One-Eighty Degrees

The worlds topsy-turvy,its upside-down. And i don't like it. I'm no big shot who can change the world. The least i can do is, make things look right even the wrong way.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tie,Tie,Tie

The past week has definitely been colourful. From the white of sickness, to the green of jealousy,the bright golden of the unforgiving sun,the red of the scraped knee from the successful three-run-saving dive,and just to round it off, the outrageously eye-soreish orange of the Kochi Tuskers, notwithstanding their Silver hearted display against the marauders from Bollywood Town. Searching for Blue? Gotcha.
                                          Just a few weeks back, a friend of mine had narrated a deeply intriguing tale of a school friend of his, who died under extremely suspicious conditions.  He was a very popular guy at school and was a computer genius. History has it that, he wanted to experience the feeling of death while still being alive. And mysteriously, he doesn't turn up at school for a few weeks, while his parents still think hes at school, warming benches. And no one knows where he goes and where he comes all the while, not even his close friends.Mystery. And one fine day, he decides to give Death a missed call and hangs from a ventilator, using his school tie. Unfortunately, Death's reflexes were not to be underestimated, and the call was picked up. Not even his influential dad could persuade the hospital to admit a suicide case, and thus went his life. His friends sense something mischievous afoot, and try to extract information from his laptop. But its all password protected and set to get destroyed if force was used. More mystery.This was no Sherlock Holmes story, no explanations to make things fall in place at the end. All I could manage, as my friend concluded the story with a desperately inconclusive touch, was an open mouth and a permanent image of a Blue school Tie, with ventilator at one end and vented feelings at the other.
                                         As the world celebrated yet another Tamil New year, and as polling booths wound up election operations, "where was the undersigned ?", you wonder! As people who know me have rightly guessed, i was on the cricket field, representing my college in a District league match. Despite health concerns and admonishing from three different women, i chose to play. Things didn't start too well as we lost the toss and were forced to bat first. Yet again I was in a situation of playing with the tail and guiding the team to a decent score, and i just about managed to do that. But my bowling was patchy, and the match was a close one, and though we should have won it hands down, we let it slip and the match was a, wait for it, Tie. Final ball, three to win, last wicket to go, they poked and ran, and I thought we won. But a wayward throw let them steal a second, the perpetrator was someone who was probably playing his last match for the college, and in his life. As he sank to the ground dejected, we went over to him, and his fellow final-years put an arm round him and said, "I've never seen one wrong throw from you till now mate, cheer up, this will be your last :)". He brightened instantly. Power of bonding over a game, power of friends and friendship.
                                                Staying with the field, I realised how hot it is getting. Global warming, and it helped me get a friend. I realised I had  missed my hat, and was gonna get baked on the field if i dint borrow one. A gracious member from the opponent team lent me one with a smile, and i was ever so grateful to him. Another friendly-'tie', away from the limelight. And the heat is driving the whole of me crazy, including my balls. So much so that Ive stopped wearing underwear at times. I guess it Ties me down. Tie and underwear in the same sentence bring to my mind Navjoth Singh Sidhu, who so 'intelligently and brilliantly' quoted "Humility is like your underwear. Wear it but don't show it."
                                     So in the chronological order, there's the the Blue-Tie, the Friend-Tie, the Hat-Tie and the Underwear-Tie. Guess I've 'Tied' it all together,four random words, for The Ensemble. Word-prompts are an awesome idea ;)

We are The Ensemble, We seek change, and not in coins!


                                  
                                  

                                          
                      








Sunday, April 10, 2011

Anna, Amma and the apparent Wardrobe

Declaration: The title is not self explanatory, but its just a blogger's way of making sure the whole post is read :P

Well its IPL time, and its a month-and-a-half of total Cricket. The late night action, the glamour and all the nail biting finishes -Like the Promo says, It's Awesome. But look at the other side of it: The Money, those pretty bits of paper printed with Ben Franklin's and Mahatma Gandhi's visages and whats evidently coming when theres money(read as D-U-H!!). After having watched day after day of twists and turns and having always wondered " Why Harbhajan Before Pollard?" and more recently "Why Yusuf before Gambhir?", its just staring in your face: Was that Fixed??
                             It's an ugly feeling, after having enjoyed all the cricket with so much passion, when you collapse into bed and realise its all for those "now-not-so-pretty" bits of paper. And no one was gladder than me when, the IPL got lesser attention than it deserved, and Im not talking about, to say it the Chetan Bhagat way, The *INDIA-Excellent* World cup Win. Enter the phenomenon, Anna Hazare.

                                   I don't know where he was hiding all this while, but he did surface with a bang. Having always undertaken small scale "fasts-unto-death" in childhood to get my dad buy me the new computer game or the Rbk cricket bat,I can realise the power of such a fast.(Well it worked each time for me).And thus came frenzied negotiations, and we can all expect the LokPal Bill in a while. Though its still unclear what exactly the bill professes to do, I have understood that it involves an all-powerful Peoples committee to keep tabs on corrupt officials.Though there are questions about what will happen in case of corruption within the LokPal or if citizen representatives go overboard and interfere with government functioning, its definitely a step forward. I can now actually go to sleep,  trying to reason that Pollard couldn't keep is guns blazing for too many overs, and hence the decision. And i love the Idea! to keep cricket clean. What an idea sirji!
                                        Also, its poll time in TN, and frankly im shocked at the desperateness because just last night i was walking down an empty street and Actor Prashant in a campaign vehicle waved at me. With Kaipulla Vadivel going hammer and tongs, its a new dimension. After Apr 13 , it could well be Dusk and the sprout of the New Green ( I'm desperately cross reference-ing to avoid trouble). The apparent wardrobe? Oh well, like the Election Commission Squads are finding out on a daily basis, wardrobes contain more than pretty clothes.  Like you know, pretty bits of paper ;). I can see you're panicking about the yet-to-come 180.
Its on its way....When cricket is played for passion and not for money, when administrators don't accept bribes,when election winners remember the govt is by the people, for the people and of the people, and when success is more about what you know than who you know (Thank you, CB), that is when
life is beautiful!

Life is Beautiful, indeed :)