Bleeding Red, Bleeding Gold. But bleeding KingFisher?

Its hard to imagine a trivial misunderstanding because of a guard could give a community an identity, a language holier than thou and pride everytime we are quizzed-”Where are you from?”.

“Karnataka”.

Circa 390-415 CE. A certain MayuraSharma from the Kadamba clan embarked on a spiritual journey along with this grandfather, also his Guru to Kanchi to master the Vedas. Owing to some misunderstanding between a guard at Ashvasanstha (a place of horse sacrifice),a quarrel arose in which Mayurasharma was humiliated. There was born the seeds of revenge against the Pallavan empire. From their erstwhile capital of Banawasi, the flag with Genda Bherunda fluttered for the first time. Today, it occupies a place of pride in every bus ticket, in every government ensemble. Genda Bherunda stands for Karnataka.

It seems strange that I was supporting a team which masqueraded to represent Bangalore without the two headed mythical Genda Bherunda as the logo! Even a very creative logo could have stammered in comparison to The Genda Bherunda but having to contend with a logo which is used by a liquor company? Surely, Karnataka deserves better. The initial excitement of seeing Bangalore play on world stage has surely faded into a steady disillusion with the owners,BCCI and most importantly with the fans. Indeed, its amazaing to watch Chris Gayle tear bowlers to all parts of the park. But taking a step back, not for a moment do I feel He is representing Karnataka. Not for a moment, would I want Virat Kohli to lead a Karnataka team. The state which has nested and craddled the various profound schools of philosophies like Dvaitha(Udupi), Advaitha(Sringeri),Visishadvaita(Melkote) has to represented by a team owned by liquor dealers, captained by a Delhi brat who is'nt shy to flash his middle finger at the drop of the hat.

But wait, dont dismiss me with a simple “Why dont you support your Ranji team and just shut up?” Thanks, I do that. I follow my team. I followed my team last year at Gangothri Glades in Mysore, when the stadium got behind Manish Pandey. Ah, Days! But in IPL, is the world stage. Would not it be wonderful, if there were atleast six players for Karnataka in the playing XI? We would not even care about the results if the team did a decent job of representing us, the true inhibatitants of Karnataka on the world stage. Thanks for all the Washington RedSox cheerleaders from US. But, we would like the Yakshagana artists to entertain us better. And a theme song in “Game for Life”? There is no denying that, unless some other clubs (especially a certain club, whose players wear an obnoxious yellow(:P)), we have never been trying to prove our slum love.

Do this Vijay Mallya, for us. Keep your liquor advertisements out of a team that we love. We love RCB, but with the guilt that it does not represent us. Neither can we hate RCB, for the last name says “Bangalore”. While matches in Bangalore will definitely help you fill the coffers, Mallya Sir, what about our brothers from other parts in Karnataka. A couple of matches in Shimoga,Mysore and Mangaore will surely help build trust.

While, we do want to see foreign players in the league, we want them as players representing my city and not a franchisee called RCB. Not that we expect a Gayle to learn Kannada (of course, it would be pleasant if he tried doing so.), but to see a superstar like him being captained by a Kannadiga would do a world of good to fans. And for a land, which has given birth to Javagal Srinaths, Gundappa Vishwanaths, Venkatesh Prasads, lack of talent is a reason as genuine as lack of funds cited by the government for every charitable work.

By the way, for a name, Royal Challengers? Thank you.

LOL! TTYL, CYA, BYE

After the first week of my college, I made a strong note to myself - “I shall not rag my juniors!” and some more lofty idealistic notions. That was till, when I got ragged. Even amongst the 70 of us crammed into a bus, my senior Raghu could scavenge for the last of the juniors left 'un'ragged. Getting ragged in some senses, was like losing your virginity. There are two phases in a junior's life. Before getting ragged and after getting ragged.

