A Single Soul Deliberates

“One More Wicket Down” was the phrase we used to convey our annoyance when an eligible bachelor of our group got hitched. What started out as a trickle - a couple of them probably unable to resist pressure from their parents, got ensnared pretty early and were proud(?) parents just a year later – has ended up as a deluge of people taking the wedding plunge over the last few months. When I met a couple of my closest friends a few days ago, I realized that we three were the only remaining bachelors in an extended group which boasted of many stalwarts of misogamy who have since cast aside their erstwhile ideals for the unparalleled pleasures of a conjugal life. It is not as if I haven’t had to confront queries as to when I would jump on to the marriage bandwagon, but of late it has become a tad too irritatingly frequent.

For someone who grew up as an inveterate misogynist, I have long since resigned to the fact that I have to yield to my post-adolescence corporal desires. It is not too difficult to douse these feelings in other ways especially in avant-garde cities like Bangalore or Mumbai but the hazardous down-sides of such a jaunt not to speak of the complexity and the deceit involved has held me back to a great extent. The big realization probably dawned when the connubial obligations of my friends began to have an effect on our personal relationships when we could no longer do all the things we used to as a group prior to their marriages and many of the plans made were vetoed by their better halves. It was somewhere along the line that I understood that I needed to look for a relationship myself, more serious than a few young men sitting down and berating their bosses over a beer. The realization did dawn on time, but the trouble had only just begun for the feminine mind was as alien to me as any extraterrestrial’s and my rigid, brahminical upbringing provided me with no clues to deal with it.

I have always grudgingly admired those who have panache with the fairer sex though I have at the same time commiserated with those females who fell for their charms losing many a thing the least of which was their faith in him. And when I did try to emulate them, it was my upbringing and a sense of righteousness that held me back from going for the Home Run. The women in my life have mostly remained just friends and good ones at that and just as I thought that I was ready to make a commitment, an unseen hand has always prevented me from doing so. The reasons for not going the whole distance have been both silly and serious and even though I’ve always known that there is no such thing as a perfect woman, Pandora’s last-released blooper, Hope, has had me in a tangle, wanting more when I fully know that what I offer in return isn’t much.

Dour-Darshan

How exciting would it be to watch a closely fought India-Australia cricket match on TV? Not if it turns out as one-sided as the present Future Cup series or if the match is being shown on Doordarshan. The most irksome thing on DD is the extended commercial break during the overs. The break starts somewhere just after the batsmen has played or missed the last delivery, when the ball is still in play. Never mind if a boundary was scored off it, we’re never going to see the umpire indicate a boundary because, for all Doordarshan’s pledge of public service (for which they went to court demanding free feeds of all cricket matches played in India), the bottom line is money. In the break between the overs, Doordarshan squeezes in three or four Ads at the expense of live cricket while other private channels show a couple of Ads and present the total scoreboard of the batting team or the bowling figures of the bowling team, or even give a piece of trivia about the game. By the time, Doordarshan finishes its break and resumes live coverage, the batsman is walking out with his gloves in his hand or the people are cheering loudly for what was either a four or six and you, with no clue as to what has transpired, are left fuming at this absurdity. The best part is that the DD commentators, sitting in the studio and not in the stadium, also do not have an idea of what has happened and are just as clueless.

It is a good thing that Doordarshan receives live feeds from other private channels who have paid a staggering amount to win the rights because Doordarshan is totally inept at broadcasting any kind of live programme, forget a live sports event. I still remember those days when they had the monopoly over cricket telecast in India; they used to cover a one-day match with about four cameras operated by what I’m pretty sure must have been some primates with no comprehension of the game. A flick off the legs by the batsman to fine leg, and the camera would be focusing on the long-on boundary in search of the ball; and for a ball that had been stopped in the covers, the camera would continue on to the boundary, search a while for the ball and then return to show the fielding team celebrating for the batsman would have been run out while you were being shown the image of the cover boundary.

The last but not least reason why I hate watching a match on Doordarshan is the commentary. It is bad that they don’t have competent English commentators but what they try to pass off as Hindi commentary is utterly repulsive. The pre, mid and post match analysis programme (quite aptly called the “Fourth Umpire”, for it is as worthless as a fourth umpire is in a match), with a wannabe bimbo, Anjum Chopra, thrown in, in an attempt to spice up things, reminds me of eulogy at a funeral where the speakers are forced to say some good things about the dead man who was a rascal and who probably fornicated with their daughters. If Atul Wassan and Chetan Sharma’s cricketing acumen was less, their commentating skills are non-existent. Along with Arun Lal, Dilip Doshi and Nayan Mongia, they could drive a cricket lover to bludgeon himself with a broken stump. From trying to improvise with Hindi versions of English aphorisms like “Catches Win Matches” which got metamorphosised into “Pakdo Catch, Jeeto Match”, a "choti gendh" for a short-pitched ball or with the tried and tested Hinglish statements like “Mid-off ke upar se lofted drive lagaaya hai, Behtereen Shot” or the appalling "Ball ne tappa khaaya aur batsman ne chakma khaaya", their stupid opinions starting with "Mere Khayaal se, Arun..." and time and again showing that they are stuck in a time warp by their lack of knowledge of the intricacies of the modern game, they take the fun out of watching cricket on the telly.

Man or a Mahatma?

Man or a Mahatma?

The right answer is "Who Cares?" but as I report to work on a day, when the whole of India takes a day off from work in the memory of a man who is now more hated than admired, I can’t help but reminisce about how I’ve always been fed beliefs about Gandhi’s follies rather than a portrayal of the sacrifices he did undergo.

Being raised by a right-wing, conservative dad guaranteed that I grew up being fed on a belief that Gandhi needed to be killed. Even before I read about Gandhi’s efforts for our freedom from my history text books, I had a fair idea of his follies like his support to the British during World War 2, his opposition to partition and his insistence that India pay Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan. Studying at a school named after Sardar Patel also meant that there was a definite preconceived notion against Gandhi even in the way our history was taught at my school. Gandhi has always been a derogatory term in my friends’ circle. It stands for someone who isn’t street-smart and is submissive. The cheapest seats at a theatre were nick-named “Gandhi-class”.

Lage Raho Munnabhai changed my perception of Gandhi just a wee bit. I did enjoy the movie like countless others did but I didn’t agree with the view that Gandhigiri could work. Gandhi’s perseverance with Ahimsa probably did postpone India’s freedom by a few years and his dissemination of Socialism has put India by a few decades. Gandhi, contrary to popular belief, was never secular. He was no different from the politicians of today who play vote-bank politics even going to the extent of not speaking a single word condemning the killing of innocent Sikhs and Hindus by the thousands in the then newly-created Pakistan.

But today I am thankful to him. Not for the freedom I’m enjoying but the traffic-free roads due to the holiday declared for his birthday.