Rahul Dravid: A Boy's Hero

As I creep towards the quarter century mark of my life I am trying to evaluate, like I have done for every ‘budday’ of the past few years, if I truly am no longer a kid. It is impossible to assess this purely on the basis of numbers. I felt no different, to whom I was before, when I hit 18, the legal drinking age, or 21, the legal marriageable age. Liquor and Women, in either that order or the reverse, are probably accurate parameters to judge everything else in life but I propose that this is one of the few exceptions.

It is difficult to arrive at the correct ones but the events of the last few days have, unexpectedly, made it easier. One of life’s essential truths is that as you grow older it’s harder to have heroes. I suppose this is especially true when they start retiring. And it is when your very first hero, a sportsperson no less, retires that you recognize that your childhood has finally ended.

This piece I hope will get me to terms with my gloom, which one naturally feels on realizing the same, and my increased apprehension towards the days ahead. Not for the future of Indian Cricket but for my own.

Let’s start at the beginning. In April of 1997 I move to India at the age of ten.
If you remember what you’ve watched on Animal Planet you will recall that when a creature seeks to enter a new clan or herd, seeking acceptance or at the least survival, it has before it two options. One, through force establish itself as the dominant leader, or two, adhere to the well established social structure and hope to God that nobody notices while it waits in line for its turn at the carcass. (This is also, if you were wondering, the scientific origin of the Socially Awkward Penguin)

As a scrawny foreign kid, who was at the time as far from being a dominant leader as our present Prime Minister, the honorable Dr Manmohan Singh, currently is, I prudently went for the second option. Though I must admit there were fewer carcasses in India than I initially expected but a great deal more cricket matches to contend with than was possible for a kid whose cricketing career till then merely included holding a bat used for beating clothes while washing. Don’t ask.

So whilst accusing my cousin of using black magic to spin a tennis ball in ungodly ways I decide to learn as much about cricket as possible. Since advice like “Hit the ball for fours and sixes” which I was receiving from my elders and peers wasn’t as helpful as they would think it to be, watching cricket was my only alternative.

Cue the Pepsi Independence Cup, a tournament held to mark India’s 50th year of independence, India Vs Pakistan at Chennai. Saeed Anwar produces what could arguably be the single greatest ODI innings (194) every played. India go on to lose but not before threatening to make a match out of it. Amid the ruckus, of the town people, whom I’ve never seen before, entering our home to catch a few overs of the game and the intermittent power cuts, a certain Rahul Dravid scores his first ODI hundred, a fine 107, a knock now forgotten in time. Despite the snide comments coming from the townies- “It was too slow”, “No use. We won’t win anyways”, it was the first century I had ever seen by an Indian Player and boy was I smitten.

I try to learn everything there is to know about the man. How he scored his first Test hundred in South Africa battling the likes Donald, Pollock and McMillan. How he walked on 95 in his debut innings at Lords. Walked. Who does that? Concepts of principles and values were far removed from anything I had to deal with at the time. But these anecdotes reaffirmed the faith that I, as a boy, had decided to invest in R.D.

A few months later R.D loses his place in the ODI team since the selectors believe his game isn’t suited to the shorter format. I am devastated but thankfully devastation for a ten year old doesn’t last too long. I quickly get over it. I have to get up to speed with the other aspects of the game. Leg spin isn’t going to teach itself to me and I am puzzled as to how Muralitharan does what he does using that action of his. And from the looks of it I’m not the only one.

Fast forward a year and I am now, more or less, a well adjusted Indian boy; literally able to spin a ball left, right and centre. But even better R.D makes a comeback to the One Day team in what could only be described as a feel good triangular series involving Bangladesh and Kenya. I remember praying, every time he came out to bat, that he scores at least a 50. In one particular innings against Kenya after settling in with some controlled stroke play he is bowled out on 49. Why? How could this happen? He had obviously worked very hard on his game. He deserves to succeed. Why isn’t he? This becomes one of the first lessons I learn from supporting R.D. Hard work doesn’t guarantee success. All those people who said that if you work hard towards something then you’ll get the results were wrong. All hard work does is statistically improve your chances of success. Failure is always a possibility. But giving up after giving it your best and failing was something R.D never did. He kept coming back focused and fitter than ever before, after each setback. Only by consistently working hard could you hope to succeed consistently.

In the Test Arena records continue to fall by the wayside. In New Zealand he is out duck for the first time in his career having scored a world record 1805 runs before this. The very next match of the series he becomes the third Indian after Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar to score hundreds in both innings of a test match. Bouncebackability should have been a term coined to describe R.D.

R.D keeps his place in the side and is selected to play in the 1999 World Cup. To show my support I buy a huge poster of his at the Church fair using Rs 20 of my hard-begged-intended-for-ice-cream money. It was the most God awful poster you could ever hope not to see. Set against an amber background is R.D’s face decorated with beads of sweat. There’s a huge grin on his face, the kind of grin one wears after an exhausting yet satisfying days work. Using copious amounts of Sellotape I finally decide on a spot on the wall from where the first thing I’d see after waking up in the morning was R.D’s toothy smile.

