A Religion Without A God

Sometime, in the week of November 14^th 2013, I will lose my job. When the little man with a giant shadow takes a final bow in whites for the last time and trudges back to the pavilion to a rapturous applause and a standing ovation, one of my vocations as a Sachin Tendulkar fan will come to an end. When I started my blog in 2004, this was what I had put in the About Me section "... and will probably stop watching cricket when Tendulkar retires." In 2004, I never felt I would have had to make that choice:(. Tendulkar was always timeless. The man was God, not mortal. He would never retire, the straight drives would keep flowing, and I would keep practicing my religion of cricket. But that is not the case anymore. His heart has told him it is time to go. Tendulkar is retiring and now we are left with a religion without a God.

Reams have been written about Tendulkar’s effect on India, his effect on the game, his standing among the greats. But the real question to ask is: what has Tendulkar’s career meant to you? Was it a nagging constant as a cricket widow, consigned to watching your husbands and son stuck to the television as they wondered how he does it again and again or were you inexorably drawn to watch him cream a cover drive? Were you as a student always seeking to figure out ways in which to bypass the authoritarian pressures of attendance and education so that you could watch him murder the Aussie attack on a sunny Chepauk afternoon? Were you glued to a computer monitor in a faraway land praying for the pirated sports feed to stay honest while he batted, knowing fully well that he has been known to crash servers which never could handle the scale of his fans? Are you a father who gave his son his first bat and told him two things: this is a great game and Tendulkar is the best batsman of all time?

From 1989 to 2013, the lives of a billion Indians have been punctuated with this man’s presence. For Tendulkar fans, events in life correspond with another one of Sachin’s innings. If that isn’t consistency, I don’t know what is. You can strike up a conversation with someone else on one of Sachin’s great knocks and know fully well that the other person will recall exactly where they were and what they were doing at that time. Tendulkar’s dotted career is replete with lines that folks use to connect to one another. It, as I stated before, is all about what it meant to you. So deep was I steeped in his career that at a Mastermind event, I chose ‘Test centuries of Sachin Tendulkar’ as a topic. There are so many incidents that I can recall where a Tendulkar knock added subtext to a life event for me.

Like the time when we played Sri Lanka in the semi-final of the 1996 World Cup. It was the day that the results of our first semester of engineering were announced. Rumor was that the mark sheet was going to be put up in the college sometime in the evening. I got the call when the second innings had started. The prospect of seeing my marks was exciting and nervous, but nothing would drag me away from the screen till Tendulkar was there. He got out and I got out of the house. The disappointment of the low scores I got was nothing compared to the fact that the man and the nation were denied.

What about the other heartbreak of 1999? I was giving my NCST (National center for software technology) entrance exams the day Tendulkar was setting Chepauk alive with a near impossible single-handed chase against the Pakistanis. His back was hurting, he had no support from the other side, but he kept going on like the last action hero. His 136 was worth its weight in gold, but the rest of them could not get the remaining 17 runs. I remember calling home after every paper (there were six of them) to find out what the score was. A bunch of were walking down to the railway station with a radio between us having its volume turned to maximum. The funereal atmosphere was penetrated with the news of the tailenders giving up one by one.

Or the time I was busy watching him do one more chase at Chepauk. This was a fourth innings chase of a target set by the England team. Sehwag had laid the foundation the previous day and Tendulkar was crafting a masterful chase of the remainder. He was on 53 not out when I was put into another situation where I had to abandon my chase of the chase. Our first baby decided that it was time to come out and see the match as well and it involved a sudden rush to the hospital. Among my first questions after the madness of close to thirty-six hours had settled: how much did Sachin score?

I am sure most people have similar stories to tell. How you abandoned another pursuit, stopped your life for a few moments, met with friends to make it a communal experience, deserted sleep to wake up and watch a game in a different time zone – all because Tendulkar had taken guard. In the age of disunity and disharmony, our lives synchronized for a little while.

It was not just his innings, but a little moment in time of a knock that would stay with you. I often dream of a shot he played against Michael Kasprowicz in the Desert Storm innings. The ball was pitched on a good length between middle and off. It swung slightly in the air and was shaping to move away. He was in position in an instant and you could see him have enough time to adjust his shot, bring his bat down, and in a perfect arc, hit it straight down the ground. It was perfection and it stayed with you. How often have you watched the videos of his upper cut against Shoaib or his bullet drives in Australia against Lee? How many such moments of genius have you accumulated in your mind?

As the dust settles down and we reconcile ourselves to a new reality where there will be a different number four playing for India in whites, the presence (or absence) of Tendulkar would be understood. The batting records are beyond challenge, but to measure him on account of his batting records is like looking at the maximum speed a Ferrari can reach. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The whole in this case, is a true gentleman who has shown the way for how genius combines with hard work, ego can be subjugated in pursuit of excellence, a man dedicated to his art sometimes surpasses it.

Cricket is my religion and Sachin is my God. Atheism awaits me now.

My Darling Nicotine

I am pleased to share my latest publication with the Spark magazine. Their theme for the month was 'Attachment'. I approached it from the point of view of addiction. I have written a song on Nicotine addiction, set to the tune of 'My Darling Clementine' (or 'Ae dil hai mushkil' if you are a Hindi movie song buff). Just remember to say Nicotine the way you would Clementine and it will all fall in place
Here is the original link to the publication: http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=6337

Also reproducing it here for your reading pleasure

My Darling Nicotine

(Sung to the tune of ‘My Darling Clementine’)

In a jiffy, I whip out one
That piece of beauty is mine
And inside it, lying softly
Is my favorite Nicotine

Chorus:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Nicotine!
When I light up, you light me up
I love you, Nicotine

Those fried lungs, those chaffed lips,
Those stained teeth are mine
What is mine, by now is yours
As I am too, Nicotine

Chorus:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Nicotine!
When I light up, you light me up
I love you, Nicotine

When I meet you, always with me
Is your best friend Listerine,
Your smell lingers, even when you are gone
Always with me, Nicotine

Chorus:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Nicotine!
When I light up, you light me up
I love you, Nicotine

I love you, but you kill me
Why the loathing Nicotine?
I need to patch up, it’s time to break up
Let’s part ways Nicotine

Chorus:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Nicotine!
When I light up, you light me up
I love you, Nicotine

How I miss her! How I miss her,
How I miss my Nicotine,
But I kissed my little children,
I forgot my Nicotine

Chorus:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Nicotine!
When I light up, you light me up
I love you, Nicotine

A Tale of Two Kiddies

My article this month in the Spark magazine comes from my experiences as a parent of two young kids. If you have been in the same boat, hopefully this will resonate with you as well.

