Just Not Cricket

India drew their third Test match against the West Indies as well(yawn!). In my opinion, a boring test match ambling towards an inevitable draw is possibly the worst sight that professional sport has to offer. I consider it even more boring than watching Billiards or Chess (I do appreciate the skills involved in these sports, and also the thrill of playing them, but with all due respect they aren't exactly a spectator's dream!). I have spent a large percentage of my life watching sports (I Once actually watched the National Korfball Championships on DD) and of this a rather huge fraction has been spent on cricket. It has provided me not only some of my best sporting memories (Venkatesh Prasad bowling out Aamir Sohail-1996 world cup), some of my worst (India losing the Chennai test to Pak after Sachins century), and also some of my most boring and exasperating sporting memories(Innumerable test matches being drawn, matches being rained out and abandoned, matches being abandoned due to poor light)

I really believe if it wasn't for India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Cricket would be extinct by now. Its just that we suck at every other sport, and crickets the only game where we can consistently stay in the top ten (any guesses why?), that we are so crazy about it. The Aussies, despite being really good at lots of other team sports probably continue playing Cricket because its one game where they can consistently thrash the pommies(yes, I know what happened in the Ashes this year, but I consider it an aberration till England can prove otherwise).

India, I'm sorry to say is not a sporting nation. Don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Indian, but we must accept what our limitations are. The environs we grow up in are not really conducive to developing future sportsmen. I thus have extra respect in my heart for the Leanders, Sanias, Gopichands, Irfans and Baichungs who make it despite all odds - and perhaps even more so for the many others who don't.

When we watch a cricket match we don't treat it like a sport, we treat it like entertainment. I agree that the line dividing sport and entertainment is a blurry one, but the facts remain that we booed Sachin off the pitch in Bombay, we booed the Indian team off the ground in Delhi for scoring just 200 runs (our side eventually won the game-but who cares-we just want to see Dhoni hit the ball out of the park), we throw stuff onto the field and disrupt games when things aren't going to plan(Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta). We are very bitter losers, and not very sporting people at all. This behaviour is sometimes really disgusting and actually reminds me of a couple of terrible movies I've had the misfortune of being audience to, where the junta got bored and erupted into whistles and catcalls, and on one occasion went so far as to break the chairs in the theater and threaten to beat up the manager if they didnt get their money back! Contemporary cricket is designed to appeal to the masses, with silly rules being introduced into an already complicated game (powerplay, super-sub). Its like a masala movie - Sachin and Sehwag are the heroes, Shoaib/Brett Lee/Murali the villains, Dravid and Kumble are the heroes' ever reliable friends ("best supporting actor goes to.."), Bhajji is the hero's funny friend (the guy who usually gets beat up by the villain and waits for the hero to save his ass), and Dhoni is the latest 'tadakda-bhadakta' item number - comes on anytime in between,usually doesnt last long, and is there for pure entertainment value - the item number after which the match can be classified as 'paisa vasool' or not.

The ICC and BCCIs relentless peddling of the sport in the name of spreading Cricket to the far corners of the world has to some extent resulted in even a cricket crazy population like us losing interest(yours truly included). They have turned it from a unique, if somewhat placid sport needing patience and skill, to a mediocre circus advertising cheap thrills(twenty-twenty,anyone?). Gone are the days when an India Pak match in Sharjah would capture the imagination of the entire sub-continent, when kids in school would mass-bunk to catch the game on TV. Gone are the days when a cricket match defeat would hurt till the next victory, when we actually hated the Pakistan team, and the matches were like war. Now many of us just dont see what the big deal is. They beat us today, we'll definitely play them next month, so we can beat them then. If not even then, we can just dismiss it with a wave of our hand and say, "saala match fixed hai" and forget about it.

All this can be attributed to a number of reasons, not least of which is the extreme overdose of cricket. Its a huge moneyspinner, especially in the sub-continent, but ICC should really read the story about the hen that laid the golden eggs. Another reason is the dilution of the level its played at. Teams like Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Kenya have done little to increase the interest in the sport. They manage to please the item number fans to an extent(by proving to be easy meat, and getting thrashed all over the park), but the purists are quite turned off by their pedestrian efforts to make it internationally.

I know its a bit surprising that with the football world cup(i refuse to call it soccer) in full swing, I'm actually writing about cricket, but its just that a certain Mr Bhogle's habit to compare "the beautiful game" to "the gentleman's game" gets on my nerves(who let him anchor the World Cup on ESPN anyways? Blasphemous, i say!). Especially when what we see these days is just not cricket. Its too much of something else.