The 99 World Cup is both mine and R.D’s first. And I’m sure, what with India’s performance, a thoroughly disappointing one for the both of us apart from for the fact that R.D scores the most runs in the entire tournament. It is here I believe R.D earns most of his young fan following. ‘Your first World cup’ is special for all fans and it defines who we take as our Idols. (Those whose first was 96 or 03 cannot help but be diehard fans of Sachin Tendulkar. Similarly for the newbies and Yuvraj Singh in 2011.) R.D is not selected as the Man of the Series. He loses to a man who can’t judge a single. Scandalous.

Years move on. R.D cements his position in both the Test and ODI teams. But the performance of the team as a whole continues to be poor. The Match fixing scandal sees the ouster of established middle order batsmen – Skipper Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. In 2000 Sourav Ganguly begins his 6 year reign of aggressive captaincy which will change the direction of Indian Cricket and prove to be a golden period in R.D’s career. The turnaround point is Day 4 of the Second Test match between India and Australia at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. We all know what transpired but the day before I was a tad annoyed at seeing R.D being dropped to number 6 in the batting order. We were following on and R.D had little to no experience of playing in that position. I was sure it was going to be a quick end the next day and went to school without giving it a second thought. In those days nobody carried cell phones to school and we were immersed in our year end exams. I reach back home towards the end of days play and ask Dad how much we lost by. Dad tells me they are still batting. VVS Laxman and R.D are still batting!!! The rest of the day is spent watching highlights and news coverage of the greatest partnership in the history of Test Cricket. Though Laxman’s very very special counterattacking innings is the toast of the nation, I can’t help but marvel at R.D’s ability to adapt not only to an unfamiliar position but also the disappointment of being bumped down the order. Making the best of a tough situation is the greatest lesson I could take from the man.

Masterclass innings follow one after the other. I bunk class to watch the 233 at Adelaide on a tiny 17” TV in the kitchen of the local pakoda and lemon soda shop outside PU college. It gets me all teary-eyed. Not from the possibility of victory in Australia but from all the onions being chopped around me. I watch the 270 Vs Pakistan at Rawalpindi despite it being during my 12th board exams. The next exam was Hindi. Who studies for Hindi, Mom? Who Studies Hindi when we are beating Pakistan in Pakistan? Not me.

Try as he may he couldn’t stay away from controversy completely. He would attract his fair share of delusional folk accusing him of intentional ball tampering and conspiring to deny Sachin Tendulkar a Double Century. I defend him as vehemently as possible though I don’t need to. His dignity and reputation eventually shine through and ensures that such talk dies down before it can pick up speed.

In 2004 I move to Bangalore for college. My obsession with cricket decreases. I try to keep track of the team and R.D as much as possible but I don’t watch nearly as much cricket as before. Living in Bangalore does give me two chances to see R.D. play in the flesh at Chinnaswamy stadium and I have had the good fortune of seeing him score 50s on both occasions. The first- being a match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab in the very first season of the Indian Premier League. He scores a brilliant 66 while the rest of the team collapses in an insipid fashion which comes to define RCBs first season. However in a format deemed to be antithetical to his style of play he ends up being the highest run scorer for RCB in the tournament. It also marks the first and last time I have celebrated by doing the Egyptian Dance in public. All video evidence has been confiscated and destroyed. The Second- Day 3 of a Test match between India and Australia. R.D scores a solid 51 before being trapped in front. It is also the first time I watch Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly walk out to bat. My loudest girl-like screams are, of course, reserved for R.D.

But better than all of that, I also catch R.D with his son Samit late one night buying Ice cream from the now defunct Corner House on Old Airport Road. I and a friend are behind him on the line to place our order. I am so star struck I can’t even think straight. My friend though is all “OMG! It’s Rahul Dravid. OMG! It’s Rahul Dravid. He’s so cute”. She asks for an autograph but, curse her cruel fate, her pen runs out of ink. R.D apologetically says he has to leave because he’s running late. This fascinating story is one I always recite to anybody willing to come with me to Corner House. And, let me tell you, the numbers are dwindling.

However before all of this happens, India, under the captaincy of R.D., are embarrassingly dumped out at the first group stage of the 2007 World Cup. No new fans choose their idol from that World Cup. Under the captaincy of R.D. India also win away series in West Indies and England. A proud R.D returns home from England and relinquishes the captaincy of the Indian team. Throughout his career I have instantly agreed with every decision that he had made. This one would prove to be the exception. I couldn’t understand it. Was he losing his nerve? Not likely. Though one did get the feeling he wasn’t enjoying it as much. Was he being forced out? I doubt I’ll ever know the answer to this. Who else could lead the team? It turns out that this would be another example of R.D’s impeccable timing. His successor would prove to be one of the most successful captains of Indian Cricket.