You know a guy is not ragged, if you see him sneaking silently into canteen with a couple of friends and escaping without a trace. He is happy to sit in the front in the company of the teachers whom he despises from morning 7am to 4pm. Again, from 5pm till the next 6:59am, she turns a vixen! But that hour in bus, in the teacher, he finds his comfort, kind safety from the evil raggers! Alas, some day that back seat is forced and Raghu has had his prey. The more difficulty in obtaining the prey, the tastier it is, they say. And yeah, dont they love the caged ones who are more animate! And there I was, on the 10th day of college, I did a simple cut to “I shall not rag my juniors!”. COULD NOT WAIT FOR MY JUNIORS TO ARRIVE.

And arrive, they did. And rag, i Did. Or, so thought I. For two years, I occupied the central place in the last seat, the place reserved for the ring leader. He is supposed to be the rude master, the kind soul if the ragged soul sheds a tear, shoots trouble on seeing the teacher's glance behind, share numbers to help the junior! Yeah, most importantly, he has to VASOOL sweets! Phew!! Happy I was, following some Nitte tradition of “Introduction in resume format”, “Bhaw Bhaw tables”, “Proposing a boy/girl”(Of course, I made the little hotter gals propose me!:P) and “THE NITTE SALUTE” for the kirrik boys. However, cliched it sounds, Years passed by!!

It was the fourth year. The baton had to be passed. I shifted to the window. The folks whom I ragged came to the centre. I could sense the same enthusiasm which had clouded me when I was studying algorithms and datastructures. I was more than happy to bide my time looking at the other buses and casting a passing glance at the ragging sessions. Nothing much had changed. The tradition was much alive.

Until, she came.

Suddenly, I saw a gal who was not scared of being ragged. Neither was she desperate to be ragged. She was not scared. Neither, was there arrogance in her eyes. She was a little beautiful too(:P). I could already see some of my juniors turning pink,everytime she spoke to her. Her English smacked attitude, but her tone, humility. I could sense, she was upmarket. But, her home was near mine. I thought she was a Tomboy. Until, she cried in front of me.

Here was a person, dripping with irony. Yet, unmistakably, she was attractive.

It didnt take long for me to start talking. Thats an advantage a senior enjoys. A junior is usually, obliged to talk to a senior. Soon, we used to walk home together and halt at the last point common to our walk back home. We used to stop for a short while. Just that, half an hour soon became too short for us. And till date, she believes, she jacks me royalllllly!

For the first time, I could see the lines between a senior and a junior blurring. And we were 365*3 days apart each other. And, much much later, close friends later, in another couple of minutes, the person for whom I stole minutes at home to have a quick word is finally leaving her teens. For the first time, there is a tiny feeling of she getting older. To me, she was always the kid. Yeah, she plays the granny too.

Yet, I do not find a better way to wish my beloved friend than this.

“Happy Birthday, Jenny!”

PS: This is what she texts me these days for which I have my complaints.

Nafraat Achcha hai.

India, the land of KamaSutra? Umm,it houses Kurushketra too. One of the biggest wars in the eternity of mankind was fought here. Irony, that it might sound, the land is now considered holy and the spilt blood noble. Haven’t we Indians always celebrated war? Or shall we say,a fight? There are countless Dharmayudh(s), the war between the good and the bad or between the holy and evil, fought with so many people and even with ourselves. They say, you cannot be a spectator in a Dharmayudh. You are either black or white. You will vanquish or be vanquished.

            As a nation, we have always liked to fight. The challenge, sometimes against our self is consuming and the feeling of overcoming it, is more special. Yet, wouldn’t be better if we could fight on TV? Wouldn’t a simulation satiate our desire for blood? Sport, by no stretch of imagination, is war.  Yet, it is Dharmayudh, for there are no spectators. The biggest rivalries are not fought on the hallowed twenty yards of Wankhede or Chinnaswamy stadium. Those are the canvases where the Tendulkars and Dravids weave their magic. The biggest rivalries are fought in the packed stadiums. Have a doubt? Get a DVD of Dada leading PWI in this IPL. Hear Edens roaring torn in heart between its Prince and KKR. For every shot on the ground, there were a million shouts for and a million against. These days of course, we have Twitter and Facebook to rant in.

