Why bleed blue... ?

There is hardly anything left to say about Cricket in India. This game has outgrown all proportions to entify into a religion and incarnate its Gods too ! Like a cult-following its popularity cuts across the socio-economic strata of the society. Once perceived as a game of the Sahib and watched with distinguished demeanour, today has transformed into a raw run pursuit and watched by an equally disordered crowd.

The game is now into its quickest format the 20-20 and the Indian premier legaue is the biggest sensation all over the world. New talent keeps coming and the old ones have no choice but to conform to the changing pattern of the game. I really am not sure ...whether I prefer to enjoy watching Dravid play his classic and stylish sqaure drives and score a century standing like a wall or thrashing a quick 40 off 37 balls surviving dangerously on the wicket and taking his team to a sometimes meaningless victory. But being a hardcore cricket fan i certainly cannot ignore the game in its context.

I have been watching cricket for almost three decades now. In the late 70's I remember watching cricket on screen in movie theaters as apart of the News reel just before the movie. I clearly remember in one of the India-England encounter, Tony Grieg lifting G.R.Vishwanath physically as gesture of appreciation on GR reaching his century. It was black and white during those times. The game and the players were all new to me and I relied on information from seniors, dad in particular for every players repute. One good innings by a batsman was enough to rest hope on him for all the next matches he palyed. Well it was this hope that not only kept cricket alive but also attached the adage of the funny game to it.

Clearly 70's saw the advent of modern cricket all over the world, the Jardine approach of the 30's which was then considered hostile was now called competitive. India was begining to see their first demigod of cricket in Sunil Gavaskar who negotiated the West Indian attack with guts. Whenever he stuck to the crease the match was on, to loose him early was to see India crumble. This had happened so many very times that its impact still lingers on the minds of those who have been watching cricket since then with the same fervor. Tail-enders seldom made more than 15 odd runs. This continued till almost the late 80's when still Test match was the dominating format of the game. The only solace was to see Gavaskar scoring his centuries and breaking records of the great Gary Sobers and Sir Donald Bradman. He also went on to be the first batsman to surpass the mark of 10000 runs. But before all this in the early 80's 1983 saw magic happen, the invincible West Indies were shattered by the then underdogs India. God had chosen his own name to appear in Kapil Dev. In my memory this era of cricket laid the foundation for team India to dominate on international cricket scene. We also won the Benson and Hedges cup in 1985. That was the time when Indian spectators were in for a treat, thanks to the advent of colour television and bigger thanks to Karry Packer and his Channel 9. Believe me Indians had never seen such a spectacular telecast of the game before this. I am lucky to be a part of that generation which can value and cherish those moments as much as it can value the hawk eye and the third umpire today. I would give any thing for a pleasure parallel to watching Kapil Dev in the wee hours (the games used to be played in Australia) bowl out the Kiwis or the Australians and then Shrikanth and Ravi following to bat. You bet !

Then came the Sharjah Cup, the passion and the emotion involved in these games between India and Pakistan was simply incomparable. In 1986 Javed Miandad won the match for Pakistan by scoring 6 of the last ball when 4 were required. A day the cricket followers from either countries will not forget for contrast reasons. India was clearly dominated on the field by the Pakistanis .... we never tried to win but always tried to save a miserable defeat against Pakistan from then on. With the submissive nature we Indians had it was difficult to expect hostility suddenly from the eleven on the field. We succumbed and succumbed badly to pressure on the field. Wasim and Waqar ran through us like a lightning most of the time. Except like a miracle in the world cup matches we never really won against Pakistan convincingly till ........ Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Sehwag started managing the affairs.

With due respect to Azharuddin who captained, batted and also changed the standards of the Indian fielding, it was Ganguly who settled as a genuine left handed batsman after a long long time for team India. He was not tentative and led the team with courage, with Sachin, Robin Singh, Jadeja, Dravid the team survived even after quick early wickets. Who will forget the 2003 onslaught of Sachin and Sehwag on Waqar and Wasim in the world cup match and the ten wicket haul by Anil Kumble the other time. That put the Pakistan domination in the grave forever. India started shinning brilliantly in Cricket. Saurav led with the domination required and it was he under whom the team India flourished in Sachin, Sehwag, Harbhajan, Yuvraj, Kaif and Dhoni ofcourse. We began to look professional and with the Natwest series win we were confident to aspire for the world cup. 


It was a delightful sight to see Saurav wave his shirt barebodied at Lord's ... an emotion all Indians had longed for and Saurav satisfied all. It culminated the Indian effort to win the current World Cup, the celebrations of which are marred by the IPL4.

It was quiet unfortunate to see Saurav's unceremonious exit from the international cricket, i always thought justice was not done ... He came back into the Kolkatta Knight Riders team and didn't do well either. For IPL4 he went unsold...

Today he stepped on the wicket for the Pune Warriors ... timid ... unconfident... and I am sure lot of Indians wanted to shout and say ... we haven't forgotten the golden touch you've given to India. If Sachin is God then you too are the Lord of the game ... All these emotions came true ..when we witnessed this and fortunately the camera captured it too.

Today my son, who watches football more than cricket is amazed at the animosity displayed during the India- Pakistan match, he often even laughs at my emotional approach during such a game. Well! he hasn't witnessed Javed hit a six off the last ball in 1986.  