Sailing to Philadelphia

I had applied for my US visa and went for my interview today. I was more impressed than surprised at the junta that had come to apply. There was a potpourri of humanity that thronged the portals of the US Embassy to get a foothold into the land of opportunity. There were newly married women carrying their wedding photo albums(one actually insisted that her father be allowed to accompany her as she couldnt carry that much weight), there was a long line of very obvious IT professionals(they stick out like sore thumbs wherever they go-and yes, this is coming from a doctor), there were families who probably wanted to take their kids to Disneyland(I'm going to go too, if i get a chance), there was one particular elderly sardarji who seemed like he'd been coming there everyday since he was six, and last but certainly not the least, there were doctors going for their CS exams(yours truly included)

My dad had been quite amused by the way i had been "preparing" for my visa call. He, in his infinite wisdom thought its just a walk in the park, and all you need to do is go there and get a stamp on your passport. In retrospect, I agree. I had carried every conceivable document to attest to my family's wealth-property papers, every FD, passbook, stock, bond, and share that i could lay my hands on, just in order to prove to them that i could afford to sustain myself in amreeka for 10 days. In the end, I didnt really need any of these papers, but I'm a boy scout in many ways-doesnt hurt to 'be prepared'.

A lot of my friends have been going to visa counsellors, and I also met a couple of them. I liked one of them, intensely disliked the other, and hired neither. I couldnt help but feel that I was being ripped off like anything, and also my intelligence was being insulted when I was being told what to write in what column. I mean, I pretty much knew what to say when I went there, and the only reason I would have actually hired one of them would be the fear factor. The fear caused by the voice in my head saying "what if the visa is denied to me, and everyone else gets it?". The fear that then I would have to live with the regret of not having gone to one of these guys all my life. I assume that is pretty much the philosophy behind anyone going for visa counselling, and it really lowers my respect for people in this profession. I mean all they do is fill your form for you, and tell you what to say when you're asked "Why do you want to go to the US?". Any biped can do this job in my opinion. Glorified clerks, if you will.

I know, I know..most of you are thinking just because I got my visa, I am waxing eloquent on these 'counsellors' (and their limitations), and i must admit, you may just be right. Bottomline is I got it, and saved me some 5 grand.

I just got back from the Embassy a couple of hours ago, and since then I've got Mark Knopfler singing "Sailing to Philadelphia" in my head. I cant get it out, primarily because I don't want to.

Just Good Friends

"No, no! We're just good friends"
"Can't we just stay friends?"
"You're just my buddy"
"Lets just be friends"

I'm sure you've got what I mean, boys and girls. These (and many more variants of them) are possibly the biggest clichés ever in the English language(followed closely by,"I just want a nice guy who has a good sense of humor" and not so far behind is,"I'm sure you'll find someone special"). If I had 10 bucks for every time I'd heard these, I wouldn't be a terribly rich man, but i would definitely have enough to go for a movie and a lavish seven course dinner, by myself of course.

Now dont get me wrong, i'm not cribbing, although in my opinion, I have been at the receiving end once too many. I do understand that this is the ladies' way of putting someone they despise down as gently as possible, hence I have no complaints with this method. I think I speak on behalf of most of the guys who have experienced this when i say that we appreciate the thought behind it. However, having heard it for over half my life, I have realized that its the tone that hurts, rather than the content. "He's JUST a friend", "NO! NO! We're JUST friends", thus implying that this chap is completely dispensable.

I guess its something girls start learning when they're around 12 (the more attractive, the earlier it starts) when guys first begin to pay them attention, and by the time they reach 24, its more or less a part of their system. A conditioned reflex, if you will. I also believe that the "Just Good Friends" conversation is a fairly recent phenomenon. If it had existed all along, history as we know it might have undergone significant alterations. Can you imagine Juliet telling Romeo that she just wanted to be his friend? Shakespeare wouldnt have been as famous, and Mark Knopfler poorer by a few million quid.

Every time I have one of these conversations, i begin to wonder whether every guy has been on the receiving end as often as me, or is there something fundamentally "good friend"-ly about me(ladies, please feel free to comment. Guys, get your own house in order first). I'm not the most sociable of people (unlike those whack-jobs who claim to have "making friends" as a hobby-How needy is that?!), but I have no qualms about making friends. In these circumstances, however, its always kind of like getting "consolation prize"-never did figure out whether that was supposed to make me feel good or bad.

I often say that there are two things I will never figure out- computers, and the way women think. They think they're being nice to us when it’s really pretty painful. They think they're letting me down gently when they actually leave me hanging in mid-air. I admit that every single time I have had a "good friends" conversation, I have deluded myself into believing there's still a semblance of a chance, a ray of hope, despite knowing that it’s pretty much the last nail in the coffin. Totally my fault, I don’t blame the fairer sex for any of this.

Ladies, please don’t misconstrue this as a sexist post. I don’t have anything against women- in fact, I really like them - hence, my getting into trouble with them so often. Here's to all the "just good friends" I have ever made. I love you all. (Call me)