Why India is the new Australia?

Passion towards cricket runs in every Indian’s blood and I am no exception. Though I follow all sports, cricket is my favourite. Doesn’t mean I am any good at playing cricket but I certainly love watching it. My friends had expressed their surprise that I haven’t yet written about cricket. Well here it is.

      Before I start this blog, a bit of history would be useful. For the past 10 years, I was a staunch supporter of the Australian cricket team. I supported Australia even when they played against India. And for this, I have been called a traitor by many of my friends. My logic was plain simple, cricket is just a game and the best team should win. And the best team almost always turned out to be Australia.

      More than anything else I loved the Australian attitude towards cricket. No matter what, their only aim was to win. This win at all costs mentality brought them plenty of flak from other teams. The opposition teams whinged that, it isn’t the way to play the game. But the scorecard and result was all that mattered. It was fascinating to watch the Aussies bully teams out of the game. The Australian team of today is suffering a severe identity crisis. They are seriously hampered due to the retirement of their champions, Warne and McGrath. How the mighty have fallen. But I am not here to write another obituary to the Australian team.

      Now to my blog heading – Why India is the new Australia? This statement is not made because India beat Australia in the home series. You don’t become champion after winning just one series against the current champions. I am not making this statement because India chased down a mammoth 4^th innings total against England with consummate ease. People who know their cricket will laugh and point out that India is still only 3^rd in the rankings and South Africa has a far better team. But I am not talking about rankings or talent here; I am talking about the attitude.

      On the 3^rd day of the 4^th Test match against Australia, with the game in the balance, Dhoni, the Indian captain did what most of his predecessors never even considered in their dreams. He packed the offside with 8 fielders and asked the bowlers to bowl well wide of off stump. The logic is simple. If you want runs, invent something out of the ordinary. He was criticised severely by many pundits that he brought the game into disrepute. He was accused of choking an already dying art of test cricket.

      But Dhoni didn’t even bother. “It is about winning the game. There have been strategies that are not liked by opposing captains. What we wanted to do is go out there and look to win,” Dhoni told reporters. And his words were vindicated by the result of the match. A thumping win for India. What this shows is a significant shift in the Indian attitude towards cricket and life in general. Indians used to be shy people who never raised their voice. But with the economic boom (well at least until last September), India is a very confident nation and Indians ever more so. We will not bow down before you. We are here to win, no matter what.

      And with that single day’s tactics, Dhoni won over my heart. Australia is no longer the team that plays with the win-at-all-costs attitude and it showed in Ponting’s decision to use part-timers to step up the over-rate. But India has definitely got that killer attitude now. It doesn’t guarantee them to win matches but makes for compelling viewing though. And now I can proudly say that I am a fan of the Indian cricket team. Bring it on.

My take on Tourism

"When I guide tourists through my city they're always in a hurry, always anxious to see one sight so they can cross it off the list and move onto the next. They're always asking about tomorrow, and the next day. Why is this?” These are words of a tourist guide character in a John Grisham novel I recently read. And ever since I read this line I can’t avoid looking back at my previous tours and its experiences. I have decided to evaluate the truth behind this statement.

Off late I have been on 3 tours - a 3 day trip to Paris, a 2-day visit to Northern Ireland and a 2-day trip to Swiss. On the outset, this looks a very handy list. But when I scratch the surface a bit, all is not rosy underneath.

All the above 3 trips are actually a blur now. It is funny I say this because it is not even a month since I came back from Paris, and Eiffel tower is too huge to become a blur. But the basic problem is all the above are beautiful places and 2 or 3 days is not enough to take in their rich history and culture. Of course, it does give me bragging rights over a few of my pals. “Hey look at my snaps taken at Swiss” beats the hell out of “Look at my snaps at Nandhi hills”. And I can tell stories (half of them bogus) about the people and flavors of a few European cities. But to be perfectly honest with myself did I enjoy the short vacation?

I would say no, because I was always in a hurry just like Grisham said. Even when I was in the Eiffel tower I was thinking about the photos and the next boat cruise. And if I think now, I actually spent only 10 minutes on the top of the fabulous Jungfraugh Mountain (Swiss) because we had to catch a train to the next place. This surely doesn’t sound like fun to me now.

