Last man standing ...

It started on Tuesday and carried on till Thursday. It was one of the greatest moments of Sport. Neither of  the men involved , though not unknown to tennis followers , was Rafa or Fed . It was  last man standing stuff , term usually associated to wrestling and not with beautiful lawns of Wimbledon , that flirted with fiction and reality. It was nothing spectacular but breathtaking and the  basic requirement of sport , commitment  to the fore. It was a match in which  two gladiators , Isner of USA and Mahut of France , giving it all , barely able to stand at the end of 11 hours , were inseparable , with  Isner edging it 70-68 in final set. Final set alone was fought for over seven hours easily eclipsing the previous longest tennis match.

Beauty of sport lies in the human factor which eventually makes mistakes that rival can take advantage of or a moment of brilliance or the factor called luck to intervene. But these two fought on for three days defying the laws of sport. It was also beautiful as it was devoid of controversies. This match was purely about will. Every person has a breaking point in him before he quits. It's the point at which his courage ends and contest doesn't seem worthy enough .  We give in Psychologically. But not these two. Those two wouldn't just quit.

What makes it more beautiful is that they practically played for nothing.  It was not a grand slam final played on Center court , just first round on court 18. The winner will not pocket money in millions of dollars .  There was no national pride involved. It  makes their performance even more astonishing. They were just playing for their personal pride . Professionals doing their job and giving everything. They were pushing their body for one more point .  It was more a show of human spirit than a match. Sport has been bought to disgrace by many issues , match fixing , racism , tampering , politics etc to mention a few. But matches like this are what brings back glory to it , irrespective of what  happens around. France football team showed no desire in their match against South Africa. They could have looked no farther than their fellow  country man , Mahut , for inspiration. It's a cruel world in which we live in . So one man had to be  second best.

College Chronicles --- Part - 4

When I was in class eleven and twelve , I had the pleasure of experiencing  five different campus environments in two years. My first stay was about twenty miles from town , serene environment and also had a hostel kind of feel associated to it. My stay there was for a month and was shifted to a place which was in out skirts of town . This place was a colony and residents were not just students. It was a pleasant change for reasons pretty much obvious . My time in this place was even less and had to shift my base again to campus which was in heart of town. The only advantage being its accessibility to hotels. This stop in my journey was for about six months before we moved on to a place which had a country side feel to it. Here we spent around seven months and we really had a blast. 


Our next campus was about fifteen miles from town , in a village. It had a proper campus feel to it and had acres of greenery to supplement its wonderful atmosphere. There were two temples nearby. One was on top of hill outside our campus and the other just beside , which can be seen for my room. Evenings were pleasant at times , with cool breeze and gentle music from temple ,  relieving you of  stress and pressure of college life. There goes a saying that old habits are hard to change. On our way to college , we observed small stalls on road side where food was available. One fine day we tasted the food when we were given permission to go to town for bringing necessary things. The urge to go out and eat was difficult to contain. We had two options . Either take a walk to office , fill out a form , take permission from in charge and go out . Just jump the wall and explore the world outside . Found the latter option easy to implement. This activity which started as an occasional one was now pretty much regular. Me and a friend also were pretty regular visitors to the nearby temple. Generally we used our highway , jumping the wall . On certain special occasions we followed the formalities . We preferred our highway as it was just a matter of five minutes walk from our room. One evening after some discussion we decided on using our highway. My friend jumped and I was about to. I heard my friend say some thing. I was in no mood to listen and climbed it. When I was about to jump , saw campus in charge seated in temple along with the priest. He was the one who used to wake us up every morning as he very well knew that we didn't care our warden. Now I could make out what my friend was trying to say. I was about to jump back into campus , but stopped on directions from in charge. When we went to temple , he started his lecture involving the priest in between . He was praising us at times. When we started to relax , he started scolding us. He was mixing in every thing he could think of and we were in utter confusion and couldn't come to a conclusion of what he tried  communicating to us. We were given a lecture for about thirty to forty five minutes.  On the first break he took , we seized on he opportunity and asked him that we will leave and we had to study. He could understand the cynicism in our voice and class extended another ten minutes. We finally left , taking offering of god from him. We jumped back into campus. We burst out into laughter and were in tears , for not all tears are an evil. 

