To Shillong, with love!

Where the hills are green,
And the waters crystal clean;
Where the sun rises to the sparkling spring;
And humming bees weave a charming ring;
Where every second person I meet;
Calls me by my name to Greet;
To that vibrant March Spring, I belong!
To that heaven on earth they call Shillong!

At Slip stood our Wall!

Dear Rahul Sharad Dravid,
As you retire from the Gentleman’s Game, my guilt overrides me as I make these confessions.
1. I never enjoyed watching you bat. Like several other Indian fans, in most matches, I was awake and glued to the TV when the likes of Tendulkar and Sehwag were exhibiting their mastery, but timed my sleep hours for the time you came in to bat. You could never keep me awake with awe-inspiring lofts and pulls. But you let me sleep -- sleep with a reassured peace that you were around, standing as the Wall when our other heroes were falling by the bullet!
2. I never missed you when you weren’t around. Each time, a Rohit Sharma or a Virat Kohli came onto the scene and people got chatting about giving these new blokes a chance, I joined them in the clatter. When the question arose on who should make way for these young turks, I thought of you. You can’t hold me guilty for believing that I wouldn’t miss you. You never left the scene to make me miss your absence. To play some 93-odd test matches on a trot since debut, you hardly ever gave us a chance to see an Indian team without you.
3. You had no say in the team. I remember how they shuffled your batting order and gave you the gloves in the run up to the 2003 World Cup. You were never asked, it seems, but just told. Why for once did you not tell the powers-that-be that you are a test cricketer of repute, why didn’t you ever throw your weight around? May be, because when others were looking to preserve their careers by taking centrestage on Indian pitches and hiding backstage on foreign batting tracks, you chose to risk your lifeline. Each time they gambled with your career, you came out with a fortune.
4. I am one of those myopic Indian fans who held a grudge against you each time you dropped a catch, unmindful of the fact that no one in the history of the game has more catches to his credit than you. I have cursed you for dropping the few, have I thanked you yet for the hundreds you held?
5. I think of Lords and remember a certain Saurav Ganguly, I think of Taunton (1999 World Cup) and remember the same name; I flash my mind to the Eden Gardens (2001) and remember a Very Very Special player and when I probe deeper, I can only think of Tendulkar’s 186 against New Zealand in Hyderabad. Where were you when these feats were being achieved? History tells us, you were right there. You have always played the neglected hero, but history is kind enough to record your heroics. Years later, generations to come will remember you as the last puritan to have played the Game of Cricket.
6. You never believed that charity (of runs) begins at home. When your contemporaries were hogging the limelight on sterile Indian pitches by tonking 200s and 300s, you most often had little time, just about enough, to complete a century. But, when the same players went abroad, their appetite for runs dried. Their 200s and 300s ceased, but what remained constant was you, and your willow making the 22-yards your own. To have the highest batting average for the country in Test matches won overseas elevates you to greatness. At least now, let this nation of cricket fanatics take a bow!

You faced 31,258 balls, the highest in the game’s history, to amass some 13,000-odd runs, the second highest in the game’s history. May be it just never occurred to us that you were busy at work too, while your other colleagues’ natural brilliance stole the show.

As the press conference in the Chinnaswami Stadium drew to a close today, it perhaps brought a shocking closure for several cynical and thankless Indians. At 39, you have learnt to deal with fans like me; I am not sure whether, at 25, I have learnt to deal with the absence of a selfless man like you.
At No.3, you will forever be mera No.1 . Stride on Gentleman, you will be missed!

To the old woman I met this afternoon!

