IPL 5 Excitement Lost

The very fact that I tool serious notice of IPL only on its last game proves that IPL does not hold any more excitement for me, atleast for now. I have ignored this season’s matches to such an extent that I am not even fully aware of the finalists. Anyways, the ritual of writing a new post during every IPL season lures me to attempt yet another post.

This IPL has hardly anything new to offer except for the absence of Shane Warne. Very similar to IPL4, it now seems like a redundant offshoot of cricket that might become dysfunctional any moment.  There were reports of lowest TRP ratings this season initially, but we still have to wait for the full series to be over to make any kind of statement.

The only buzz that happened was about the match fixing blame games towards the end of the series. Perhaps these rumours were deliberately created to bring back the ex-IPL fans to make more noise and pull more disinterested crowd to the stadiums and screens. But this has come too late and will just manage to salvage the TRP for the final match only.

But one thing is certain. Observing the past seasons, one can definitely conclude that IPL without controversies is nothing. And people watch IPL just to stay in touch with the latest IPL gossips.The reason for the dwindling “fans” could also be that Indian audience has found the TV soaps more interesting than cricket and has stayed loyal to them.

It’s time that IPL is revamped with new sustainable features. And these changes must be new changes and not just increasing the teams or increasing the matches. Perhaps a little cleansing of the IPL can help. The Maximum sixes and MRF blimps can’t make one glued forever. Or else it hardly takes one season for people like me to stop watching the series altogether.

Battle won and lost

Here ends a long fought battle. Can we call it a battle? The peculiar thing about this is that I ain’t sure whether this was a battle in the first place and secondly I am not able to figure out who the winner is. Has the battle served its purpose? What was the purpose? Sometimes, it was not even clear who the participants were. Were there more than two sides? Which side was I on? Or was it just me fighting it against myself. Who were my supporters? Were there any traitors? 

The battle was fought without an aim or a strategy.There was no artillery or cavalry. The only sign of a battle having taken place was the damages that could be seen. The debris scattered around were the sole witness of the war. But, still it was difficult to ascertain the extent of damages or to find out which side the damages were more. Since, this wasn’t a normal battle, I kept wondering about the rules of the game. Would normal rules apply here? Or should I twist the rules or as they say “Change the game”.

For the moment,I don’t see any enemies’ flags. I can’t sight any approaching units. No sound of bugle or horns. Not even the typical “Get ready” or “Fire” commands. Have the enemies retreated? Does it mean our victory or rather, my victory? Or are they devising Trojan type strategy and will make a comeback? Should I let my guard down and relax?Or should I enjoy the peace, even though it might be momentary.

May be there was no battle at all. It was just hallucination, a dream or perhaps it was the lack of any battle that made me imagine everything. Was it a subconscious effort to fill the void? We all love to be occupied with something. If we don’t find anything, we desperately attempt to create an illusion of being full and thus ending up filling garbage.

My thoughts kept pondering over the way battles have been fought in our history and mythology. Did the heroes that emerged victorious also have the same feeling? Did they really feel ecstatic after the war? What did they do immediately after winning? Did they go back to the kins of the defeated and offered their condolences. Or was there a feeling of repent? It is of no use to compare this situation to others. This time is different. Perhaps it’s time to think beyond. Instead of being burdened by morality, it is time to go ahead and take the next step.

Savage Slitherers

I look around in the corner.

They are there, lying around, the slender and long black shapes, curled, twisted and entangled. Some are thin whereas some are thicker. It looks as if they are moving but close observation indicates they are lying still. Waiting to make a move!  What are these objects thinking? What are they waiting for? How long have been lying there?

Let me count how many are there. One, two...Oh! It’s difficult to count exactly, since I am not able to figure out the starting and the ending. Their ends seemed to be lost in the criss-cross. Their bodies are intertwined and it is impossible to separate one entity. What if they all wake up from their dream and start slithering all over here?