Here is the link to the original publication: http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=6243

Reproducing the article here for your reading pleasure

A Tale of Two Kiddies

Parenting is not a perfect science. However, if you survive raising an infant (and the measure of the success is that the infant survives you to become a boy or a girl), you’d say to yourself: what is one more thrown into the mix? My wife and I are blessed with two young boys. Let’s call them A and N. This article is to talk about the joy of handling two young kids. There is no pre-requisite that you need to have two kids in order to read and enjoy this piece, but those with two young ones will hopefully relate and learn from this. Since I claimed that parenting is not a science, nothing in here has to be empirically proven for more than one family. I will claim to be an expert parent. So is the chap next door.

Here is a little back-story to set the stage. Our first-born, A, arrived into this world in the last legs of the year 2008. They say the birth of a child is a life-altering moment. You know it’s coming, but you can’t gauge how it will shake up your world. Imagine yourself driving around the freeway on a cold morning in Chelyabinsk and you see this flash of light across the sky. You know that something huge is happening, but it is only when the shock wave blasts the glass off windows and knocks you off your socks that you know it has hit you. Baby. Meteor. Same thing.

A is a fantastic son. He has to be. He has our genes in good abundance. Through his initial years, he was a guinea pig and a teacher for his parents, helping them find their way to through the maze of parenting choices. And then, just as life with A settled into a steady manageable rhythm, N arrived. That was completely antithetical the arrival of the first born. Everything was well prepared, everything was in order. The first might have been as tense as landing a spaceship on an asteroid. The second was as smooth as landing an airplane at Dubai. A year has passed since we moved on to this four-person dynamic in the family. It has had an interesting effect on all concerned. Here are some learnings for parents who choose to go through this experience.

Welcome to single parenting

While once you were two parents doting on one child, you now have the distinct pleasure and privilege of managing two kids, turning you into a single parent for large stretches of time. While as a husband, you might have pampered your wife to no end in the first pregnancy, during the second stretch, the pampering you might manage and be valued for is taking extensive care of the first child. While as a wife you might have worried during your first pregnancy about the shape and state of the life in your belly before it pops out, you now partition that stress into accounting for how your older one will cope when the baby arrives.

It will all come back …

…, like a splash of cold water on your face. Almost everything that you knew about handling a baby comes rushing back to you the moment they hand you the baby at the hospital and wish you good luck. The chaos, the twenty-four hour routine, the nights, oh yes, the nights where sleep is hostage to a seven pound bundle of unpredictable behaviours.  When it does come back and you are back to your own familiar and ‘experienced’ ways, you’ll reach the conclusion that with two kids, the stress levels aren’t as high as it was when you had one child, but the amount of work to manage two will shoot through the roof.

The second one is anything but the first!

As the younger one grew to an observant young fellow, we started realizing that all milestones were being hit with a lot of alacrity. Walking, talking, eating seemed to come to N more naturally than they did to A. N also turned out to be quite independent. Is it a matter of survival for the second ones? Unlike their older siblings, they never will get the 1:1 attention of their parents. When left to fend for yourself, you tend to grow your skills faster.

Get the whistle out

The younger one might spend the first year in absolute adoration of their role model. At some stage, adoration will be replaced by imitation. What the older one does, the younger one attempts. And soon, what the older one has, the younger one wants. Thus it begins, leading to the parents spendinga lot of time  in resolving conflicts. There is a saying that with one child, you become a parent and that with two kids, you become a referee. We have our whistles firmly in our lips, ready to call foul at the earliest.

The seven stages of adjustment

The presence of a younger sibling can incite jealousy and can incite protectiveness. Different kids take it to different levels. At the beginning though, there is little for them to be peeved about. Everyone is calling them a ‘big brother’ or a ‘big sister’ and even though they may not understand the privileges and the challenges that come with that title, it ‘feels’ and ‘sounds’ good. Not to mention the various gifts that they get at the birth of their sibling, either out of guilt or nicety or parity. Since the number of hours in the day don’t go up from twenty-four to forty-eight, it is a reality that the time available for them with their parents has reduced and so is the focus that they need to contend with. Some act out, some act in, some simply ignore it. If you have got the timing right and they are at the age when they are marching towards independence, they cope much better.

Obi-wan Can-I-Be?

“You should eat your food. It is good for you”. The moment I heard A pass on this excellent piece of wisdom to his younger brother, I was convinced that you have certain privileges as an older child that can’t be denied. That piece of wisdom came from a boy who has never eaten food unless he is constantly hounded by his parents. But that clearly did not stop him from taking on the role of the elder. The protector. The entertainer. It is a metamorphosis worth treasuring.

The curious case of the little ones

What must it feel like to arrive in a world where three people dote on you? What must it feel like to be in a world where you’ll never get to be the only one your parents focus their energies on? Young ones arrive in this world with this dichotomous conundrum to solve. The young ones get half the attention, half the paranoia, half the pressure and half the experimentation that the older ones were subjected to. You can’t possibly follow their milestones with equal microscopic focus, you don’t fuss about their eating or sleeping to the same degree, you let them cry a bit longer than you did your first born until you are certain they are crying because they mean it and you certainly won’t let your hands singe away to ensure that their things are sterilized to the nth degree. The second ones aren’t the same as the first, and they benefit and lose something by that measure.

The answered prayers

When you have gone through the experience of one child and have had your share of the struggles, you intuitively wish for it to be easier the second time round. If your first one did not eat food easily, you wish the second one will comply. If the first one gave you sleepless nights, you wish the second one will sleep better. Rest assured, your prayers will be answered by the second one. Of course, there is no guarantee whether they will do the things that the first one did well. Never challenge nature’s sense of balance.

The story of parenting two kids will have its own shape and form as time evolves and the two kids grow up from being infants, toddlers, kindergarteners, make their way to school and college. Each episode will bear its own stamp and re-forge each equation. Until then, here’s hoping that your adventure with a pair of kiddies is an equally fun ride.

An Unexpected Visitor

Sharing my contribution to this month's issue of Spark. The theme was the same they had in previous August issues, 'India Decoded'. This year, I have penned a satirical story on the state of affairs in India. As always, questions and feedback welcome.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=6107

Nine and counting

Happy birthday dear blog. Thank you for being around for nine years of low key (as the name suggests), but satisfying conversations. Thanks also to the dozen followers, four odd regular commentators and ten odd anonymous folks who still diligently come about (without being forced to :)) Onwards to a decade of writing on this space!

