SRT and the retirement question!

Sport can be so cruel. The man who devoted his entire life to the game is now having to play for survival. Imagine that! He who conquered all the challenges in his pomp is now having to kow-tow to mere mortals who are asking him to prolong his career for the sake of a few extra dollars earned in his name. Haven't they earned enough off his hard work, blood sweat and tears? Admittedly he himself has benefitted from their largesse but I'd like to believe that he has more than paid that back by the bagful in a way only he could have. To see a man who made batting look easy for so many years fail to negotiate middling bowlers and looking ill at ease while doing that is heartbreaking. How much longer are we to suffer this tragedy and how much longer are the handlers going to humiliate a proud man thus? Please don't give them that satisfaction nor allow a bunch of misguided selectors an instant claim to perpetual notoriety by allowing them to drop you from the team and just announce your retirement. Please!

The magic of watching sports live

I am an unabashed sports fan and have been for most of my life. Earlier, I would be happy playing some outdoor sport or the other, with the passage of time, playing has lessened and focus has shifted to watching live sporting action. And my last job sure helped me fulfill some of those ambitions.
The sheer thrill of walking into Lords to watch the traditional season opener for the English season is something I cannot put into words. It has to be experienced. The envious comments among friends upon seeing a picture of that experience is itself reward if you ask me.
Another tick on my list of live sporting events to watch was ticked off when I made it to Reading on a cold November night and saw a woeful Reading team take on the mighty Gunners with Adebayor in full flow. Adebayor had not succumbed to greed and shifted to City then. The abiding memory for me was the biting cold in the stadium and immense respect for the thousands of fans who throng these games in almost subhuman conditions year after year and the players who have to ply their trade in these conditions.
And after years of wanting to see Sachin score runs in an Indian win, I finally saw it in the India vs Australia test match in Bangalore. The final day was magical with the crowd going wild with every run being scored and also watching a debutant play the innings of his short career was truly magical. I must recommend the sports loving crowd in Bangalore for the wholehearted support they give the players. Barring some boors, the crowd in general is very sporting and passionate. That is an experience worth living.
Another longstanding ambition was to see Schumacher drive a F1 car in anger. That was fulfilled this year at the Marina Bay street circuit in Singapore earlier this year. Though he was woeful, it still meant a lot to be able to see him drive in the flesh.

When you know that there are many more such experiences worth looking forward to, you know that life is good!

Of electricity bills and other mundane matters

Early morning today while reading the paper I got a shock which turned to amazement and then to outrage. People running multi-billion dollar corporations with CSR initiative to assuage collective guilt should not be spending obscene amounts of money on scarce resources like electricity.
Mukesh Ambani had the perfect opportunity to make a green statement with his new house in Mumbai. It's actually an affront to the term house to call his new abode that, I feel. Instead of cashing in on an opportunity, he chose to flaunt his considerable wealth and create a monstrosity that consumes electricity that could reportedly light up the houses of 7000 people in Mumbai for a month. All this for just one month in a 12 month long year. I am also sure that in cases of power outages his abode has gas guzzling generators which will keep him and his family in comfort and spew out heat and smoke out into the already polluted Mumbai air by the cloudload.
What a shame!

Azad Kashmir

Natives of Kashmir want independence from india apparently. Wonder if they realize that azadi is a pipe dream for them. Or is it that they prefer to be known as Pakistani? Or do they prefer the Chinese I wonder. Now that would be called jumping from the frying pan into the fire. I sometimes wonder what these separatists smoke in their spare time! Sheesh!

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Random musings

Just looked up my blog count and realised that I was really prolific in the first year and its tapered off in the next two. Happens to everything in life. The trick is to persist with the ones worth persisting. A lesson I have to take to heart.

CWG - Delhi 2010

What a fiasco it promises to be! Four freaking years and we are nowhere near ready. The worst part is that the country seems to have woken up just now. And the skeletons are tumbling out thick and fast. I can't believe that I'm thinking this but I hope that the games don't go ahead. If they do, we might have real alert skeletons to deal with. What with the substandard materials used to make all the stadiums, they could all come tumbling down.

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Deja vu!

Right when the team for the T20 World Cup was announced, I had this sneaky suspicion that it was going to end in shambles again for India. I just didn't think it would be this shambolic. After having watched India beat Afghanistan and SA in round one, I was a bit surprised but then normal service resumed in the Super 8's. Watching the batsmen jumping and ducking like scared children against the Aussie quick's, I was ashamed. That killed whatever remaining interest I had in watching the matches. I was spared the remaining grief thanks to that decision.
All this brings to mind a eerily similar performance at the last T20 World Cup in England. What were the coaching staff doing? What were the players doing in the meanwhile? Why do we still continue to carry passengers in the team? Who questions the selectors if anyone does? Questions, I am afraid, I won't get answers to anytime soon.
Another win in an inconsequential match somewhere and all this will be forgotten. Sadly.