More Cricket

Having started on cricket in previous post , I'll continue with few memories of cricket. When I was in school , I used to spend my holidays either at home playing or my grandma's village. It was the time of Sankranti and we usually have a school break for about ten days. I was around nine or ten years of age and was having a blast in holidays at the village. Usually spend time going to my uncle's fields or playing along with others of my age group. One early morning there was a buzz outside our home. People were going in groups with bats in hand. My uncle had some casual talk with them . They were a person short and I said that I would like to play. I looked out of place among them as they were all quite few years older than me. On the way I came to know that it was a regional rivalry ( among two streets of village )and they would be playing for money . I was tense as this was the first occasion I being involved in a match which money was involved. Ground was surrounded by bushes . Opposite team batted first . I was made to field close as they thought I would not field well and my mistakes would result in boundaries. I enjoyed fielding close in. I dismissed two batsmen (run outs) , one which was a direct hit. They put up a good score and my team was going on well with our chase. At that stage I thought my part was done for the day and was happy that I played my part well. From a healthy position , a dramatic collapse put us in bother. Though runs needed was less , wickets were thing of concern . I was the one left apart from the other two at crease. I was praying that these two win it for us and I shouldn't be needed. Rarely do things go on as planned or the way we want. Another one got out of the last ball of a over and we had one over to go with three runs to get. I had to go out to bat. I was still hopeful of winning and me not getting to face a ball. Striker wasted two balls and got out going for a big hit. I was left to face three balls with three runs needed. Our team was resigned to defeat. Seeing my diminutive size , bowler relaxed and just bowled a loosener. I dispatched the ball into the bushes and our team was victorious. I couldn't believe , overcome with joy and was mobbed by teammates.

In school our class had the reputation of being the most indisciplined one in entire school. We maintained this legacy till we left school and took no measures to change it at all. By chance if any new teacher came with no opinion about us , it took very little time for other teachers to give description about our class. When in class eight , there were plans to have a match between students of class nine and ten for sports day . We were against it and insisted that we also be given a chance to play. Though there was certain opposition , it was decided that we take on a combined team of classes nine and ten . I was my team captain and chose to bat on winning the toss. Our team was a well balanced one. We batted deep and also had quite few bowling options. We put up a good score with contributions from all those who went in to bat including me . We knew opposition strengths and weakness as we had already played them many times. Three or four of us discussed and set fields , bowled according to plan. I initially took my position in slip and in later stages fielded close in . Took two good catches of their important batsmen. They could never go at the required rate and in the end we won quite easily. It was a memorable victory as whole school was watching and practically all teachers were supporting the other team.

Cricket was pretty much part of our daily schedule in BTech. We played almost everyday after college.  In our first or second year we played a match against fourth year guys. There was a bet involved of around hundred bucks or so. We had first go with the bat and scored above one hundred and fifty in fifteen overs. When it was their turn to bat , they were pretty dismal . We were on way to a handsome victory with just a casual  effort with ball. Then trouble started with umpire , a guy of batting team , calling two of our bowlers for chucking. First guy somehow completed the over. The second guy was so irritated . He uprooted the stumps , started hurling expletives . He also said that they could have the money as charity and there was no need to cheat for mere hundred bucks. One of us , of course not me , had to intervene and cool him down and stop him. I was completely taken by surprise because this guy was the last person I expect to lose his composure. ( This guys name also starts with H and its not me .)  I still have a good laugh when I recollect those events. In BTech I was badly injured my hand just before exams , playing cricket. Luckily I didn't have to struggle as exams were postponed and my injury healed in time. I still have a memory of it on my palm.