The Game Of Life

It is life, one is taught
When one
Slides down the snake
At 99

Get up again, for
A rout comes before a victory
Pray for the ladders
And brave the serpents

March, one is told
March away, for you shall win
This is the true truth
Truer than the one never told

That your fortunes aren’t yours
To govern
They bow to the whim
Of the capricious dice

True Grit

I am pleased to share my forth publication on the OneFortyFiction site. As always, the ask is to write a story in one forty characters with a distinct beginning, a middle and an end. It is a challenge I relish. Read on.

http://www.onefortyfiction.com/archives/true-grit

In case you found it too cumbersome to go to that link, here's the story right here :)

True Grit

He had to be precise, yet his hand trembled and the candies came tumbling down. He stormed out of the store cursing his conscience again.

 

A Chain Of Miseries

Sharing my publication from this month's issue of the Spark magazine. Their theme for the month was 'We, the people'. I have explored the slightly darker side of human kind - the feeling of incompleteness and misery that we all suffer from. Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=6000
 

The City and Nature

My publication in this month's Spark magazine. Their theme for the month was 'Nature'. I have written about how the civilized world, personified by a city is always at loggerheads with Nature. Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=5895

A Day In the Life of a Street

Here's my publication in the issue of this month's Spark magazine. The theme of this month was 'Life on the street'. My fiction, which is seeped in reality that exists around us, talks about a day in the life of M.G. Road, which could be anywhere in India. The story is as real and unreal as India itself.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=5690

Quiz-E-Azam: Bollywood Quiz 2013

Recently, I conducted my fourth Bollywood Quiz in Seattle, titled 'Quiz-E-Azam'. This was also my third collaboration with Ekal Vidyalaya. The deal is always the same - I enjoy setting the quiz, people (hopefully) have fun attempting it and attending it and Ekal Vidyalaya gets money and eyeballs to promote their cause of educating underprivileged children in India.

I have uploaded the questions at the following location for all to enjoy.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=C3FA92574D313FC4!987&authkey=!ALYjqNIjCXb8gtE

My son, the story-teller

I have a guest writer on my blog today. My four year old Aarush entered into a creative writing contest as his school. The following story came out as a result of it. It was 'dictated' to me by him since he cannot yet write. However, the title is his, the story idea is his and all the words are his as well. With a little bit of guidance from me and my wife, he was able to come up with this little tale. My only pre-condition for him was that the story should have a premise, a problem, a solution and a moral or lesson. He followed that structure (though he did seem a tad unconvinced by the ending, and you'll see why :))

As a father, I couldn't have been prouder to see the creative gene show some signs of emergence. And oh, purely incidental to this experience, he won the contest :)

 

The Boy And His Robot

by Aarush Pandya

There was a boy whose parents asked him to help around the house. He did not want to do the work himself. He built a robot to make his life easier. When the boy presses a button on the robot, the robot does the job that the picture on the button shows. For eg. If he presses the button that has a picture of toys, a sucker that is on the side of the robot sucks up all the toys and arranges them. But one time, the boy presses a button and the robot goes out of control. He makes all the things messy that he had made perfect. There is a special switch that the boy has to turn off to switch off the robot. The boy learned the lesson that he should not build another robot. He should do the work all by himself.

Housing Bubble

This is my third publication on the short fiction site One Forty Fiction. As always, the challenge there is to write a story in one forty characters with a distinct beginning, a middle and an end. My inspiration for this story was the stagnant price of my house after almost eight years; a situation many living through these times in America today might identify with.

http://www.onefortyfiction.com/archives/housing-bubble

Possessive Adjective

“My love is in the air”. “Yes, it’s Valentine’s day”, said her married friend; pity masking her hearing. The spinster left for the airport.

P.S> This is a story in 140 characters or less. If you know which possessive adjective is being referred to in the story, it'll all fall in place :)

The Elements

My poem, published in this issue of the Spark magazine. The theme for this month was Romance and the poem attempts to marry romance with the five elements. Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=5253

An Epic Tragedy

"India scored 6 before Sachin came in and 4 after he got out. To score 17 runs was way beyond their ability." - Arunabha Sengupta, cricket writer.

Thus can be summarized the story of the lone warrior, in one his greatest epics, a tragedy in cricket that will always make you grimace when you think about it. Sachin Tendulkar, on 31st January, 1999 played one of the great knocks while chasing a target down single-handedly. The venue was Chennai and the opposition was Pakistan. The target was 271 and the bowling attack fairly strong. Wasim, Waqar, Saqlain and Afridi more than make a threat when you are chasing a target of this magnitude with so much pressure on you. Predictably, the other batsmen fell in a heap, with only Mongia managing to make more than 10 runs. Sach was life then. Tendulkar was the only man who could have taken India to victory and bit by bit, with brilliant strokes and dogged determination, he began doing that. His back was hurting and he had limited support at the other end, but he batted like losing wasn’t an option. He picked up the pace after his half century and was able to take all the bowlers apart, including Saqlain. And then it happened. The one shot that all Indians wish would undone. The leading edge that went to the offside and was caught. The heroic effort would end in a tragedy, for the others in the Indian team could not put together the requisite 17 runs. The lone action hero walked away to a standing ovation, but surely with a feeling that he left the job undone. When the awards ceremony was going on, he was inconsolably locked up in the dressing room. An innings such as this would have rivaled Lara’s 153* against Australia, but in some sense, the tragedy added a sheen to it that makes it more enduring. Indeed, his 103* against England at the same venue years later seems fulfilling, but not touching in the same way.

My personal tragedy was that despite watching most of the great innings by the little man, this is one that I could not see as it happened. I was appearing for the national level entrance examinations for NCST (National center for software technology), where we were supposed to answer a series of papers through the day. Lord knows my mind was nowhere near the questions I was supposed to answer. After every paper, in the interim break, I would rush out to a payphone, insert a coin and call home to ask the score. I remember walking back to the railway station with a bunch of folks, one of whom had a radio. Tendulkar had just departed and we were subjected to the ignominy of the Indian loss after that. Tragedy begets tragedy, and mine will be being relegated to watching one of Tendulkar’s greatest innings in Youtube videos.

Friday Fun(k)

My Friday Funk story: We were stalled at the traffic light. The car and I. I had one hand firmly placed on the steering wheel and the other on my forehead, covering the frowns as I was going through the list of things I needed to do at work today. The music rang on unaffected and unaffecting. Then, from the music system seeped out the song 'Main Pareshaan' (loose translation: 'I am worried'). The irony broke the reverie and cracked me up. Sometimes the uenxpected is required to turn funk into fun.