            And for this, I find IPL more interesting. Switch back to World Cup’ 11, I have watched the match in various surroundings.Nothing seemed to change. We all wanted India to win. Yeah, my friend was a Sachin fanatic. My mom, too. Dhoni was my man.  All the arguments started and ended with players.  It was forgotten if we, yeah WE, won. Losing a match did make us captains, selectors, coaches, cricketing pundits and sometimes an umpire too. Everything apart from a spectator. Still, all my misgivings over IPL nevertheless, it is more FUN. When you have dad supporting CSK,mom MI and myself RCB you know you every 6 from Gayle will be met with a sigh.

            And I didn’t add the main course yet. Welcome to FB and Twitter. The same friends who supported India during the world cup victory, have suddenly crossed swords. Gayle and Kohli might fight for their dollars. For me though, they are fighting for my bragging rights. There is a definite satisfaction, every time I see CSK fail. And to think of it, I dont hate CSK for winning the league a couple of times. Its CSK, which has the maximum presence in Bangalore after RCB. The battle might well be between Dhoni and Kohli now. Kohli,now. Come July, I shall be back to supporting Dhoni. For now, he remains my sworn enemy. I love this banter. Thank you, IPL.

He scores when He wants

If he was a four-legged creature, he would be a leopard. If he could fly, which he does so often, he would be a butterfly. If he did dance, he would be a peacock. Run everybody does, dance everybody does, fly too, many attempt too, but few have done in it style, that this man does it when he wears the red and white shirt, Robin Van Persie.

            Ask a cricket fan, and he will tell you, how much more elegant the left handers could be. To attribute Persie’s elegance to being a lefty would be injustice to the the great man’s talent. Born to artists, Persie’s canvas is the green grass in a football ground and in Emirates, how often he has transformed into something bigger, something more elevating. In some ways, this season the number of goals that Persie has scored diverted the attention from the artistry that he employs to dazzle the opponents.

            Being a part of an artist family, Persie would well know numbers are poor ways to measure success. For a man, who has so well expressed himself on the football ground, he lies on the threshold of a big decision to make. Should he chase numbers? Or, should he chase love? A chance at glory. A chance at living in the hearts of The Emirates faithful for a lifetime. Sports does not lend itself to rational thinking. Sometimes, the most instinctive decisions are the best ones and the heart often makes better decisions than the brain. Persie has two choices now. Either, he could decorate his cupboard with medals. Or, He could be content with seeing his poster in the bedroom of every Gooner and a special place reserved for him.

            When he arrived as a youngster from Feyernood, not many teams bid for him because of his Balotteli like reputation. Even in times, when Arsenal was frustrated with injuries which regularly affected Persie, Arsenal respected his talent. Tonight is a chance for Persie to redeem himself. To repay the faith that Arsenal have reaped on him.  To say no to a truckload of dollars from the oil country is going to be tough. But to earn the shouts of “Persie, Persie” at the Emirates is tougher.

            A chance to remain a good player. A chance to become a legend.

King Persie, Ball is in your court. Gooner Forever.

The dawn of The Apocalypse

THE glories of our blood and state
         Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
         Death lays his icy hand on kings:
         Sceptre and Crown
         Must tumble down,
         And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