Life moves on and in 2009 I find myself working in New Okhla Industrial Development Area (Noida), a place as depressing as it sounds. Meanwhile R.D is going through the worst phase of his career following two lean years in 07 and 08. But he never loses his sense of humor. At the SCG vs. Australia, he takes 39 balls to move from 18 to 19. The crowd cheers and R.D being the sport that he is raises his bat to the crowd. Self Deprecating humor at its best! Although he took playing for the country very seriously he never shied away from having a laugh at himself, which is something I’ve tried to cultivate. To be honest I’ve had more people laugh at me than is necessary. What’s one more? Besides that way I could say that they are laughing with me rather than at me.

Anyway, feeling sorry for myself in an unfamiliar city, I am desperately looking for something to get me out of my funk. What is the point of a hero if he doesn’t inspire? R.D produces back to back centuries during Sri Lanka’s tour to India silencing his detractors once again. Keeping track of his scores on Cricinfo and watching highlights late at night get me through an initial difficult period. And as with almost every great R.D innings where an early struggle is followed by exquisite stroke play, I too do quite well in the months that follow.

The next few years see R.D get dropped twice from the ODI team, get recalled twice, retire from one day cricket, make his debut in an International T20 match and retire after the same but not before spanking 3 consecutive sixes. In test cricket he suffers dips in form but yet scores hundreds a plenty. The 3 centuries in England, where everyone else failed, being his true final swansong. A disappointing year end tour to Australia proves to be his last. Demands for his removal grow more vocal, the heroics of the English tour quickly being forgotten.

On 9th March 2012 Rahul Dravid announces his retirement from International and First Class Cricket.

R.D can now relax with his feet up and reflect on a fine career and simultaneously endure the perils of trying to teach his kids long division, which is all fine and dandy. But if I may take a moment for myself, where does this leave me? I find myself at crossroads in my own career with important decisions to take; knowing that regardless of what I choose there will be hardships and uncertainties along the way. Those that can no longer be faced by watching him play. What’s a Boy to do? A Boy without a hero. Yet a Boy left with inerasable life lessons. A Man.

A New Beginning

If India winning the world cup doesn’t inspire me to write I don’t know what will.

It was a great run of matches in the knockout stages. I will always remember them if not for the victories then for the parties which took place at my place during. And also for the celebrations on M.G. Road after the final. I have never seen anything quite like that in my whole life and I don’t think I will ever again. People inside and on top of moving cars chanting either their favorite cricketers name or their favored patriotic quote (Mine is 'Jai Ho'). Cops not stopping cars of drivers so obviously inebriated. Strangers hugging and High Five-ing each other. Me requiring hand sanitizer. Groups of men performing their version of dappanguthu unmindful of their total lack of rhythm.

In fact, I tried initiating some chants on the lines of “Jeetega bhai Jeetega” in anticipation of the 2015 World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand. Suprisingly it did not catch on. I’m assuming there was some apprehension regarding the ability of our batsmen on the bouncy Perth pitch although nobody mentioned it in so many words.



It was all very fascinating and try as I may I couldn’t think of anything else which would have sparked revelry of a similar intensity.
Landing on Mars? Not unless we plan to construct a stadium there which would hold the next India-England WC match. Then notice that it won’t be completed in time due to lack of air or some other inane reason. And shift venue to Namma Bengaluru.
10% GDP Rate? Only if it were announced that the money would be invested in efforts to Clone Sachin but not before surgically extracting Sunil Gavaskar’s lips from his ass.
0 Female Infanticide Rate? If women could play cricket.*

But having seen all this, the first thought that came to my mind is – “How does India winning the world cup change my life?” (Ladies. Does ‘I watched India win the world cup’ work as a pickup line? No?) Well, it doesn’t and it shouldn’t and the fact that I think that it might is reprehensible. I quickly realize that this world cup victory isn’t meant for any one person (in spite of what Sachin fanatics say); it’s for the whole country.

So how does this victory change the thinking of the people, the perception of the nation?
Let me see. A couple of days on and we are upset and frustrated at the action or inaction of the government in having customs allegedly seize the World cup trophy which should have been presented to Dhoni and Co. We are frothing at comments made by some 18-year-old Pakistani Cricketer that stated that Gambhir was wrong in dedicating the victory to the victims of Mumbai 26/11. We are relieved at not having to hear Navjot Singh Sidhu on live television every other day. We are hoping that some model strips down to her birthday suit. We don’t mind that Millionaire Indian cricketers are being gifted money and land while athletes promised the same after their performances in the Asian and Commonwealth games are still waiting for their just rewards. We are waiting for someone to shoot Ravi Shastri with a tracer bullet.

All new things these.

* Well of course. C’mon on. I’m just kidding. Of course women play cricket. In fact the Indian women's cricket team has never placed lower than 4th in any world cup they have participated in. We can exchange them for some South Africans.

“Users Guide to being pals with R.S. (for dummies)”

For a long time I’ve been afflicted with an extremely severe condition popularly known as writers block. Not that I consider myself to be writer in the truest sense. But if the shoe fits, albeit a tad stinky and strewn with holes, wear it.

The causes of this affliction, I tell myself, are one of the following – absence of a muse, hectic work, working out at the gym and competitive exams that I don’t bother studying for.