Across The Table

The Spark magazine turns three year old and the special occasion was marked by a Potpourri issue. I wrote up some super short fiction with a theme I had been toying for a while - Four different places, four different pairs of people – one common setting. Two chairs across a table and a solitary object between them. What happens next? Find out for yourself.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=5101

A Trip In Time

The theme of this month's Spark magazine was to interpret a picture - which had footprints on a sandy beach, any which way you want.

Now that I am in Mumbai, inspiration was not hard to find. Here's a poem on walking in one's own footsteps and discovering that the world isn't quite what you expect it to be.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=5008

Life's a Test

One of the highlights of this India trip so far has been my visit to Wankhede to see a day of test cricket. Here is my report from the day, published as an article in the Spark magazine.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4974

Vignettes

Here's my publication in this month's Spark magazine. The theme for the month was 'Life Online'. I put together a collection of very short stories; little vignettes that give glimpses of what internet can be and do in our lives. Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4885

 

The Mystery Reader

My short story, published in this month's issue of the Spark magazine. The theme for the month was 'Inspiration'. What happens when an Indian housewife puts a lifetime of inspiration and aspiration to become a detective to practical use? Read on and find out.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4747

Navrasas

My publication in this month's Spark magazine, which had the theme of 'Navrasas'. (or the nine human emotions) A rasa (Sanskrit word for 'juice' or 'essence') is the primary feeling that is evoked in the person that views, reads or hears a work of art. My attempt has been to write a haiku for each rasa - each haiku is supposed to evoke the emotion that the rasa suggests. Let me know if it worked for you.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4541

The Dilemma of the IBCP (Indian Born Confused Parent)

My article, published in this month's issue of the Spark magazine. Their theme for the month was 'India Decoded'. I touch upon the phenomenon of the IBCP (Indian born confused parent), given I get to see a few of them in my current way of life, and it is a growing tribe :) Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4396

Monsoon City

I am a Bombay Boy at heart and I love the monsoons. My article, published in this month's edition of the Spark magazine, touches upon both of these two loves together. Read on!

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4076 

A new son-rise!

And then there were two … Another life changing event occurred in the shape of a small beautiful baby boy that my wife and I were blessed with. Nilay Parth Pandya made his appearance in this world with a mild annoyance in his face and tremendous lung power to demonstrate it. He has, however, decided that perhaps taking long naps isn't bad compensation for the light and sound fury around him.

Nilay means home or abode and he is completing our home in many ways. Big Brother Aarush led the welcoming celebrations with a shower of kisses and hugs and sweet words for the little one. He has always been a bhai in the house and now he gets to be Aarush bhai for real!

My poem, published in this month's issue of the Spark magazine. An eternal love story, or thereabout.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=3928

Incomplete

The canvas awaits,

While the brush dries up

The tip floundering on

To a morbid decay

Empty spaces paint

A taunting picture

Of a story well begun

But left unfinished

Horn, OK, Please!

Here's the other publication in Spark for the month. Their theme for the month was 'On the Road'. This is an image (drawn in the casual tone of a nursery rhyme) that depicts a typical cross road (I had India in mind when I wrote this). There are a lot of vignettes that a small cross road can bring through and that is my attempt here.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=3757

A Ton Of Joy

For those who were wondering why there wasn't a grand outpouring on fanatic fandom on my blog after Tendulkar's 100th ton, here's the reason. Spark introduced a new section called Lounge (for articles not related to the theme of the month) and asked me to write a piece on it. Honored and Humbled. Warning: this is not a critical article. This is a response to the armchair critics from an armchair fan!

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=3765

Rain In Spain

Sharing my publication on this site called 'One forty fiction'. The intent is to write a short story in, hold your breath, 140 characters. It is a fine challenge and I am happy to be published here. I can promise that this will be a quick read :)

http://www.onefortyfiction.com/archives/rain-in-spain

Face-Off

Very thrilled to share my latest publication on this fine site for poetry - Every Day Poets. They had announced on the first of this month that I was to feature on the list of published poets this month, and it is finally here. Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.everydaypoets.com/face-off-by-parth-pandya/

Survivor Series

Someone give me a T-shirt which says ‘I survived the England and Australia tours’. I deserve it. And so do the countless souls who have braved the gut wrenching times that the past two tours have presented. When your team is team is performing like world champions, you can’t wait for the next match to happen. We’ll show you – yes, we will. We have the uncanny Zaheer Khan – he will make you dance to his tunes. We have the supporting cast of bowlers to die for. We have a captain who can do no wrong. We have batsmen who can butcher bowling attacks. Big Three, Big Five – heck we have the Big Eleven. Foreign shores – we are on our way. We have conquered everything in our past recently, we have proved we are good travelers outside. Win a match you ask? We will win the series – all past ills will be cured, Tendulkar’s name will go up at Lords. What can go wrong? Adrenaline clouds judgment and makes hindsight look obvious. What started off as a limp in Zaheer’s follow through after a few over and two wickets was metaphorically the hamstring injury that Indian cricket suffered with (and is still struggling with) for both the series. The chips fell apart spectacularly after that – a bowling attack without venom spent innings after innings giving away runs, and the batting attack could simply not deal with the swinging ball. Greats such as Tendulkar and Laxman were looking like schoolboys at times. Tendulkar’s 100^th ton’s appearance as an albatross around his neck began in England and it threatens now to consume the twilight of his career. Dravid was to spark brilliantly in England; plowing his way at workmen centuries that weren’t enough to avert a whitewash. Yes, it was a series win after all – but not by the team that were the purported favorites. The team’s bizarre team selections were only beginning to show – taking a half fit Zaheer and a half fit Sehwag over someone will perhaps lesser talent but better physical state was a sign of times of come. The joker in the pack from the selection committee was bringing in a RP Singh to play a test match when he had just returned from consuming sufficient margaritas in Miami.

That was England, one thought. Australia would bring in different results. After all, our batsmen are lords there. Tendulkar, who was getting standing ovations in the last tour there was definite to score his ton of tons here. And in typical Tendulkar fashion, he started well in the first two matches, only to fall to his greatest nemesis – Sachin Tendulkar. That Sachin Tendulkar, who inexplicably shuts off shop mentally and treats each ball like a landmine. That Sachin Tendulkar, who allows bowlers and opposition captains to get his wicket when they are least expecting to get it. What happened to the rest, you ask? Sehwag flashed and got out, because that’s the only way we bats. Pity that all that flashing was not getting any runs. Gambhir gave good slip fielding practice. Laxman was half a second slow in his reflexes. Dravid, the great wall, gave a generation of his followers the intense heartbreaks by getting bowled again and again. The bowlers had little by way of impact and barring Kohli in the last two matches and Umesh Yadav in patches, the test series was a goner. Another whitewash. The ODIs were not much better, barring the last rather incredible chase by Kohli and India, but we would have to kid ourselves if we thought we deserved to be in the finals. A time down in the dumps, rife with internal fighting and with a captain who did not even know that India had any chance of qualification, before the Sri Lanka game was always headed home in a hurry.