 So said, the greatest of men, who never tasted death,nor would they. Ironical as it may sound, the immortals found death fascinating. For them, death was just a play of thoughts, food to brood on for hours in darkness, ammunition enough to make generations weep. Much as these men could make death sound romantic enough, the more unfortunate ones are fortunate enough to know death more closely. Death for us is seasonal. I have died many times in the last few years. It might disguise itself in arcane ways.Yet, not so tough for mortals like me to find my hands shaking, brows breaking in sweat. The death bells have started ringing. In a grad college,death is known by the calender. The dusk of the semester is the dawn of the apocalypse.
The end of the semester is a great leveller. To watch the kids who knew not was darkness was for three months, who conquered the angel called sleep, who so beautifully seduced you everytime you opened the notebook, the ones who knew not what was life was for three months, to watch their face glow in the end of semester is a joy indeed. And then, there were some other people. The ones who knew not how to tell a NO. They never disappointed sleep everytime she courted him, their mind tried to drag their fingers away everytime the fingers went over the words t,w, i, e, r to write “twitter”, the ones who impulse always made them tell “hello” even though, somewhere at the back of mind, they knew the other person has finished his work. Truly, the end of the semester does even it out all. The inner guilt of not competing enough is consuming. For every person who drops in to say, “our project worked only at the last moment!” and watch him heave a sigh of relief, there is a river am forced to swallow down my throat.
This is not the first time I have felt this, and probably not the last time too. Its in these times, we promise ourself, “Come next time!”. I am waiting for the next time from the past 22 years. Elusive, she is! Nothing truly pinches you more than a walk across the wing where you stay. To see rooms bolted, lights switched off and to see people sleeping is a rare sight. Probably, they are sleeping after a hard day’s work. Err, a hard semester’s work. In a few more days, all the lizards will have to leave their habitation. The bags will be dusted. The clothes will adorn the bag which has locked itself for months in the cupboard. The tickets are already booked, i hear. The smiles have already started to break. It wouldnt be long before,they call all their near ones whom they resisted talking to for months about them coming back. Smells of victory there.
 For them, the holidays will mean vacation. For me, its a wait.A wait for the semester to begin. For me, its a wait for another chance to redeem myself. The end of the semester is not death in itself. Its only the ringing of the death bell. Its much worse than death itself. Infact, death can only relive the pain and release you to the next birth. The feeling is terrible, when you can see the writing on the wall, however dark life is. You know in this dusk, it wont be long before the moon washes the earth with milk. Yet, that hope, false hope that I mistaked dusk for the dawn.

Accused everywhere!!

I call myself @accusedengineer on Twitter! One of my close friends, calls himself @accused_iyer! Oh yeah, after the infinite amounts of plagiarism, I shall absolve myself by citing him as the source of inspiration for my Twitter handle! Inspiration nevertheless, I was intrigued by some of the memes doing rounds, “What, my parents think I am?”, “What my freinds think I am?”, What my girlfriend thinks I am!!

When will people ever know what I am?! Not that, I care. But sometimes, It hurts when people have a notion of me which is better than my real self. And obviously, I wont live to please their idea of me. And the vicious circle of people getting hurt starts!

But seriously, my introduction itself builds a wrong image in people’ s heads! Hi, Am Rahul. I am from Bangalore! All is fine till then.Then the dreaded question: Whats your native? Am a Tamilian! Therein, forms the image of a Sun TV watching, sambar loving, Hindi bashing image of mine! But heavens, I am anything but this. Yeah, I do have many Tamilian streaks. I love filter coffee. I love curd rice.I do love Vadivel, Vivek, Santhanam and yeah, am a Vijay fan too. But more than, am proud of the fact that I share my blood with the genius of Ramanunjam, the Anands and the ARRs.

Err, did I tell am full bred Bangalorean? Not really, there too! Somehow, people from all places except Bangalore have mapped the image of  a Bangalorean to a gum chewing, Manchester United jersey wearing, blond streaked dude with some hot gals for company. Oh yeah, did I forget people assume us to possess some costly gizmo and with near zero disdain for money! Sorry once more! I am a Bangalorean. Yes, My English oozes Bangalore. However, thy respect for Victorian English shall persist, love the da’s, the le’s , the chumma’s and the ganchalis!As a Bangalorean, love the Darshini hotels more than the fancy malls. But being middle class, am willing to walk the extra mile(yes, i mean it literally from college to home!) to catch an ordinary bus than travelling by the volvo!

In India, another prejudice is caste. In some ways, its not totally away from reality. And as my friend’s dad rightly calls him, accused iyers we have become! Mom calls at 8,”Dai, today Saraswati Puja da! Thala ke ellam kulli da! “. All we hear is Saraswathi and Puja! Pun intended!

But seriously, being Iyer does not mean no-world knowledge knowing, ghee eating, Veda reciting no-girl seeing nerd. Neither are we any good in maths. Again, am a fuzzy iyer. Once in a while, I do my sandhya Vandhanam. Once in a while, I watch Shakeela doing her jalwa!