All my foreign trips pale in comparison to my fabulous Goa trip 2 years back. We spent 4 days in Goa on that trip. It was August, off-season and Goa was without its usual festivities and water sports. And we didn’t exactly visit every important place in Goa either. But it was 6 of us walking the streets and taking in the sights with no care in the world. We stayed in a beach-side cottage, roamed in bikes, took a boat cruise and had 2-hour lunch/dinners. We didn’t care about time because we never bothered about the next place. After all, the next place would be another beach with a different name. In fact, we spent a whole day in Goa just for shopping. Come to think of it, 6 men spending a day for shopping is extremely funny. It was mostly window shopping and roaming except for some liquor for friends back home. We were relaxed and unwound and it was great fun because we had no expectations.

Now this is what I come to expect of a trip. Not the holiday madness where I have to get up at 6 a.m. to catch the 1^st train to a scenic place which takes 2 hours and after spending 30 minutes in that scenic place run to the next. On the downside, places like Swiss and Paris are not exactly cheap enough for spending a week to relax and sight-see. So there is no other option but to do quick trips to such places.

At the end of this thought process, I have realized that I neither want such short trips or their petty bragging rights. I would rather avoid the tension of the crammed holidays. So I uphold Grisham’s scathing assault on tourists and vote for leisurely holidays which truly are spent with leisure. Now bring me the Caribbean or maybe even Niagara?

Your views are welcome. The more controversial they are then the better.

The Runaway

In a bid to pass my time during those boring hours of solitude, I started reading English novels very recently. Thanks to one of my close friends in Pune, for introducing me into this new world of English novels. I stared off with “The Last Juror” by John Grisham. It was pretty decent but not brilliant. The next one I read was “The Partner” by John Grisham.

This blog is about “The Partner”. Don’t worry people, I am neither writing the review of the book nor am I any good at it. I was more absorbed by the plot of the novel rather than anything else. It is about a partner in a law firm who fakes his own death and escapes with loads of cash. The chase begins and after a while the culprit gets caught. How the culprit justifies his side of the story and comes through against the trial by court make up the rest of the novel.

Our hero gets an idea of running away from everything and starting a new life all over due to his personal and professional pressures. He builds a plan and things fall beautifully in place for his getaway. The reasons given by the hero are an adulterated wife, being father to somebody else’s illegal child and the backstabbing by his partners.

Every one of us have gone through times when it feels as if you just want to leave everything as it is and run away. Where? When? How? We don’t bother. Just run away from this piece of shit and get lost. But is there such an option really on? What are the pros and cons? Nobody knows. Because nobody has really ever tried it.

Siddhartha would have gone through the same ordeal on the night he decided to flee. What would have been his feelings when he decided to leave his kingdom, throne, beautiful wife and lovely child? The force of the closed door pulling against the treaded (probably dreaded as well) path. How strong could have been the force? Certainly strong enough to throw Siddhartha into the world of Buddha.

The makings of a classic – Irresistible force against the Immovable object – are on. The force has the advantages of a fresh lease of life, no past burdens both financially and personally, doing whatever the hell you want without being accountable to the society and perennial freedom. The disadvantages being a need for financial backup to be procured either in the right way or the wrong way, guilty conscience and the fear of getting caught which can be tougher to overcome than the actual event.

The object has the advantages of familiarity, security to whatever extent and the bond. The bond especially is a very strong one. We develop a bond towards everything ranging from the dog next door to the beggar down the road to the office. The familiarity gives us a strange happiness and a sense of relief that nothing has changed. It is the same familiarity that becomes the disadvantage when there is an overdose.

Is the force strong enough to move the object? My answer is a strict NO. Indian culture provides a very strong bond between an individual and his family. A bond that is impossible to break away from. Whenever you sort of look out for a subway or a sub-route it is that bond which pulls you back. The more we think of leaving, the more we convince ourselves that staying is the better (if not best) option. Right choice I would say.

Throw in your 2 cents on this matter.

My name

For people who didn’t know my name yet, it is A.C. Karthick. It denotes the younger son of Lord Shiva. In my part of India, the name is a very usual one and also heavily redundant. At times, you could count 4 to 5 Karthick’s in a single classroom. Enough of the self-admiration let's get down to work.

"Your name is the sweetest thing you can hear in the world" (forgot who said it) .For starters, there is absolutely no problem with the pronunciation of my name. North Indians who have the history of butchering South Indian names tend to get my name right the very first time. But the real trouble lay in other areas.

