Corruption in cricket?

I, like most of you would have, cried when India lost that world cup semi finals against Sri Lanka. It was painful. The image of a weeping Kambli walking out of the ground will remain in my mind forever. That loss hurt. I was taken down memory lane, when our media showed the recent controversies surrounding that match.

My mind slowly rewound every bit of my cricketing memory of that day. Sachin was the only hobby the country had then. Sachin, a hobby? yup! We watched till Sachin batted and went out to play. So my vivid cricketing memory could rewind only till Sachin got out; and yes! after that the entire team collapsed. Nothing unsual about that. They always happen. In our circles we call them the famed Indian walk back!

Nothing unusal? At least i thought so! until, the recent controversy broke open. Some say, that match was fixed. (guess what? even marriages get fixed ). Some say, it was not. Some say, we deserve to lose even otherwise. Some say, We would have won else.

What the heck? Why this hullabulla suddenly? Why do we always expect cricketers to be saints? When the corporate honchos do anything to get money, we accept; Does n't the "Not for profit" BCCI use unfair means? And the famed Indian media? should i speak about them? or our blessed politicans, or our government servants? or you or me? We all use unscruplous means in our work to earn money. Cricket is their job, and they do that.

Let's face it! Cricket and cricketer's are not clean and cannot be clean unless the Indian society; You and me, come out clean. Till then, I have decided to enjoy Sachin's straight drive and celebrate Indian victories.

Don't we celebrate our society's other victories?

Children's day - a cruel joke

This is going to be an impassioned plea. No, Not a plea! I hope at least it does not turn out to be a rhetoric. Celebrating children’s day is almost becoming a cruel Joke. The word ‘almost’ is used here to suppress my anxiety, rather my anger.

I stepped out of the railway station two days before and this small girl touched my feet. The saddest part was this small girl had a child in her arms. I shook my legs and walked away. I felt terribly bad after doing that, but did I have an option? Suddenly I realized that here are two children on behalf of whom this country is celebrating children's day tomorrow.

“The Hindu” Carried this statistics on the children’s day last year and they were stunning.120 million children work as labourers, 25 million between 6-14 do not attend schools, 85% help out in the fields in villages, 11 million survive on the streets begging, stealing, drugs, one tenth does not even reach the age of 5.

The last 5 years only 3% of the questions raised in parliament were on children (An entire session was spent on debating who stole more money!). The government coughs up a meagre 208 rs/- on a child. There are schools in my very own state having a single teacher for 5 classes. FIVE classes? Is that how we want our kids to learn in our schools? And we are talking about a state which is one of the most developed in the country. And greater still, we are talking about the privileged few who have an opportunity to step in to schools.

Let’s face it! Children’s day is a farce, it has been and will be one. Why can’t we celebrate it as our first prime minister’s birthday and keep it simple? We will remember his sacrifices, listen to a politician speak about him, take a break from our daily routine and watch a movie. It suits us better.

It is very difficult to celebrate those whom the world forgot to remember.

Bad day in the office:(

Here comes my 50th post. I never knew i had it in me to write on fifty topics. It is a pleasant surprise even for me, when i look back at my blog. Not that, what i do is great; Most of them i don't even consider good; But, what the heck? these are my words, my blog and let it be the way it is;

When you have a bad day in office, life sucks; Anyway, my daily life has nothing in particular to go gaga about. It is the daily monotonous life, which i dreaded when i quit Cognizant. Nothing has changed much. I see the same books, read the same newspapers, take some notes, look at the same boring faces. A bad day is a bad day still;

When the going gets bad, and nothing in the world i like, i sit here and type the keypads out; This has been my best stress buster for the last year, more so the last two months.

This explains the number 50!!!

wedding blues!!!

Shhh!!! Don't let this secret out! The boys are getting nervous about their weddings.

This is the wedding season of my life. Every new day i get a call from some friend saying he is engaged and the wedding is in such and such date. I could almost get a sense of nervous excitement in the air.

Yesterday, rather two days ago, I went out for breakfast with a close circle of friends. One person in our gang is getting married in a few months time, and he came with his fiancee. This person, i swear, has never before got up before the sun. We have tried many tricks on him to wake him up early, but all in vain. That day, he called up at 6' in the morning and said my fiancee is ready and i will come for the breakfast. 6'? Ah, wedding blues! The girls are pretty powerful, i presume!

The other day i was invited to another friends home immediately after his wedding. We spoke for some time and he came out to drop me to the bus stand. All along our travel, my friend spoke unheard of philosophies on why life had to be like this and why and how i should change! God! I always thought, philosophers are born and not made? 

I hope most of you would have read how my one other friend has become sane at last! Your guess is right? he married! Well, guys beware! and get ready! nobody knows what might hit you. We might even be made to study under the moon light:)

And don't forget, this is a secret!

Life's beautiful changes

Right, here we go! Most of my friends know that I am big Otta Vaai (A person who can't keep a secret to himself). Today two of my closest friends Benny and Udhaya are celebrating their birthday and in my excitement told them that i am going to write about them here. This adds to the pressure, you see!

Love you guys; hearty wishes.

Benny is my childhood friend. I know him from my early school days and we both studied together from class 6 -12. We both did a crazy car journey from Delhi to Sivakasi together, played together in many cricket teams and conducted umpteen programmes in church together. You can see the word together repeating itself so many times, don't you? we are that close!But, Benny was the loner. He even used to play cricket by himself. He had such a short temper that even i sometimes had been afraid of going near him. He went through some tough times in college that i was often afraid he would go in to depression. He was the strict disciplinarian and sometimes that was scary.

Well, Udhaya studied with me in College.He was with me day in and day out in those college days. We sat in the same bench, fought, laughed, played, talked and some times even studied together. So many days he stayed with me in our house.He was the eternal loud mouth. He had oral diarohea. He can talk non stop on any non sense at any time to anybody.  He had so many friends that it is almost impossible to count them. Then, he had this disease. He was afraid of girls. Till his college days he has never spoken to a girl and this always hurt him. He has pleaded many times to give girl friend introductions; Yet this loudmouth never got one, I thought.

Today, when i called up Benny to wish him, he was in Ponnuchamy, having treat with his girl friends (Friends who are girls). He is the College hero now, so much so that the entire community of friends bought him a big cake with his face drawn on it. He keeps texting these days and are always surrounded by friends. Benny! celebrating birthday with friends, most of the them girls?

When i called up Udhaya he was in his home in Pune, serenely made up by his wife Devi. Did i tell you it was a love marriage? He texted me saying that he is having Sambar saadham and rasam for lunch. Yes! of course he had the snake guards as side dishes.Udhaya! celebrating birthday like a saint?

How life has changed. I love the youthful exuberance in Benny brought about by his friends and the Sage like sanity brought about in Udhaya by his brilliant wife. I had never dreamt these changes will take place in their lives. I think both of them will agree as well!

 Life's changes! Aren't they beautiful?