Why, they ask me? My friends, colleagues, curious onlookers, once followers of cricket. Why do you still follow? I don’t have any cogent answers other than the fact that I must be a glutton for punishment. Cricket lovers – true cricket lovers, not the ones enamored by the IPL tamasha, are like that. When you have followed your team through thick and thin (mostly thin, when it came to the test arena) over two decades, you don’t abandon ship so soon. When you have followed your favorite cricketers when they turned in world-class performance year after year against great bowling attacks, and in fact have raised their level to take your team to the top of the test world, you don’t stop following them at the sign of the first leak in the boat. You sit through it – you learn that cricket, as in life, is about the ups and downs and while frustrating, it is a rite of passage to stick through it. True passion isn’t all joy, it is a sweet debilitating pain – like getting stuck on 99 centuries, lying in agonizing for that one final hurrah.

A Conversation

This topic for Spark's March 2012 issue was ‘Women: Facets and Forms’. Tricky topic :) Here's a little poem about the insufficient acknowledgement of the role of women in the process of creation and destruction.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=3470

A Little Short

Coffee. Gas in the car. Patience waiting in line. Courtesy for the cashier. Cash in his wallet. Luck. It was a day of running out on things.

Ups and Downs

Fact and fiction ride with him on the seams of a wave. He is God right now, walking on water. Soon, the ruthless sea will break his reverie.

A Long Prelude

My article in this month's issue of the Spark magazine. The topic they had was 'Happy Beginnings and Happy Endings'. The choice of topic was easy this time - Happy Beginnings don't come easier than the arrival of an offspring. However, the journey leading upto it is also worth its weight (or wait). Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=3252

Deity On Bose Marg

I am here -
Towering above you.
Sinewy arms,
Sparkling eyes,
And glistening beads of sweat.

I am here
and I am your God
peddling my religion
of cool

I am here
And I intend
To make you in My image.
Come, follow me.

The Illusion

Spark, the online magazine that I have been contributing to, completes two year. As part of their special anniversary issue, they asked their regular contributors to work on specific topics. I got asked to write a short story on 'Exploring Relationships'.

So, here goes - a thousand word story not for the faint-hearted. Here's the build up: "Vishruti is waiting for someone as the waves go about their business in the busy city of Mumbai. Who is she waiting for and what’s the meeting going to be all about?" Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=2966

The Insomniac

He let
Cigarette stubs litter
Like petals from a withered flower.

Comrades in his surrender,
Waiting for sleep
To come and claim him.

The Raconteur

Here's my poem, published in the December issue of the magazine Spark. Their theme for the month was 'Time Machine'. I took a slightly different view of the time travel aspect - essentially making Time a companion, accompanying it in its travels, as it travels with me.

In deference to the request that the Spark team has, to ensure enough and more people see their magazine, here's a link to the poem. Please visit the link below to read it.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=2847

Collateral Damage

The old gift became a martyr
In a lover’s tiff.
A mug, shattered to pieces,
That once shared, a message in ceramic,
“Love Endures”

Hum Intezaar Karenge

It was the late hours of the evening, where the professed time of sleep for my son had arrived. I was due to perform that duty, reading a set quota of books to him, written by authors I have never heard off. I fired up my trusty Windows smartphone to see what the score might be. On the other side of the world, near the shores of the Arabian Sea, a diminutive giant of a man was heading towards a statistical Everest. Flurries of boundaries as well as an upper cut over the ropes were showing up in the twitter-like commentary that the mobile version of the site was providing. In due deference to the moment that was to arrive, I asked my wife to drop whatever it she was doing and take over my task for the night.


I was an ‘I was there’ moment for me that would translate into an ‘I wasn’t there’ moment for my son; but I am sure he’ll understand when he grows up.

I rushed down to the hall downstairs, switched on my laptop, headed to my list of streaming sites that I trust to bring me the telecast, and cozied myself into my sofa seat, ready for the inevitable. Since updating my Facebook status while cricket goes on has become a regular habit since the World Cup, I posted the following: “I have nails to bite and I am biting them. He has 99 centuries and he is on 94. Hmm, 99.94 :)”

I have enough cricket-crazy friends on my Facebook list to not have to explain the significance of that number. I wrote that, clicked enter, and shifted to the window with the live feed. Ravi Rampaul, the one who produced a brute of a delivery to get Tendulkar’s wicket in the World Cup game, played a similar hand. Ball pitched just short of length, and bouncing just a tad more. Tendulkar, who had batted beautifully until then, decided to hit a trademark backfoot punch. Wrong choice of shot. The celebrations of Rampaul and Sammy would not have endeared them to Indian fans, but hey, they had every right to rejoice.

One mistake and the interminable wait extends. With Tendulkar out of the ODI series against the Windies, the onus shifts to MCG and the Boxing Day game. I know that Australia is one of Tendulkar’s favorite opponents, but a tour of Australia should not have had this landmark to contend with. More drama added to this tale.

I frequented some news articles on the missed opportunity, and as with any Tendulkar article, you realize that he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. People, who would scarcely score a run in gully cricket, call him selfish and playing for records and hogging place in the team; never mind that he still remains one of the top scorers in the team. People who don’t know in swing from out swing believe that he remains incapable of scoring another ton, never mind that he has scored 99 before this. 99! If your mind doesn’t jump everytime you read that statistic, it is simply because nothing Tendulkar does will ever be good enough. He sets a benchmark and keeps excelling it. That single-minded pursuit of greatness, without losing his humility is a very rare cocktail, one which has brought him thus far.

When will century no. 100 happen? I don’t know. At the start of the World Cup, I had posted on Facebook that my dream was that Tendulkar would score a century in the final at Wankhede; his 100th, and then India would lift the cup. That came very close; yesterday was very close, and perhaps there are a couple more heartaches along the way. Nonetheless, watching the man play is a blessing that we should enjoy, without getting lost in the absolute numbers. Sometimes, a straight drive hit right between the stumps and the bowler, is worth its weight in gold. Century no. 100 will happen. Until then, ‘hum intezaar karenge!’