Dear Granny-like-stranger,
Nearly 11 hours after we met, I am thinking of you. The images flash by as I recall you stumbling with the beyond-capacity weights on your shoulders. From the time you asked me to help you board the bus, till the time you left, I was looking at you very intently.
Your hands had twirled itself into wrinkles, eyes sunken into an endless gorge and your bent posture made me fear the helplessness of old age I would encounter 50 years from now.
I think of the several spineless young men who were standing beside you. They offered no help despite being half your age and twice your strength. I think of you and wonder if you did not have a family, a son or daughter? No child worth his salt would let his mother shoulder such physical burden in the winter of her life. Were you an unfortunate exception?
A lady of your age had no business testing your endurance with such physical activity. You must’ve lived through several battles in your glittered life; your body must’ve taken several blows. But, why is your physical fight still on in the last lap of your life?
As I meander towards the end of this piece, I am faced with a plethora of mixed emotions. I wish I had spoken to you for a while longer, understood what brought you to this pass at the fag end of your life. Life isn’t cricket, is it? The last few overs here shouldn’t be ‘slog overs’ as in the game of bat and ball.
But, you seem to be playing the slog overs. And it’s a colossal shame for people of my age, if parents of your age have to bear the titanic burden on their shoulders and brave it out in the sun.
As you stepped onto the bus, I stood behind you fearing you may fall. When you turned around and thanked me with your gracious smile and blessed me with that benevolent look, you touched a cord somewhere.
When I saw you this afternoon, we were strangers. Now, the reflective story of neglect has turned you into a fable for me. Signing off with a hope that the bus dropped you ‘home’.

Mixed emotions!

There are assignments pending and exams impending, there is a brutal coercion to excel and insurmountable pressure to perform -- amid the academic chaos, me writing this blog piece can easily be misconstrued as someone having got his priorities wrong. If that’s the case, so be it.

As I attempt to pen down these thoughts, I feel slightly disoriented. Rummaging through the layers of mixed emotions, let me begin with a story – A story of brilliance, fortitude and, if I may call it, a paradoxical tragedy. I met her eight years ago at school and she was brilliant, she still is. She was among the sharper brains in the class - brutal in her goal-setting; ambitious in delivering them and humble enough to keep her feet grounded amid astronomical achievements. She wanted to study medicine, she did; she wanted to be honed by the best college in the country; she did; she wanted to become a doctor, she became one; and a brilliant one at that. Each day she met hopeful people entrusting her with the task of alleviating their pain, curing them and restoring brightness in their dimming lives – she delivered on their expectations. But, she lost the battle with one patient, her last one. You couldn’t blame her for that. This patient was diagnosed with cancer and, as a doctor, she could have treated this as a one-off case that exposed medical science’s limitations. But, she didn’t, she couldn’t move on. Reason: This patient in question happens to be her mother – someone who co-partnered her dream; co-authored her success story and inspired her to take up this profession known to save lives.

In a conversation with a friend, she mentioned, “What’s the point of claiming to save lives when the one who means the most to you dies before your eyes?”; to the world she declared, “Christmas means nothing without you.”

Today, I revisited my friend’s story through an old couple at the doctor’s clinic where I had gone to get my throat fixed. This couple, easily in their 70s, was fighting a similar crisis – the wife had been diagnosed with neck cancer. As she went through her exercises in the doctor’s cabin, I saw through the transparent door how her husband, enfeebled by age, stood behind her in support.

It’s moments like these that bring me closer to life and the ultimate reality that lies beyond it.

For my friend, that one moment of separation will linger on for life; for this couple, destined to be separated, moments such as these will bring them closer as they prepare for the imminent farewell.

Life is fleeting; are we keeping pace? Are we appreciating and valuing people enough? If not, we are making a colossal waste of the little time that remains.

On a philosophical dope, I asked myself if I am prepared to face such moments and let go of people; but I shirked at the very thought. I am not as strong as those whose tales I have just narrated. If not anything else, I have leant to value people more.

And there is one thing I, for sure, will do henceforth: “Never wait for the opportune time to say that next word. For all you know, your ‘next’ may just be their last.”