And last but not the least? Engineering? Am ghanta engineer! The other day, my aunt was trying to get her vehicle to start, when my gracious grandfather interrupts! “Fret not, my dear daughter, I have a grandson, equal to a thousand lions, who has mastered the Vedas, err, sorry engineering. Thee shall transform your vehicle into a 1000 horsed chariot, now”! Aye, dude. I am no mechanic! Not that this has happened, but I can very well see my cousin in a year’s time asking me to solve the Towers of Hannoi problem given a C compiler! Wonder, if he really knows what I did during my engineering.

Not that I really fret over what people think about me. Perhaps, everbody lives in a parallel world. Perhaps, being accused is better than being convicted.

 

Yahppa, Finally He retires....

Lord's, Eden Gardens, Rawalpindi, Adelaide. Isnt it obviously evident that in this soil and the honourboards of these stadiums has The Wall etched his place in history. I have missed two more important places. One, St. Joseph's school,Bangalore and second, in my heart. I know, am just amongst the countless writing a tribute to The Wall, I would be immensely guilty if i failed to do so today. I know I can never match the elegance of a la Rohit Brijnath nor can I measure upto the brilliance of a Sidvee.

Yet, Dravid, I dont know how much you have influenced world cricket and how much lesser will cricket be a gentleman's game from tomo? All i know is, you are responsible for getting my grades from A to B in a couple of exams. You made me the most boring batsman in my gully. Did

i stop? Do you realise, how many times I had to be the object of ridicule when you struggled to save the match for India? Yes, you played your heart out. But, for an area where I spent my childhood, you were just another good player.

When I started watching cricket, you were never my idol. I think I was 6 when I really started watching cricket. Sachin was my idol,yes he too he is still today. I was rather forced to become your fan. In those dusty gullys of Pune, where all the kids had to watch cricket together in a certain shop or hunt for a home where 'cable' was provided, when you made that 96 in Lords, I was converted into a Rahul Dravid, quite forcefully by my friends. I should have been 7-8 then. We both share our first names. And from therein, I became the Dravid of my area.

That evening onwards, I started behaving like you. However, I saw you on the stadium. I tried the crouched stance. I avoided audacious shots. I stopped getting out. Years later, during the summer holidays of 8^th standard, with my cap firmly on head, just the way it decorates your head, I did not get out for 3 and half hours,before our moms yelled at us to get back into our pavilions! My 'Dravidification' was complete that day.

Dear Dravid, Why did you have to be so perfect?You are just not the perfect idol. There is not a single instance where, I can bunk my studies and reason it to mom, saying Dravid did this too. We know, you were the best allround student at St. Josephs. I wish, you were like one of those other overpaid starlets, who could do anything for money. We know, you shot your first ad for your dad's company. Jammy, my boy! I wish you were one of those who sported a tatoo. I never got into an argument for a run out or a catch, even in my local cricket for I never saw you drop your gentlemanliness a bit during the game. Oh yes,and how do I forget this? You've bowled, batted and even kept. You've done every thing that your team wanted. Why? You could even sit out of the team if they ever wanted you to!

But still, these are only the fringe effects of my obsession with you. The bigger malice, The bigger damage is I have stopped watching cricket these days. Slowly, one dayers started getting boring.How much ever, the adage that cricket is bigger than individuals, Its not enough to convince me. I fear for my passion today. Test cricket was. Every time, an opener fell. I was nervous. I was not happy to see you on the pitch soon. That frentic energy to see you. That nervous prayers. That relief to see you go past every milestone. That gasp when you teach us what discipline means by grinding out each bowler. That unmeasurable feeling of seeing the opposition bowler frustrated. That feeling of pride when I could tell the person sitting and watching next to me, “This is how you play the shot, my boy!”.

I dont know when I shall watch test cricket again. I might have scored a few lesser grades, wasted a few more hours. Yet, you have made my teenage and the two years after it, much much better than how it could have been.

P.S: This blog post is for my 10th std. benchmate Alisha Shah, whom I have troubled her much during my 10th. I can understand how much you would be pained.