A Look Back, As We Look Ahead

I spent a few hours watching the documentary series called ‘The Story of India’, by PBS. Those hours were worth it, because it was good to really reiterate what we already know, but mostly gleam upon – the rich history of India through the ages, the sinusoidal path that the country’s fortunes have followed through the millennia, the meaning and origins of what pervades life in India today. We often lack the ability to maintain a perspective beyond the short term. It is easy to see India as a growing democracy, book-ended by thriving IT sectors and Bollywood; a narrow minded view of the burgeoning global middle class. But people and places don’t just come about in a day. There is a long tail of events that leads to an explanation of who we are and why we are the way we are. How often do you think of the modern secular democracy as being based on the principles that Asoka espoused or the influence that India has had on the food in the Roman empire, and in turn, modern Italy? Where do the scientific prowess of the ancients fit in and how do we factor the influence that western invasions wield on our self-confidence as a nation?


The documentary itself is as comprehensive as can be made when trying to describe a five thousand year history in six hours. It is over-romanticized at times and it is often amusing to see a westerner romanticize it thus. But I’ll take it - I’ll take his waxing over Chandragupta Maurya and Madurai, his gloating on the greatness of India’s past and relevance in the world. As India strives to seek its place at the top in this modern world, it is good to know where we came from and what really makes up our DNA. Our surge towards modernity and progress is simply building upon our rich foundations.

Yaksha Prashna

My poem, published in this month's issue of the literary magazine Spark. Their theme for their month was wealth/money. My work is inspired from an old tale from the Mahabharata.

Read on: http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=2393

The Poet

He sits with his
blue thumb
pressed to his forehead.

Those smudges of ink
are residue
from the act of creation.

Like dried clay
in a sculptor’s hand
once the wheel has stopped spinning.

Non-Resident India

My article, published in the August issue of the Spark Magazine. Their theme for this month was 'India Decoded'. I took it upon myself to decode the India that I am currently residing in - the non-resident one! Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=2151

The Seven Year Glitch

This space celebrates its seventh birthday today. Sometimes, little endeavors can surprise you in big ways with their longevity.

My tiny yet loyal group of readers; those who choose to be silent and those who let me know what they feel - thanks for sticking by! Onwards then!

The Witnesses

My poem, published in the July edition of the magazine Spark. Their theme for the month was weddings. I have tried to bring forth a slightly different perspective on the topic. Read on.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=1987

Spellbound

Your words remain
Well-spent at
Twenty rupees a letter

Shining on the board
In an unknown font
By an unknown artist

Don't blame the painter
He doesn't know enough
To know what is lost
In the games letters play

Don’t fret, we’ll understand
We are used to the quirks
As your shop proudly proclaims
‘India is Grate’

Dinner

They met each night
In honor of
Etiquette

Elbows off the table
Silverware in its right place
The food treated
With frosty reverence

Dysfunction was no excuse
To sacrifice
Civility

Mere Paas CineMaa Hai

Please find a link to my article on the online magazine Spark. Their June issue was dedicated to the theme of cinema, so I wrote up this short essay on the influence of cinema on India. A thousand words is a small limit to work against, but I gave it an honest shot. Glad to have found this resource for online publication - they seem to be doing a very fine and sincere job with Spark.

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=1847

Resume. Reload.

And because the sun has finally shone
And the dark under the sky’s eyes
Has been obliterated by the
Golden energy of the yellow globe

It is time for the warriors to appear
To march on, to the posts of battle
Meeting head-on, the challenge of modernity
Without a shield till the sun retreats again

A Bit Too Much

Computer programs
Can generate
Poetry now

I doubt if they ever will
Do well at puns
After all, binary is too absolute
For double meaning

Heaven And Earth

The wind was gentle but persuasive. The curls of her hair gave up their obstinacy within moments of the breeze touching her face. They fluttered ever so slightly, parting away the gentle clouds covering her ears. The face in the window that the city now beheld was holding a smile beneath. From the second floor of her building, from a narrow window that overlooked a busy street, she surveyed a throbbing slice of the metropolis. The world was playing out its own agenda. Vendors were busy trying to sell their wares with a mind cast back to their hungry families. Kids were playing a game of cricket with a chair as a make shift stump, and with little license to hit on anywhere other than a straight line. The honking of cars was less indicative of an urge to move on, but more suggestive of carrying on a mild conversation in blaring tones.

She saw all this and smiled. She scanned the street with her eyes but took care not to tilt her head to the left. She did not want to let him know that she had seen him. He, of the wiry frame, the thick glasses, and the intense expression, was present as usual. The sun could have set its clock looking at him. Never once did he pick another place. Always seated at the base of the old tree that people did not allow to be cut due to quasi-religious sentiments, always sipping a cup of steaming tea from the chai-wallah he so thoroughly patronized, always sketching away furiously on a piece of paper, always the observer of life’s little accidents. He, on the other hand, did not shy away from a tryst. He knew that fifty feet away, his muse had shown her face. She, off the delicate expression and the large rounded ear-rings. For months now, this wordless exchange had continued. She would come and silently observe the world beneath her, ignoring her co-observer of worlds. He would ignore the rest of her world and set his sights on her. His hands would furiously animate his expression of admiration on paper. The collection of portraits he made of her were enough to publish a book.

He made no attempt to hide his love, but kept a respectful distance. An artist’s hardest quest is that for a muse, and nothing would be worse than handing over the reality back to an illusion. The delicate balance could not be disturbed. And so the fifty feet were never bridged by him, though he harbored a fleeting hope that some day she would turn around and see him, that some day she would descend from her private heaven and meet him.

She spent her routine thirty minutes at the window. She knew his rhythms, knew how much time he needed to draw a new version of her, and she gave him that time. She wondered what it would take for him to venture forth, to walk those fifty steps, to leave the world for a while and join her in her isolation. She dared to dream the dream and castigated herself immediately. Nothing would be worse than handing over the illusion to a reality. She turned back, scanned around her heaven, and with gentle arms, pushed her wheelchair back into the house.

The Blade Of God

The fiend runs in
Thunderbolt in hand
Legs pumping
Arms extended

He hurls it at the
Stationary figure
Serene among the chaos
In a zone of his own

A billion hearts skipping
A collective beat
As the ball hurtles down
At lightning speed

When victory is de facto
And defeat is unacceptable
When a game ceases to be
“Just a game”
When matter of “life and death”
Isn’t just a phrase

In that fraction of a second
When all I said was true
The brute released
A torrent of questions

Then the feet moved
The toes went off the ground
The arms lifted the heavy bat
The cut unleashed on an
Unsuspecting ball

As it sailed into
A jubilant crowd
The ball carried with it
A message clear as day

Mortals won’t win today
For God has taken guard
Batting at number one
For India

P.S> In case it is not obvious, this is an ode to THAT upper cut that Tendulkar hit off Shoaib in the World Cup game in 2003

Chained

Was Houdini the greatest,
Or do we all surpass him,
as escape artists?