The non-existence of female inspiration is actually a prerequisite of being a tortured artist. So we can scratch that. As for work, well, if I have time for online poker so it can’t be that. The bulge on my biceps that only I seem to notice would obviously help me hold a pen better. We are left with the competitive exams. Who knew that not studying would be so stressful that it drains all of ones creative juices?

Anyways I’m making a brief return to the writing scene and unlike previous narcissistic pieces in which I talk about myself and my experiences with myself, this particular write up is for a very special friend.

This special friend is embarking on her very own version of the great American dream. And while I’m excited for her, it does leave me with the tough ask of having to say goodbye. Considering my inability to have a serious conversation about feelings and other such disconcerting topics I thought it best to go the written way.

R. S. and I were actually in the same queue for paying fees on admissions day before college began. The fact that it took us 3+ years to actually become friends is something that I rue till date but as the saying goes good things happen to those that wait. (Neither of us was really waiting but I can’t always find a saying that fits. I’m not that good a writer though R.S., I’m sure, is one of the very few who disagree.)

She seemed petrified at being there and wouldn’t say more than a few words. (Years later I found that this was not status quo) Not that I felt particularly chatty, being a kid from a small town suddenly finding himself in the big city. For the next 3 years in the same class it was mere exchange of polite smiles whenever we crossed paths. During that period I made a set of great friends and so did she. As of today, these 2 sets of friends have actually union-ed have become 1 set of great friends. (There’s a gold mine of wordplay here relating to the ‘intersection’ being R.S. and Venn diagrams but it’s late at night and my math skills aren’t what they used to be.)

I don’t exactly remember how and when we became ‘amigos’ but I’m pretty sure it was sometime between her typing out my programs in lab and R.A and I. telling her horribly untrue but yet extremely entertaining stories about each other to quench her insatiable thirst for gossip. R.S., herself, wasn’t too far away from controversy. Rumor has it that her ex-amour was a chocolate smuggler operating from Switzerland. This has yet not been proved untrue.

Anyways since I wouldn’t want anybody else to make the mistake of taking 3 years to befriend this awesome chick, I’m writing this “Users Guide to being pals with R.S. (for dummies)”

It’s very hard to find people who are nice to everybody. R.S. though is one of them; she has a kind word for everybody making it impossible for anyone to not like her. I’ve tried my best to teach her the more colorful parts of the English language but she’s a slow learner. Expletives don’t escape her mouth, actual *,$,#,@ do, just like in the books.

She’s wonderfully weird in a host of ways. Her bag weighs a ton, no wonder she doesn’t put on weight. All that exercise lugging around 15 kgs of laptop, tech books, novels and junk food puts to waste the cat-sized portions she has for lunch.

She’ll poke at your flab just to make sure whether the working out at the gym is actually working.

She’s a friend who keeps in touch when you are a million miles away. One of the only people I can talk to about the serious things in life. Her advice and understanding make her seem older than she actually is, which is 29. That’s her real age. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.

She carries herself with, so effortlessly, a cheerful disposition that makes it impossible for one to brood even when that’s all one wants to do. Believe me I’ve tried.

An IMer if I ever knew one. I'd worry if I didn't received a hey, yo or wassup for more than two days. The only person that I wouldn't mind taking a break from work to chat with.

Literally the most soft-spoken person I have ever met. The volume of her voice being as low as it is, the voice therapy joke never gets old. Though I never seen her not put her point across. Those who know R.S. will attest to it - when she speaks you listen.

The only person I'd always expect to get my jokes and she always laughs even when they aren't all that funny.

That’s not to say she isn't without her quirks. She isn't exactly lightning quick when it comes to making decisions. I'll bet on the way to the airport today she'll be saying "I don't know if I will be going to US for my MS. If not can we go to (insert dessert shop here) next weekend?"

The only girl I know who can quote lines from "Godfather".

Oh yeah and she's secretly a nerd who sends forwards relating to C programming. Please hold finger and thumb in the shape of an “L” on your forehead.

More courageous than I was when it came to tobogganing down the slope in snow world.

She gets high on sugar. I mean like really buzzed. I need scotch whiskey for that; she can manage it with lindt.

She’s the Heart and Soul of our group.

That’s all I can think of right now but there’s so much more I can’t put on paper. You’ll have to find out for yourselves.

I can't say we'll be great friends forever. I'm not the best at keeping touch. Perhaps she'll get busy in Texas. And maybe it'll be one of those friendships where the next time we'll talk is when she invites me for her wedding through e-mail. But sometimes in life you meet somebody just to realize how much better a person you can actually be. And that person for the last few years of my life has been R.S.

Here's hoping we haven't laughed the last of our laughter.

Good Bye and God Bless.

(Sorry if this piece is a little too emotional. A drop of Vodka fell into my Cranberry juice and I am so high!)

Man Eating Tigers

(This writer doesn’t condone cruelty towards chickens, tigers or any other animal for that matter.

