Published in Yahoo! Cricket, February 7, 2011
There are milestones and then there are milestones. And waiting for them can run the gamut of emotions. On one hand you have snooze-worthy and inevitable ones like whether Tendulkar will score 27,000 runs in Tests against Australia or if Dale Steyn will reach the mark of 600 wickets with a strike rate of 5.00. But the imagination is not tickled by them nor the cockles warmed up by them as much as the other kind.
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Published on Yahoo! Cricket, December 06, 2010
Elections in any democratic society are at a fundamental level exercises in hope: Hope for the future and for the betterment of the current state and lot.
November 2010 provided a cogent example in India, as the state of Bihar went to the polls to elect its state legislature. Slyly alluded to as “Darkness” in Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, Bihar as a state has long been representative of the regressive extremities of the rule of law, anarchy and divisive politics and violence – all of which have subjected the majority of the populace to abject neglect and hopelessness.
Published on Yahoo! Cricket, November 17, 2010
When Punter waxed sardonically that Australia would shellack England 5-0 this summer in the Ashes, it seemed like he was just putting it on to uphold tradition. At best, his claim came as a puny reminder of past editions, where that cranky ole codger Pigeon took it upon himself to put the irons in the fire in advance of the impending party with the Poms. That used to be Glenn McGrath’s designated role. He did it best – even in 2005, when he was forced to eat humble (pigeon) pie and watch grumpily as Freddie and gang set about busting up the Aussies.
Aah, Pigeon!
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Published in Yahoo! Cricket, September 20, 2010
“No! I don’t want to watch that. Let us watch football. Change the channel, please!” he said as I turned on the television and happened upon the highlights of the last day’s play from Lord’s.
It was quite the change from our usual routine for the previous days – a routine that involved us settling down to watch the highlights of the day’s play of the Test match from London. And now, the very highlights were being shunned with a vehemence that was startling. I needed no explanation whatsoever about the cause of this sudden shift in thinking – it had been stamped on my consciousness since that morning. But it was the vehemence that got me.
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Published on Yahoo-Cricket, Aug 22, 2010
I woke up on the morning of the 26th of July, 2010 – at an unearthly hour – to start my five hour drive up north from Toronto. I had a boat to catch. Manitoulin is a remote island paradise in the middle of Georgian Bay, straight up from the tip of a peninsula jutting out like a middle finger from the northern tip of Ontario. It is accessible only by a ferry, and it was to be a two hour sail over choppy waters to reach the island. A week of complete silence, wilderness and peace on my mind. No newspapers, phones, TV and hallelujah! No Wi-Fi access up where I was going to be. Only Phillip Roth to keep me company as I sat lakeside, my cooler full of German weissbiers handy. Silence and darkness of the kind we have forgotten enveloping me. And needless to say, no cricket!