Is a five lever lock
any tougher to break
Than the vice-like grip
of tedium?

At Your Service

Madam, utterly respected
If you are even mildly discontented

And believe we roll in excess bureaucracy
Let me assure I mean no hypocrisy

To hear you, this grievance form I thus demarcate
Just make sure you do fill it up in triplicate

Hum Jawaab De Chuke Sanam

The quiz is done and dusted and it has gone rather well. Not as huge a turnout as last year, but from the feedback we received, everyone who came enjoyed it. I wonder if I can add QuizMaster to my skillset in a resume. Does that add to much? I definitely do enjoy being one, despite the time and energy that is required to set a quiz up. This year's highlight was a Kaun Banega Crorepati styled round, with theme music, revolving logo, lifelines et al. To add to the drama, it all came down to the last team needing to get all the questions right to win the quiz.

I have put up the files here for anyone wishing to attempt the quiz: http://cid-c3fa92574d313fc4.office.live.com/browse.aspx/Bollywood%20Quiz%202011?Bsrc=EMSHYH&Bpub=SN.Notifications

Jawaab Bhi Do Yaaron

In case you thought where I was - well, it is that time of the year. I am busy preparing a sequel to last year's Bollywood Quiz that I conducted.

This year again, our quiz club is collaborating with Ekal Vidyalaya, an NGO, to host this quiz in Seattle on the 13th of March. I get to set the quiz (which is something I love) and the NGO benefits from it (which is something they'll love). Last year was a big success and a lot of people enjoyed the event. We are hoping to do better this year.

If you are in and around Seattle, please do attend (and please register on this site before that). If you are not from Seattle, but know someone who is, please encourage them to participate.

Come support a good cause.

Come support the QuizMaster :)

In Absentia

He brought out a perfectly clean handkerchief out of his pocket and ran it gently over the image, hoping that fine linen could do the trick that his bare hands could not. But the picture did not get any clearer. The face in the picture did not reveal any new secrets to him. It remained as inscrutable as before. Time had done its trick on the photograph – the sepia tint was uneven, the dog ears were predominant and someone had really done a good job of inducing creases on the photograph by crushing it. The cold stern visage was unrevealing. No particular emotion, no particular trait, no particular bias leapt out from it. He had spent the first forty years of his life wondering what his father looked like, what he was like, why he had abandoned him, what life would have been growing up with one. After the serendipitous discovery of his photograph, his quest remained unsolved.

Paperback

Someone has your number
And I don't mean it
As a metaphorical
Smart-ass comment

Someone really does have it.

I suppose I should have
Torn your letter
Before I tossed it out

It must be hard to pass up
On an expectant love story
Neatly crafted in
Cursive handwriting

Across Universes

She hated the sound
Of her own voice
The way she spoke
In raspy whispers
Like a snake sliding
Over a rusty pipe

He loved the sound
Of her written word
She liberated him
By her fluent prose
From the clawing solitude
Of his prison cell

Prisoners both
One with a tube in her neck
One with his freedom confined
Meeting in that free universe
Of ideas

Win it for Sachin!!

The big event is almost upon us. After years of talking and years of waiting, the World Cup is so close you could almost smell it and touch it. Well, only metaphorically. Actually, teams will have to climb over other competitors, conditions, injuries, bad luck, bad karma and sentiment to touch it and hold it. World Cup no. 6 beckons for the best batsman of all time, certainly in the ODI arena. Although it might be too premature to say anything about a man whose longevity surprises everyone, this very well might be his last outing in colored clothing in a World Cup. He holds all the key records in World Cup history - all except having the World Cup itself. He has done everything one man can do to get his team close to the goal. However, it is a team event and this time round, the rest of the team will have to step up to win this. The team is not completely stable, and I feel unsure about our bowling and middle order batting. Once more, the onus will be on Tendulkar to give good starts to India and guide the middle order through the innings; letting them show their aggression as he holds one end. The competition is tough, with a resurgent England and South Africa, not to count out the dangerous Sri Lanka. Australia for once is not the favorite, and that might work in their favour as well. I see India making it to the semis, but beyond that, it just depends upon the day. Although traditionally home teams have never done at the World Cup, I am hoping that the home supports helps. Dhoni though, gets a good share of luck as a captain and hopefully, he can extract good performances from the resources he has. I for one, am looking forward to watching the games live (or as much as is possible) and watch history being made. For years, the maxim has been: Sachin, win it for India. Now, it should really be: India, win it for Sachin. After years of tireless service to the game and the nation, we owe him that.

Friction

The little merry-go-round was in its tenth revolution. Around him, the kaleidoscope of images whirled in rapid succession, yet in a paradoxical instance, he could see his heartbeat and the world slow down around him. It is in this moment that he noticed the details he would normally have skipped. Four pine trees, all arranged in increasing height, like a stairway to heaven. Three women in the distance, one with her mouth covered with her hands and eyes staring in disbelief. Two mountains, snow-capped, disinterested and grand, watching down with authority. One man in his car, hands on the steering wheel, with an expression of abject helplessness, serene in the mild realization of what he was witnessing, trying hard to conjure a lifetime of memories as the swish of snow obeyed the laws of physics and promptly gave way. The driver’s dumbstruck, soulless eyes stared back at him through the collapsed rearview mirror. The slight disappointment in his look was hard to miss. He had been duped into believing that the moment of reckoning would be a grand revisiting of his life before. It was anything but that. His parting thought was about deceptions, as he thought about the icy road he was on, and the ravine he would fly into.

A Tale Of Four Cities

At this time of the year, my traditional post is one of the year’s round up of music. There will be a gap in that pattern this time. Last year, I was extremely disappointed with the quality of music being dished out. While this year has been marginally better, I haven’t been able to motivate myself to go through the painstaking exercise of chalking out my favourites.

I did, however, make a second trip to India in two years. Do give me my bravery award, for making the jump across the ocean with a toddler with such frequency. While last year was all about the one year old getting to see everyone and enjoy his share of religious ceremonies, this year was all about weddings. When weddings happen in close family, there is work, there is pressure along with any enjoyment that comes along.