Walking down the wrong path

It is 5.58 am and surely not the sanest hour to go on an esoteric overdrive. But, when has desire to express your mind been a dependent function of time.
And hence I write, inspired by an intriguing 4-hour conversation that’s not only kept me sleepless, but also awakened me to a new tangent of thought.
Is there something called a wrong path? Are right paths with wrong destinations any different?
They would have me believe that it’s not worth walking down either of the two barrels. Is the destination paramount? Does the experience of taking a walk down the wrong lane constitute regret?
Life always gives us two choices – one to subscribe to predictive behaviour, the other to be a rebel. I am a rebel of sorts. I choose to walk in wrong lanes, but not at the risk of trespassing.
Some of the most beautiful lanes have a point of divergence. I am walking down one of those paths, not alone, and it is a fascinating experience. Now, I see a point of divergence; was my path wrong only because it ends in separation.
What about the memories we made in the excursion down the lane? What about the whispers echoed on way to separation, what about those smiles we shared, the compliments we exchanged and the memories we created? Do they get divorced too at the point of inflexion?
Sticking to a path that leads you there is stereotypical, treading a path that leads you somewhere is exploratory. I am an explorer.
“Don’t walk down the wrong path. It’s not worth it!” they say. It’s better to walk down the aisle aware of consequences, than stand stationary at the edge as a preventive gesture. I am in the inertia of motion and I can’t stop walking. Let me trust the momentum to take me the distance.

Thank you September 11, 2001!

There is almost a sepia touch to the memories I have of the day when apocalypse hit America ten years ago. It was a pleasant evening, or so I remember, and my day was winding to a close. The lazy twilight across the horizon was such a misleading precursor to what lay ahead.
I have this uncanny habit of surfing through TV channels at the speed of light. And while that evening was expected to be no different, my dead heat race with TV channels was aborted as I stumbled upon Channel 29 on my TV list – NDTV.
The words were clear, the message was loud. America had been hit by terror, not once but twice in a span of seconds.
The horror sight of two planes crashing into the gigantic towers was there to stay; the wails of those witnessing destruction-in-motion were there to remain; the dance of death around the epicenter of life had been choreographed to haunt us for years.
For once, I’m sure most Americans wouldn’t mind the Alzheimer's syndrome if that’s what it takes to Ctrl+Alt+Del September 11 from their memories.
The sight of men and women freefalling from the twin towers in their miraculous bid to escape death could easily account for the scariest sight ever witnessed by the human eye.
What were they thinking on their flight down the towers to Ground Zero? Were their regrets, were their silent farewells?
In those 10 seconds before gravity did them in, was there a man saying a silent sorry to his wife for cheating on her; was there a woman saying ‘I’m proud of my children’; was there a 20-something whose lips whispered ‘I love you” one last time; was there a fearless sturdy man admitting to himself for the first time ever ‘I am scared’.
Between the top of the tower and the ground below lay a limitless expanse and in that vaccum of infinity, many words must have been said, many tears shed and many smiles broken. And in all of this, there was a larger acceptance – the acknowledgement that death is as much a reality as life is.
For me, the day enhanced the value of life. Now, I’m more aware than ever that what comes across as another day in my life may just be the only other day I have with me.
It’s only a moment you’d take to say sorry; only a moment to say I love you; only a brief second to say Thank you. On September 11, 2001, they had their ‘moments’ in their last flight down the WTC. You and I may have none -- for if climaxes were written according to plan, life would have been way too predictable.

Tears that will be remembered for years

It’s not that I always engage in a discourse on my life. Too often I have shied away from opening the dark shades that shadow my past. But, you probed deep and gave me no inch to escape.
At a moment when I was supposedly strong, in rhythm and comfortably in my zone, you got me to divulge matters close to my heart. And as I spoke, your lips began to tremble; as I recalled darkness, the light around you turned dim, and when my tears came knocking, your eyes moistened and glistened with emotions. They turned red and you cried, you did what I had been dying to do for ages.
In your tears, I sobbed my tragedies, in them I vented my long-drawn anger; I experienced freedom, I saw relief. Through that twinkle in your tear-laden eyes, you stripped me off my inhibitions and set me free; your weak moment empowered me; your sense of emptiness gave me a rush of fulfillment. I was in a trance, I still am.
Decades later, when this piece is revisited, I hope it reminds us of a certain Saturday when facades were broken and hypocritical walls demolished.
And, for what got you to cry, the question is a mystery for now, and is likely to remain one forever!