Humans? I’m not particular one way or the other)

I love Chickens. Not in an I-love-the-Rainforest way. More of a sautéed-in-coconut-curry kind of way. Or Fried way. Or Grilled way. Or Kebab-ed way.

And I’m not going to change. PETA may disapprove. Pamela Anderson may disapprove. She might even take her top off and beg me to stop. But I won’t budge an inch (not in the way she expects anyway).



Chicken-rights activists present a number of reasons why we shouldn’t eat chicken which include- it’s unhealthy (to humans and chickens both), it’s unethical (when did that stop anybody from doing anything) and that they have emotions and aspirations (score over most humans in that respect). Their primary claim though is that Chickens are intelligent creatures.

They quote scientific research, which says, “Chickens are able to understand that recently hidden objects still exist, a concept that small children are unable to master.” Though I couldn’t prove this. I tried performing Peek-a-Boos on some chickens at the local poultry shop. They got strangely upset, similar to when I do it to little kids.

Some chicken-rights activists even believe that a million chickens pecking at a million typewriters for a million years will eventually write the entire collection of ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ books, which they will later rename to ‘Tofu tastes-just-like-Chicken Soup for the Soul”. They (activists, not chickens) demand that they (activists and chickens) be treated the way all intelligent beings ought to be treated, which apparently includes not eating them (chickens, not activists). Now, I’m not going to raise the ‘If Chickens Are so Smart, Why Aren’t They Eating Us?’ argument. Rather I have thought of a new one.

The question that I want to pose to chicken-rights activists is, “Do you want the Chickens to go extinct?”.

Think about it. 2 billion Chickens are born every year in India. The number is only increasing. Now consider another intelligent animal. An animal actually intelligent enough to attack or to run away if someone tries to eat it. Consider the Tiger. Only 1411 left.

Why?

Because we don’t eat Tiger. If we did, we’d be rearing them in great numbers in Tiger farms, making them spend their lives in stuffy cages, injecting them with growth inducing hormones and genetically modifying them to lay protein rich eggs because, lets face it, nobody wants to eat scrambled tiger cubs for breakfast. On television, instead of M.S. Dhoni asking your help to save the Tiger, you’d have Sanjay Dutt telling you to eat more Tiger. The latter,you will agree, is the easier of the asks.

Most importantly the Tigers wouldn’t be facing extinction.

Stop eating Chickens and they go the tiger way. They would fall victims to illegal barbequing by those of us unable to control ourselves. One drumstick would fetch thousands of dollars on the kebab black market. Their numbers would dwindle. Eventually the entire species would be classified as critically endangered. Project Chicken, launched by Sonia Gandhi, would ultimately fail. We would have to join a T-shirt campaign because that works much better than actually preventing poaching. The Chicken would displace the Peacock as the national bird of India. Our cricket team would be given the moniker – ‘The Indian Chickens’. Losing to the Australians would cause the Indian Tabloids to run the headline "Chickens culled by Kangaroos" or “Fowl Play by India” when our cricketers are caught sledging. Times Now would name their one hour special feature, discussing the economic tussle between India and China, as "The Chicken or the Manchurian?” . Do we really want all this?

I thought as much. So go ahead dig into your Chicken Burger. Tomorrow try ordering a Tiger Steak. Medium Rare.

(Like the blog? Forward it to your friends. Give them a real reason to question your sanity)

P.S. The Pamela Anderson pic is important to the general feel of the article. No really, it is

Mr Lonely

“Lonely I'm Mr. Lonely . . .”

This is what I find myself singing to nowadays. Before you click the X button on this page let me tell you it’s the Bobby Vinton version and not the Akon cover. Two reasons for this- 1) I can’t sing like a chipmunk 2) I’m lonely, which some people, who know about such things, would say is a direct consequence of point number one.

However instead of brooding on the matter (which I might add I am especially good at, so good that matters of brooding which take most people days to brood comprehensively, I finish in a couple of hours enabling me to pick up the next broodable matter on queue ahead of schedule) I have decided to document my thoughts on the same.

Before you assume that this article is in relation to my egg laying ability, regarding which I cannot comment having not given it an honest try, I shall get back to the matter at hand.

I know what you are thinking. At least I think I know what you are thinking. (I make no pretense of my rudimentary telepathic ability) You think I merely spend too much time by myself. You think I just have too much time to kill.

Your thinking would not be entirely incorrect. I have in fact so much time to kill that I don’t just kill it, rather stab it in a few places here and there, poison it lightly, hold its head underwater for a little while, just stopping short of actually killing it, so that I can get back to murdering it later when I get really bored.

But that’s not entirely it. Most people confuse loneliness with solitude but really the difference is I-pods and oranges. To make the distinction clearer lets go back to school days. Most of us remember that excruciatingly dull ballad “The Solitary Reaper” by William Wordsworth. As evident from all the singing in the Scottish highlands, the pretty girl is relatively content in her solitude whereas the onlooker (Mr. Lonely) is dealing with his loneliness by leering, quite voyeuristically, at the attractive reaper. Although it is possible that Mr. Lonely might be the owner of the local distillery and is inspecting the reaping of the grain for the next batch of Scotch Whisky but that might be reading a bit too much into it.