Two of the three weddings were in Mumbai, while the third was in Baroda, which entailed going in a baraat from Surat. For one of the Mumbai weddings, the reception was in Sriharikota (yes, the place they launch rockets from) and we traveled – packing bag, baggage and baby. Here are some impressions from the cities this India trip covered

Mumbai
How transformed can a city be within a year? The answer is – clearly a lot when it is Mumbai. Andheri, my home for as long as I can remember, again bears no resemblance to the place I have grown up in. The Metro construction has picked up pace in the past year. The extent is such that it is impossible to know when a particular street is coming up, for taking a turn. From Lokhandwala to Juhu, traffic has deteriorated furthermore, however improbable it may have seemed last year. Cool cabs were extremely hard to find this time, and so the intake of fumes was constant. Double-decker buses were hard to spot, and I have been told that is a deliberate move. We also completed what we did not manage last year – made a touristy visit to the Bandra-Worli sealink. Given that we did it one way gave us a good perspective on how much time it actually saves by going over the sea. Very impressive work.

Surat
Surat is a city close to my heart. My vacations were spent there, most of my family functions have happened there and vestiges of my childhood can be traced to the small bylanes crowded with two wheelers and cows. By some coincidence, me and my cousin were there minus wife and kids, and it almost felt like a blast from the past – before we had significant others and kids. Most of our dealings with Surat then were with the old city, before the expansions on the other side of the Tapi river had picked steam. In many ways, going back to the old city, and the waadi is like traveling back in time once you cross the bridge. The feeling was nice, nostalgic, and a distinct reminder on how much we have changed and moved away from it.

Chennai
I went there once in 1995, right after my twelfth standard exams, for a tour of the South. I remember it being really hot. That’s about it. No other pleasant memory came to mind. This time though, we were greeted with some gentle breeze from the ocean (I was told our hotel was pretty close to the beach) and rain. This was absolutely the best weather I got all trip long. The city was crowded, shop-keepers in several places had a penchant for spelling Biryani as Briyani (twice is coincidence, four times is a pattern), and I had to constantly remind myself to stop talking in Hindi, especially when the shop-keeper is trying to tell me how much I owe in Tamil.

Sriharikota
The groom’s parents (from a close family wedding) were employed in Sriharikota, hence the trip to the God-forsaken part of the country. I guess if you are to launch rockets and maintain high security, it makes sense to have it in a place that is God-forsaken. Interesting place – I got reminded of the IIT campus in Powai, which I had the opportunity to visit frequently, since one of my closest friends studied there. In fact, we stayed in a hostel reserved for visiting ISRO employees. The bare bones place was frequented by cockroaches and rats that ate through AC wiring. Clearly, mad-cap scientists do not expect much in terms of luxury J Aarush was mighty pleased at being able to see so many cows, sheep and monkeys. I don’t suppose I can simulate that environment for him in Sammamish.

This turned out to be the most un-Indian of India trips, with practically no home food, no TV, no friends and certainly no relaxation. You can eat only so much food at weddings, and if you are me, there is only so much hard core South Indian food that you can take J The wedding expenses are insane, and the money spent on clothes you are not likely to wear more than two three times is mind-boggling. With the Bollywoodisation of weddings, I also got to participate in the sangeet of my cousin’s wedding. A hired choreographer, who surely must justify his salary by teaching people like me with two left feet how to dance, had me and my wife and a couple of other married couples dancing to ‘Zor ka jhatka’. While the dance itself looked like a bunch of kindergarten kids doing uncoordinated steps, we have a fan in Aarush. He has clearly inherited his father’s wit, because he keeps asking me to play the video by saying ‘more sazaa’.

On the bright side, the trip was extremely beneficial for Aarush. He has fully internalized the value of an audience and maximized it by winning hearts and minds while there. By the end of the trip, he would not eat food unless there were a bunch of people around to cheer him while he did it. How I envy those couples in India who have so many helping hands when bringing up kids. The exposure to so many new things and new people meant good things for him. We have brought back a naughtier, fiestier, masti-er, talkative version of the toddler we took there. That being said, people in India, please stop getting married. I really would like to avoid making one more trip next year!

Seattle, Are You Ready?

“Seattle, are you ready?” is a question Mr. Palash Sen, the lead singer of the band Euphoria, asked all evening long. Ready for what, Mr. Sen? And if we are not ready yet, then what state were we in when you asked the same question three songs back? Aah, well. Such was the nature of the concert, entertaining and in part, mystifying. The venue was King Cat theater in Seattle, and I was positioned in an aisle seat all by myself in the balcony section. With a two year old, you either have the option of hiring a baby-sitter, a practice we are not yet bought into, or taking turns to either the same movie or picking entertainment events suited more to one person. The third option, which would involve taking the kid to the concert, is a no-go. The music can almost make you deaf, and if Aarush wants to avoid listening to us, I am not going to give him a handy excuse. He is more likely to end up attending classical concerts first, perhaps someone with an extended name like Madurai Thirumalai Nambi Seshagopalan. The only way he is getting out is he pronounces the name right, to our satisfaction.

However, I digress. Euphoria’s strength has been their ability to do Hindi Rock well, if there is such a genre. Their songs are tinged with folk tunes and their lyrics are easy on the ear. No wonder, the crowd was able to sing along their hit songs. Which brings me to the mystical part of the evening. Where exactly were the Euphoria songs? Yes, they did their usual hits from Dhoom Pichak to Mehfuz, which I really liked, but a large part of their show was peppered with Hindi film numbers and other oddities ranging from ‘Dhagala laagli kala’ to ‘Another brick in the wall’. I would have imagined that they would not need to resort to these options if their repertoire was strong enough. Then maybe, it isn’t.

I guess the restorative point of the concert was the main man himself. I did not have much expectations from Palash Sen as a performer (you have to know that I HAVE seen Filhaal), but he was very good on stage. His energy levels through the concert, his interactions with the crowd, his on stage rock star moves (quite manufactured) and his unfailing ability to ask us if we are ready carried the concert. I don’t think anyone is under any misconceptions about his ability as a singer. He isn’t Sonu Nigam, but he doesn’t need to be. His insistence that everyone needs to be on the dance floor was irritating though. I had expensive tickets specifically because the cheaper tickets had dance on the title. Its alright. I maybe of the arthritic crowd, as Mr. Sen mentioned, but that didn't stop me from stomping my feet and clapping when it appealed to me. I found Mr. Sen's ability to jump up and down and still continue singing without a hiccup fairly impressive. The jumping was a criticial tool he used to engage the crowd. It would also have helped to overcome the limitations of the sound system, where the mixing and the volume left a lot to be desired.

Lastly though, mention must be made about the volunteers from AID who put this together. Or for that matter, volunteers of CRY or Ekal or other NGOs whose chapters I have interacted with. Planning this kind of event takes a lot of time and effort, and for the most part, the people who are doing this are salaried folks who have a family to attend to. You have to be fairly passionate about your charity to invest the kind of time that goes into it. If by chance, an AID volunteer reads this, pat yourself on the back for today’s work.