It was because of the two letters in my initial. My full name would read Ariyapampalayam Chellamuthu Karthick, with my father’s home town followed by father’s name and then by my own name. In class rooms filled with students who had single initials I was the only one with a double. Every time a new teacher took attendance she would pause before my name and would ask the explanation of the initials without fail. And I would say Ariyapampalayam as eloquently and quietly as I can in an effort to go unnoticed. And the teacher would utter a giggle to which the whole class would reply in kind by joining with her. It was almost as if irrespective of what explanation I gave for the initial they would laugh.

Some friends who tend to make people around them laugh with one-liners loved me. Not because I was such a charming kid with gentle character. It was because they could say anything ranging between Air Cooler Karthick to Asst. Commissioner Karthick and get the crowd into splits. I could do nothing but laugh with them though it would be more of a smirk. I almost wanted to ask what business is that of yours or why does that concern you. But would keep quiet assuming it would be the last time I heard such one-liners.

I thought the ghosts surrounding my name would finally rest after I joined the company. But on the very first day (induction, I believe) it came back to haunt me again as if an LKG classmate calling in the wee hours saying not to forget him. There was a process for email id generation and that required the first and last names of the employees. I had filled the form with Karthick and AC. This was unacceptable for the person generating the email id and she asked me to utter my full name. I began again in that eloquent and quiet tone. She was dumbfounded. She then explained for about 5 minutes that the email generation process required two names (US style I presume) and it is up to me to provide the clear first and last name for the process. I decided then that my father’s name would more than suffice the requirement and told her the same. She was also fine and the email id got generated with my name followed by my father’s name. Phew, they keep coming at you dont they.

Frankly the names with hometown as first initial have gone completely out of favor. It was an age-old tradition especially in South India to have hometown names first as it would help immensely in identifying the background of the person. Now the modern trend has made me (or at least my name) look like a throw back to the old era. But I do not have any regrets over my name as what other chance would a village like Ariyapampalayam have to be known somewhere this far and across. It is my name and I have lived with it for years (This line is a blatant lift from Stephen Leacock’s “With the Photographer”, due credits given). To hell with all the queer giggles and one-liners.

Tidbit:
If people had trouble with my name, then try these for a change.
Chaminda Vaas - Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas
VVS Laxman - Vangivarapu Venkata Sai Laxman

Gangsters

Lunatics apart, Gangsters are the most interesting characters in this world. Due to our movies which glorify the gangsters, I have had a secret admiration over the gangsters right from my childhood. And that admiration has not changed one bit till now. They just had a wholesome presence and nothing-can-perturb-me (at least externally) attitude. I was fascinated by these aspects of theirs and always believed they were super-humans. Often I wondered how they can be so ruthless and merciless. Because you have to strong enough to be withstand the physical pain that others mete out to you and also withstand the mental pain you get because of hurting others physically (the second one is more painful than the first). Due to all these fascinations I was giving more attention to movie villains (who were mostly gangsters) rather than our goody-goody heroes. There was some magnetism in the darker shaded men that made compelling viewing. We will come back to movie gangsters in a while; cut now to some real time gangsters I have met.

These guys were small term gangsters (one of the students, normally the tallest, darkest or the fattest) in schools and colleges. Their common characteristics were that they sat on the last bench, cared two-hoots for classes and home works, never respected teachers, had a very nasty language and if required they would flex their muscles for a fight. Almost every class had one or at time more of these guys. The drabs were constantly pricked, beaten or teased. I would be looking on wondering why the hell they were doing all that. But due to my fascination to experience the other shore (darker side), I decided to become one gangster.

I made friends with some of them, voluntarily helping them with notes and etc. And they also accepted me as normally they didn’t have too many friends as everybody was afraid of them. And there I learnt the tricks of the trade (at a very smaller scale I must admit). One of the first lesions was to continuously remind others that we (gangsters) are capable of doing anything ranging from the insane to the outrageous. This was to keep the fear atop in everybody’s minds when they spoke of us. Bang a small time thug (the guy who wants to become next gangster) to reaffirm the superiority if and only if the situation demanded.

But common this was not the gangster I had in my mind. They were undaunted Lochinvars and Supermen who feared no man and nothing for that matter. But the real guys when they had to fight, they carefully chose to fight against smaller, weaker people. But once I started thinking like a grown-up rather than a wide-eyed kid and read a few books about the life of mobsters did I realize the cold truth. These are men living in far more graver danger than us and due to this they have fear incarnated in their minds like we have hunger in our bodies. And fighting with the smaller man was because of the fear that the bigger man might humiliate and disgrace them. Frankly they are the most pathetic souls you can ever meet, and they hide it by showing themselves off as stylish and fearless. But inside they are dying with the fear that they could die any moment.