Solitude is what you have when you take an extended walk in the nearby park or take a long drive down the interstate highway. Loneliness is what you get when you sit by yourself in you room days on end staring into your laptop screen without human contact. Eventually you chance upon some sites with the tagline “We put the online in Lonliness (sic).” But lets not get into that.

The most frustrating part of living alone is the lack of conversation. You could try talking to yourself but you almost always know what the other you is going to say, very much like an old married couple i.e. an old married couple that can’t stand the sight of each other. The other you rolls your eyes before you even finish what you have to say and you end up wishing that you’d never taken yourself out for a coffee in the first place, twenty years ago.

Inevitably, in my case, it results in me giving myself the silent treatment.

People also say that you get to learn more about yourself by being alone. What I have to say to that is that if I wanted to learn more about myself I’d stalk my own facebook profile clicking on my hideous album photos and reading my annoying status updates. Nonetheless I do learn that being by myself for days together takes me through periods of being grumpy, sleepy, dopey, nietzsche-y, bitchy, itchy and scratchy (which is also, coincidentally, the intended original cast of “The Seven Dwarves”). All right, the last few may be attributed to poor hygiene but that’s what loneliness will do to you.

So how does one cope?

Clearly the most obvious solution is to find some company and some companionship but if I were any good at that I wouldn’t be searching for synonyms for loneliness on thesaurus.com, now would I?

So dropping that bright idea, we have to find means of living with it, which isn’t easy, somewhat like living with a roommate who finishes all the booze. You can’t explain to him the inconvenience it causes you because then he would explain the inconvenience it causes him buying all the booze every time. Nevertheless I maintain that such a roommate is better than no roommate.

Since being alone in a quiet room is not easy, I decide to take myself out to lunch followed by movie. The immense effort involved in this exercise is unfortunately not appreciated by the outside world especially waiters and multiplex ticket booth clerks. Proof of which is as follows:

(Excerpt taken from “The Life and Times of Me”)

‘One ticket please for the matinee show.’

‘Sorry sir. Couldn’t hear you. Did you say one ticket?’ asks the clerk, speaking into the mike system. I can’t figure out why, talking as we are with each other, at a distance of less than one meter separated by a layer of thin glass.

‘Yeah. Just one ticket,’ I mumble, barely audible in contrast, whilst smiling awkwardly at the teenager standing in the queue beside me. She looks at me disdainfully.

‘Confirming once again sir. You want one ticket for the matinee show. That’ll be 180 bucks for one ticket.’ he says this time louder incase the octogenarian grandmother at the other end of the floor didn’t catch it the first time.

I pray for his sake that the glass separating us is shatterproof. I search for a blunt object but the lack of a one anywhere close by forces me to slip him the cash and pocket the solitary ticket.

The movie doesn’t start for another hour so I set off to the nearby pizza restaurant for a quick bite. I order a large slice of pepperoni pizza and plop down on the nearest table to catch a few overs of the ongoing test match between India and South Africa.

‘Sir would you mind moving to that table over there.’

I look up to see a young waiter pointing towards a longish slab of wood attached at right angles to the corner of the room. Below it is a row of bar stools.

‘Why can’t I sit here?’ I ask.

‘These tables are meant for families or couples. Those are the specially reserved seats for our individual customers.’ he says.

I want to tell him that I can’t get a view of the T.V. from there and I hadn’t eaten facing the corner of a room since about 15 years ago when I raised significant questions regarding the edibility of my mothers spinach casserole. Instead I make a long face and trudge to the corner of the room, not unlike 15 years ago.

I finish my slice of pizza and enter the movie hall. Just as I think my day couldn’t get any worse, I remember that my thinking hasn’t done me any good in a long while and I should put a stop to it altogether.

My seat is placed conveniently between two young couples. As I’m about to sit myself down between two fair maidens, the male and female constituents of the two couples switch seats and I now have two burly men at my either side. This saddens me, for reasons other than what you think. What kind of society do we live in, where only because a man comes to watch a movie by himself, he is immediately judged to be a desperate freak? Might not be completely wrong in this case (spot-on rather) but that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve decided to take my chances indoors.

It goes fine until one day the TV starts acting up. I must say I’m not a fan of these set-top boxes. They result in a total of 2 remotes in your hand (3 if you include the DVD player). I press enough buttons at work.

This forces me to open up my work laptop. Not one to finish overdue work before extended time I close it the next minute.

I switch on my personal laptop- endearingly christened “Lappy”. (Another by-product of loneliness is the appearance of imaginary pets in the form of inanimate objects). Three choices confront me – Internet chatting, Social networking and Tweeting. Suddenly loneliness is not such a bad thing. I close Lappy, who looks at me with sad light emitting diode eyes. I turn away and play the next song on my I-pod.

“All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?”

Is this IT?

This is the Pilot post in a series of articles detailing my experiences in the Information Technology Industry.

