stands with his legs on either side of the prostrate gilli and sliding the danda into the depression, flicks the gilli as far as he can. One of the catchers will then throw the gilli back aiming for the circle. If the throw lands the gilli inside the circle, then the striker loses his coveted position and has to hand over to the next in line. If it lands outside, he has a chance for scoring. As the experienced ones among you know, the gilli has conical edges and when the danda comes down on one of these, it jumps up suddenly, making whirring somersaults in the air. To be able to score, the striker has to control the danda's blow in a way that the gilli rises up close to him, at a height and distance allowing a free swing. As the gilli climbs and then falls, the danda bearer braces himself to aim a mighty blow to send it flying, to land as far as possible. Advanced players will try and tap the gilli lightly a few times, while keeping it within reach before unleashing the long shot. The rule is that that the score gets multiplied by the number of successful taps. Now, everyone goes to where the gilli has landed and the danda-dhaari claims a score, which is the distance in danda lenghts to the circle of origin. If the rest are satisfied, the score is granted. If in doubt, they will actually measure the distance out with the danda. If the distance exceeds the score, it is given. If it falls short, the striker has to swallow the danda lengths by which the score fell short. Failing which, he gets a zero score in addition to conceding possession of the danda.

Kattelata (stick game) - I must have been about fifteen, when my neighbor Samson[3] introduced this peculiar game to our galli gang. Players held longish sticks in hand and there was a smaller stick that lay on the ground. One player was the denner, trying to get others out. The rule was that players with sticks would hit the smaller stick wherever they wanted and everyone followed it. The catch was that you had to keep your stick in contact with a granite stone. If the denner touched you without such contact, then you were out and would become the denner. And you could not carry any stones, only "naturally occuring" ones on the roads were acceptable. Some unfortunate denners would follow the stick the whole day, ending up kilometers away from our galli. So would the others, but with entirely different feelings.

[1] The champion was the guy who had the sharpest throw. He also seemed to combine it with great accuracy and hit rate.

[2] This post might be misconstrued as being sexist, but I have never seen girls/women play these games. However, I believe that some of them, somewhere have.

[3] Samson must have been around 25 then. He was into "body-building" and was indeed in great shape, six pack and all. He also had long hair, which he tied into a pony on occasion. It must have been a meeting of minds for the two of us, even though my parents were very concerned and puzzled at how I could be friends with someone "not of my age group" and worked as a machined tool cutter.

PS: Very likely you have memories of some no-one-else-played-this and/or not-so-common-nowadays games. Do share.

Update: I've changed description of maaram-peeti technicalities to present tense (What? Nobody cares? Shut up!) since I have a gut feeling it is still widely popular. Gilli-Danda too, no doubt. Kettelata, I feel was too rare to still remain extant. But how much do we city-bred mongrels really know?