After I realized this, I started to see them with more sympathy than fascination. These guys after all had all the right reasons but chose the wrong path. I sympathize with them, because they all would have had a dream just like us but then due to the circumstances they could not pursue it and ended up in the gutter they currently are currently in. And by this time the movies had started to portray the heroes as gangsters but who would have some good in them. This was a bit more interesting as it portrayed that no man has completely white or black shades but they always have a mixture of both (the gray). Apart from the commercial potboilers I got the chance to view some beautiful movies which portrayed their hardships and battle within their minds. That is what sets the gangsters apart, let alone fighting the enemy they are fighting a battle deep inside. This causes more and more pain to them and they end up in drugs, drinks and women. They also dream about living honestly but the situations and their pasts haunt them and hunt them down. It is a hard-fought battle and it still asks for compelling viewing. Given below are some of the Gangster movies and actors that I loved the most, in case you have a similar taste don’t miss them.

Al Pacino: This guy has lived a gangster’s life in the Godfather trilogy. He portrays the mental battles of Michael Corleone in an intense and yet enjoyable fashion. His Scarface was also a great attempt in portraying the brooding, paranoid soul.

Robert De Niro: The Don Vito Corleone in Godfather II. He was brilliant in that movie. He also had a very good role in the movie Goodfellas. I have heard a lot about his movie Casino, but yet to watch it.

Nayakan: Nayakan was a milestone in the history of Tamil cinema. I would have seen the movie countless times and especially for the dialogue “Naan adicha nee sethuduve” (If I hit you will die.)

Pudhupettai: Loosely based on Scarface, this is arguably the second best gangster movie in Tamil after the one I had mentioned before. It showed the hardcore realities of a gangster’s life and the dark humor associated with it.

Thalapathi: More into the friendship between two gangsters rather than their personal travails, this was still a very good movie to watch.

Gangster: Shiney Ahuja was outright brilliant in this movie though he had only half the movie (the other half had Emraan’s useless antics). If you see his beautiful face sketched with those sulking eyes and why-am-I-here-and-oh-god-what-am-I-doing look you cannot help but feel sorry for him and his position. It was one of the best performances in a gangster movie in recent times.

If I had missed any do let me know, I would be more than happy to add them and watch them as well.

Enjoying what you do

When I got up this morning the enormous thought that surrounded my mind was 'What am I going to do today'. What is it that I can do to make this day unforgettable. But I am afraid there aren’t too many things that we can do in our routine life that can make a day memorable. So we have to think pretty much out of the box to make a day even slightly worth remembering in the long run. Be it the phone call to a friend of the long by-gone times or the surprise gift we present to our dear ones. We have to reluctantly agree that there is little chance of finding joy in our routine activities. And we all try at least to make the day a bit colorful, a bit different from the other days. In that attempt we try to have a different variety of dish, route and add all whatever that you can think of.

But then there used to be great saints (I am talking about real ones) and priests who were content in just praying to the Lord the whole day. The atheists could argue that their existence was not really worth anything for anybody. But that is out of scope for our discussion and we are more concerned about how they could spend day after day doing the same thing (praying) all along. They enjoyed their praying because they thought it was the best thing they could do (to reach God). Perhaps we could use some of their attitude. Given the circumstances, we have to do the best thing that is available. It could be walking a mile since the 2-wheeler is punctured or studying something since we were unaware of that thing till now. Once we are very sure that we are doing the best thing given the circumstances then it tends to fill us with a satisfaction and fulfillment.

Of course a few forward-thinking people might jump up and down and say that it is foolish to be happy with the current situation and not work harder for greater gains. Please observe my sentence carefully. There is a phrase ‘given the circumstances’. This means that if need be that you have to move on then you simply have to move on. There is no point in walking a mile if a colleague of yours is offering you a lift. So the circumstances keep changing and we have to analyze the situation every now and then make sure that we are not only on the right track but also on the right speed. Once we are sure of both then the journey can be a lot more interesting and fun.

This reminds me of Brad Pitt’s words in Troy. I am quoting them here.
“I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”
It is more than enough if we remind ourselves that we will never be here again. So there is no point in mulling over ifs and buts and it is better off enjoying and living the moment.

I am not trying to give anybody advice with this blog. These were just a train of thoughts that ran through my mind on a Saturday morning. Your comments are most welcome.