Until such a time as it is picked up for publishing by one of those career counseling supplements you see so often in newspapers, this and following posts on the same will be freely available for distribution.

Do you remember a time when computers used to fun? (I’m not talking about fun which vanishes once parental control software is activated. Naughty, naughty)

Well I do.

I remember dedicating hours, after school and on weekends, to save humanity by assassinating Adolf Hitler in Wolfenstein 3D. Of course it helped that I could imagine the Nazi supreme, who I was constantly trying to blow up, to be an equally evil madman- my geography sir. Only differences were that the latter didn’t sport a toothbrush moustache and got strangely upset when I tried to redefine the map of Europe.

I also remember trying to scrap up enough money to visit the local Internet parlor, where I’d sign in to yahoo messenger to chat up college chicks in America while pretending to be a rich 25-year-old industrialist from India. Before you judge me you have to realize, like I did unfortunately much later on, that they probably weren’t college chicks either – probably 15-year-old juvenile boys (like me) or 50-year-old closeted gay men. All in all, no harm done. No harm that I was legally accountable for anyway.

In the meantime I went through the motions during computer lab classes where they’d teach us state of the art programming languages like LOGO and BASIC. I could never get my head around the statement “c = c+1”. How was this mathematically possible? All those years spent skipping cartoons to learn addition and this is what they finally come up with? I refused to believe and wouldn’t use it just on principle. I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory in the following exams. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to be the next Bill Gates.

I should have known that this was a sign of things to come.

Later on in high school I opted for biology instead of computers. I figured that, since I’d rather learn about the reproductive system than find the sum of all odd integers starting from one to a specified non-negative number ‘N’, this was the right thing to do. Though it might shock you to hear this, I’m no expert on reproduction and even less so when it comes to drawing it. Through the next 2 years of high school I had to resort to bribery to get my sister to sketch my lab records for me. Med school was definitely out of the question. Paying her and tuition simultaneously was not something I could afford.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I found myself enrolled in the computer science program of a “prestigious” engineering college in Bangalore after graduating high school. Little did I know that Count Olaf (the CSE HOD) was lurking around the corner. But that’s a story for another day.

But why you ask. Why would a person, who believes Paint Brush is the best thing Microsoft ever came out with, want to become a programmer? Why would a person who thinks first of Xena - the Warrior Princess when anybody mentions Amazon.com want to spend the rest of his life in front of a PC? Why would a person, who grins like an idiot when somebody says ‘unzip it and use’, want to take up IT as a profession?

There are a number of reasons including complete ignorance concerning professional health hazards like carpal tunnel syndrome caused due to incessant typing, strained eyes caused due to focusing on a computer screen for prolonged periods of time, ear bleeding caused due to attending manager meetings etc.

But mainly there were 2 factors influencing my decision.

The first one was pressure, neither peer nor parental, but from all sorts of other sources. From the standard- aunts, uncles, professors to the peculiar- nosy neighbors, milkmaids, man who owned the lemon shop close to high school etc. Rich advice coming from people whose level of computer expertise ranged from having seen a computer once from far to having attempted to double-click a mouse (no mean feat where I come from).

The other was money. It was no secret that a degree in computer engineering meant a well-paying job waiting for you in one of the innumerous IT companies residing in Bangalore.

In my mind it looked like this – sitting on a smooth leather chair in a posh cabin on the 20th floor of a skyscraper overlooking the skyline of the city whilst my pretty personal secretary, nay my gorgeous “executive assistant”, takes notes for me. She may or may not be sitting on my lap. I couldn’t possibly get two smooth leather chairs for my cabin, joining as I was in an entry level position.

Cut forward 5 years and what it is actually- sitting on an uncomfortable nylon chair in a cramped cubicle shared with three middle-aged men on the 2nd floor of a building in a state of disrepair( the building not me, alright me too) with my line of vision ending at the entrance to the men’s restroom. The only sign of a woman is the office supplies manager who snarls at me when I knock on her door to ask for an envelope. Jokes on her, I take two while she isn’t looking.

But back in college, I did not know all that.

Through a mixture of luck, pluck and a personal penchant for unscrupulousness I manage to survive through 4 years of engineering all the while barely escaping the diabolical schemes of Count Olaf. On a side note, I gain entry into a multinational IT corporation.

That’s when all the non-fun began.


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Tours n Travails - Rishikesh. Part 4 of 4

The following interior monologue is based on personal experiences except the parts that might get me into trouble. Those are purely fictional. This is more true in this post than any other.

Remember. Say No to Sandwiches.

This is finally, the finale

We finally reach the end after two and a half enthralling hours. I didn’t fall of the raft even once and I begin considering a career in water adventure sports. I now deduce that the intense sunbeams had made me delusional. On the ride back to the office, we ask Avnesh what else there is to do in Rishikesh keeping in mind that we have only till late evening and that none of us are the worshipping types. He tells us about this run down ashram, across the river, called the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ashram, the place where the Beatles had stayed when they came to India. The same place where many of the songs from “The White Album” had been composed. We had to go. Wild Ganges river dolphins (which is, by the by, India’s national aquatic animal and sadly an endangered species) couldn’t keep me away. The thought of standing in the same place where Paul McCartney had probably thought up “Blackbird” was too compelling. (Interesting piece of trivia is that he wrote the song, one early morning after a chirping bird outside the ashram had woken him up.)