College Chronicles --- Part - 3

Cricket ... Seven letter word which unites people across age , gender , caste, religion , regionalism and all other divisive factors .. It is a religion which has devout followers . As it is with every religion , this too has a "God". When he is on field a billion souls pray for him. Mumbai streets are empty. Even at times of distress he can bring a smile on your face .. Some confessed their nightmares .. Some said " I have seen God , he bats at no.4 for India in Tests" . A banner once in Sharjah said " I will see God when I die , but till then I see Him " . Another in Sydney " Commit all your crimes when He is batting . They go unnoticed because even the Lord is watching " . I can go on and on .. For the limited edition species who are still unable to make out , He is Sachin. My memories of cricket dates back to 1992 and I have been a pious devotee for 18 years and counting . In my 11th or 12th class , which my pea sized brain can't properly remember , after our night study hours , a discussion started between   ten or twelve of us about him. I couldn't  understand the reason why Indians take pride in criticizing their heroes.  Discussions usually turn into a debate with people taking sides. Amazingly in every such situation , I end up in minority group. It was three of us who were in support of him and we were easily outnumbered. The discussion / debate / fight , had more of a noise than information. It was passionate sprayed with tiny pieces of  logic in between . Time flies during these times , and even before we noticed we had spent almost 4 hours . As I am used to now a days , meetings or discussions rarely have conclusions. It was never going to be different and our debate didn't deviate the script. Everyone went to bed , tired , with a feel of satisfaction and belief that they had the upper hand in debate.

  Time Magazine's quote on Sachin:
"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam. When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open" the Nehruvian economy. It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will."

College Chronicles .... Part -- 2

Returned to new campus after holidays. It was business as usual after few days of roaming around the campus and surroundings. Started playing cricket on top of our building in the evenings. It was a lot of fun and a novel experience as well trying to play in a controlled manner. Fun carried on for few days. Like all good things this had to end . On one fateful evening , our campus in charge caught us playing . Were given a lengthy lecture as usual and bats were taken away from us. Sun slowly was getting into his groove . This meant exams were round the corner. In the place where we had our food in  campus , there were  few lemon trees. On a  fine night , during one of our breaks from study , one thought popped out of no where . Why not play cricket for  relaxation !!!! We had tube lights on the roof  .. So no problem of bad light . Next bat and ball. We being aspiring engineers , and just in college , there was no dearth of innovative ideas. After due discussion , we zeroed in on writing pad and lemons. Two of us were off to bring lemons. Brought enough of them from tree. This was awesome. We had lots of fun , enjoyment ... Of course cricket is incomplete without controversies and arguments irrespective of where it is played .. Had plenty of these as well ... Continued playing even during the exams. I can't comment on the effect it had on our marks .. They were quite good .. Could have been better .. But who cared about 11th class marks ... Our goals were higher .. Lemon cricket became part of our daily schedule .. It  came  to an end when we had to shift our base again ..    

Funny one liners collection ...

If women ruled the world there would be no wars. Just a bunch of jealous countries not talking to each other

Hard work is rewarding. Taking credit for other people's hard work is also rewarding. And faster

Multi-tasking: twice the mistakes in less time

Money can't buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Ferrari

I try to cut down on the number of mistakes I make at work by coming in late.

Not to brag, but I have completely mastered the right way to do everything wrong.

Cop: "You going to a fire?" Motorist: "Trying to prevent one, officer. My boss said that's what would happen if I was late again."

Don't worry i won't tell anyone.. and if i do, i'll tell them not to tell anyone

 Three of my fingers are willing to write, but my thumb and forefinger are opposed

The mind needs exercise, just like the body. That's why I'm thinking about jogging

Men are like coolers. Load them up with beer and you can take them anywhere.

Why do the call it baby-sitting when you spend all your time chasing after them?