Copyrighted to Maxreach Resources/ Anand Narsule/27F5/2011

Living Parameters

The basic fundamental of atman could be comprehended well. Basically it seemed logical to understand and its explanation could not only fit in conceptually but also appeal philosophically. Amidst the debates and the discussions we generally have over spirituality we try to find out what is all this philosophy of life trying to make out of us. What is the ideal that we all have to reach to ?

Having comprehended the idea of atman, the life principle, the most important question that remains is, what next ? What is the next course of action ? We human beings are used to follow a set of instructions perfectly well, we believe in accepting assignments, performing tasks and accomplishing them. Everything is tangible and as long as it is tangible we don’t have any confusion or complaint what so ever. Now here is the concept of atman, well understood so what next ?

The next course of action may not be a physical action as we know it, but it may be adopting a thought process that will guide all your further actions. One needs to set a criterion which will justify  each action thenceforth and literally each action however small or big, silly or serious. If one observes the quality of the peace of mind will now be directly proportional to the number of actions performed under the criterion. So the internal happiness will entirely depend on the actions that fall under the set criterion. The criteria set here  absolutely depends upon each individual but also remember that one can never defy his seat of intelligence. everyone  If this is clear lets go ahead.

Most of the population like us comprise of well meaning and good people and the society, its nurturing already sets a few criteria for our course of actions for living at large. Here we are not talking about judiciary laws which the citizens have to abide to, we are at a different level of thought.

At a personal level which is one level within the society each one of us have a little liberal set of criteria to abide to. Here the society has shrunk into all members of our family. At a level within this family of all the members is a level which comprises of say you and your life partner, at this level the criteria are still more liberal. Within this level emerges a level of self, the most pampered level. It is at this level that one has to be as critical of self as he is of others.

Unless you start doing or rather start living for someone else you will probably not comprehend the idea of abiding to a certain criterion. Because we take care of ourselves and are aware of what is affecting us to what extent we believe that minimising the damage is the correct way to act and a perfect self control for eg.  I can stop smoking whenever I want to and i even demonstrate it satisfying myself..... so i don’t quit smoking and also don’t pay any heed to anyone telling me to do so. Now extrapolate this idea to spirituality ... since I judge that I am doing  good in my pursuit i don’t listen to others and try to make my own meaning of what i am listening to. Now lets just think about this.  ... Why will I not smoke in front of my son ... it is because I don’t want to be responsible for any bad influence on him. So I avoid smoking in his presence, if it comes to quitting smoking for him I am ready to do it, because I consider him to be a part me, my family, my circle of influence etc. etc.  See I don’t quit for me but I do it for my son, so if there is someone else who is benefiting from your action then you are willing to do it .... but it seems we have forgotten about it. Now if you widen your circle of influence don’t you think that you will do a lot many things or perform lot many actions under a different criteria than what you have been doing so far. I think it because of this Hindu scriptures advocate a family, the element of sacrifice seeps in setting up different criteria for different members of the family.

Nature and Nurture

I have always been fond of reading articles on self development and counselling. The Speaking Tree in the Times of India is my favourite and it was there in fact where I found write ups that I could relate to. In the beginning  when I had started reading  such articles I observed that the articles or books which I read  seemed  very elementary to me, they spoke of things, thoughts and actions which I thought were or should have been very obvious and apparent to understand to everyone reading them. But I found people around me simply wonderstruck at some minor example of basic enlightenment which had come to me by way of nurturing. Such experiences started becoming more frequent and I realised that things that were clear to me at first instant were not necessarily obvious to someone else.

I started becoming more inquisitive on the fundamental conditioning of the human mind. It was nature and nurture both that played a very important role in everyone’s life. I still don’t possess the authority to claim the dominating factor between the two but I take the liberty to comment. Nature is  the pre-requisite and is like a mirror which reflects the nurturing,  clearer the mirror pristine is the reflection. If  the mirror is not plane but concave or convex then the reflections either appear distorted or near or farther, but good will appear as good and bad as bad, the image does not change. So the ability to reflect  is entirely independent of what is to be reflected. Now, If the mirror is not clear, no matter how good an object  you place in front of it the image will not be exactly the same.  Nurturing is equally important because, even if the mirror is clear bad objects will never be reflected as good. This may conclude as  nature and nurture both are important inevitable for our conditioning.

Lets see some examples of conditioning  ....

A survey made by few writers has shown that in more than 70% of the cases the top leaders of companies are above average in their height. Now they say when people in ancient times had to migrate from one place to another endangering survival the group was always led by the tallest simply for the reason that he had a better view-span than the rest. This went on for ages and passed through the genes conditioning our brain towards (percentage wise more)  preferring the thought that a taller man can lead better than an average heighted. How’s that!

Our worst habit of throwing litter on roads is also a part of nurturing, lately while watching several old movie flicks it was observed that characters on the screen casually crumpled the paper they were holding and flung it around, same was for a banana peel. These action have unknowingly made an impact on all of us. So now there should be movies which should deliberately include shots where litter, paper or any waste being disposed of in a waste bin, at least the character has to be seen giving a thought to it and not disposing it very casually. May be the future generations will get the benefits. 

I am sure we all will be amazed at what conditioning of brain does to all of us, what you condition your brain with is nurturing and the ability to succumb to such nurturing is the nature.