But before we could get to that there was the trivial matter of lunch. After rowing for so long we were so hungry that we could, others figuratively and I quite literally, eat a cow. But a cow was not to be had. We were suggested Hotel Ishaan, restaurant and German bakery, renowned for its continental food and frequented by the white people. I was disappointed on not seeing any form of meat on the menu but after a quick conversation with my stomach I was convinced that this was not the time to be picky and so I settled for the lasagna followed by the chocolate pudding for dessert. Both were scrumptious and equally satisfying and would have been even more so had P.B’s and S.L’s spoon not fallen into my pudding, repeatedly so over and over again. Hotel Ishaan is most definitely gaining an entry into the, yet unpublished but widely awaited, “Rohan’s Guide to Eating Anywhere in India” under the “No Choice But Veg” section.

At about 5p.m. we leave to the find the now renamed (by me)- “Beatles ashram”. We learn that we have to cross Lakshmana-Jhula a hanging bridge built upon the spot where the mythical Lakshmana crossed the Ganges using jute ropes. He must have been a die-hard Beatles fan too. The bridge is only wide enough to let pedestrians and two-wheelers cross which means that on the other side, where life is bristling with its markets and temples, there’s not a single car to be seen which is again quite fascinating. (By now you will have noticed two things- 1) things I find fascinating are actually quite boring, 2) there’s no mystery behind me being single). The bridge is extremely congested but I don’t mind since we are less than an hour away from visiting a place entrenched in Beatles folklore. S.L has no clue as to whom I’m talking about and I take it upon myself to educate him.
“So this John guy lives in that ashram?”
“No S. No he doesn’t.”
“Then what’s the point?”
That was the end of that.

We pass by and evade cows, hippy tourists, homeless Babas but none make me slow down. That is until I hear “Would you like some ‘Sandwiches’ Sir?” I stop dead in my tracks. I’ve never had anybody address me as sir and ask me to buy Sandwiches. I turn around and see this extremely unkempt yet cheerful Baba covered with a layer of dirt acting as a second skin. His brown, braided hair and beard give him an almost Rastafarian look. I half expect him to break out into a Bob Marley number. He puts his hand out for a shake. Now I don’t normally go shaking homeless peoples hand, which is unfortunate for more reasons than one, but I want what he has to offer and so I shake reluctantly. I inquire discreetly about the Sandwiches; he tells me loudly that the stuff is good. I am forced to wait while he buys a cup of tea at the local cigarette and paan shop. The shopkeeper shouts at him for trying to sell Sandwiches so openly but he keeps smiling. I realize that he’s “full”. I don’t mind. If I were selling Ferraris I’d take a spin once in a while.

He takes us to his humble abode; which is nothing more than a tattered mat at the side of the road. The only sign of furniture is a worn down bag from which he extracts a plastic pouch and pours out a Sandwich. He extracts two seeds and hands it to me, telling me that the produce is fresh. I had unfortunately missed the Sandwich appreciation classes held in college and merely nod in agreement. He quotes an unreasonable price. And we begin haggling on the middle of the road, it being quite obvious to everyone who passes as to what we are up to. But nobody raises more than an eyebrow, the act not meriting lifting both. He eventually agrees for less than half of the originally quoted cost in addition to two filtered cigarettes. Dad would have been proud. Bargaining for fish at the local market is something I learnt from him. So that makes two things.

As we walk towards the Beatles ashram I notice that eating Sandwiches is the norm. There are rather a lot of holy homeless Babas sitting by the roadside munching away, as a pleasantly intoxicating sweet smell spreads into the general surroundings. No better way to achieve inner peace if you ask me.

As the sun is about to set we reach the gates of the ashram. We see a couple of tourists leaving the place and nonchalantly walk in. Unfortunately there’s a gatekeeper to this enchanted place. He doesn’t allow us passage, saying that it’s too late and hence too dangerous to walk up the hill and enter the ashram least we get eaten by tigers or leopards. I tell him in no uncertain terms that I’ll take my chances and besides I had a sandwich on me, which I could use on the leopard. But he obviously hadn’t seen “Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle”. Now, we were informed before hand that we might have to give this chap a few bucks. So I’m more than ready with a crisp note of the freshest fifty you’ve ever seen, but no, he seemed to have cultivated a sense of duty since the last tourist walked out. I plead, I bribe, and I cajole but to no avail. We are forced to leave without praying to the Beatles, which some might say actually defeats the whole purpose of coming to Rishikesh.

But it does actually give me another reason to visit again. Rafting, Sandwiches and the Beatles. I don’t really need anymore.

Oh and as for water. I get a feeling that it’s cleansed me of my all my sins too. Now I have to start all over again.

The End

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