Long back, in my childhood I used to be scared of these creatures. In my town and villages, near the creek, I often used to spot them. Some of them even came close to my house during the rainy season.  This is the one creature that creates the maximum terror amongst us till date. Also, our movies and the stories have over hyped the terror. We are known for the land of the snakes. Perhaps that’s why I still accept snake sightings in streets as normal and just pass it off during conversation. But I must bet, I am still as much afraid of them as an American or a European.

Living now in a popular metro and in a posh area, the snakes are no more seen and I can safely walk the corners of my house, even without bothering to switch on the lights. I am not scared to look at any remote corner of my house or beneath the door. But still, the fear has not subsided.

They still haunt my dreams. They chase me there, almost catching me helpless. Often, I wake up in shock thanking God that it was only a dream. Every rope, pipe or wire that I observe in my room closely starts moving and approaching towards me. Which is why when today, I started observing the scattered network of wires from my laptop, charger, headphones, LAN wires, I was reminded of them.

They were all huddles together in the corner. The more I looked at them, the closer they resembled the creatures. Centuries ago, God created the snakes to scare its enemies. Today, we have these man-made snakes which do not hiss or slither, but can do the damages to the same extent, if not more. Perhaps, these are the real snakes and are more lethal. We must be cautious.

The last arrow

The last arrow in the quiver goes away. This arrow was hidden.  Even though I knew, it was safely tucked somewhere. However hard I tried to look for it, it couldn’t be found.  Somehow, the arrow eluded me. But I was certain, the day would come and when this arrow would be discovered. And I kept waiting for it.  Even though the quiver was empty, I didn’t throw it away in anticipation of the last one. The quiver was constantly on my back all the while. It had become a baggage, rather. I had often dreamt of it only to wake up finding it empty. I needed the last arrow badly to try one last shot. All the previous arrows had missed the bull’s eye. My hope solely rested on the last one. As time passed, I became more and more convinced that this one would be the saviour. This one would finish up the pending work.

And the time came, the arrow suddenly appeared. It looked silent and innocuous as if it was in the quiver all the time. But I can swear, I hadn’t seen or felt it before. It was mocking at me. But, this was not a time to blame. I had to take my last try. With trembling hands, I straightened the bow, put on the arrow and tightened the string. 

Looking at the arrow, I asked myself. What if, this also misses the point? The arrow, which was missing all this time would again vanish in a moment. Why not just keep the arrow and avoid facing the truth? Atleast, the last hope wouldn’t die. Why did the arrow make me wait just to disappear again and this time never to return? 

I closed my eyes. Perhaps, it wasn’t meant to be.  Every arrow is different and every arrow has its own course. Every arrow has its own target and is different from the target we choose for them. The path laid for them has to be traversed by the arrow alone. Perhaps, it was time to let the arrow go and dump the quiver. I would feel lighter. The quiver started feeling heavier. I couldn’t bear it. 

I opened my eyes. The world looked different. It was all new. Encouraged, I took the aim and shot the arrow.

The war inside

 Once, a person gave me Rs. 100 and asked me to keep it safe as he was going on a long journey.  I deposited the money in a piggy bank, but in that act of doing so, my pet cat, “Madver” saw it. Later, I read in the newspaper that the person died due to an accident. Wondering what to do with the money, I still kept the money safe. Madver demanded that the piggy bank be broken and the money be used for the household purposes. I didn’t feel it was right as the money was not mine and someone could come any day in the future and demand the money on my friend’s behalf.  However, Madver couldn’t understand it and demanded it repeatedly that the money be brought back. I kept the piggybank at the top of my cupboard so that Madver couldn’t jump and reach it.

When all efforts failed, Madver thought of a master plan. It contacted its popular neighbourhood friend, a dog, “Zahe Anran” who always had been successful in his demands from his master. Adopting his style, Madver announced to me, one fine morning that she was going to sit outside the house and would not eat anything, unless the piggy bank was broken.

I never considered it seriously, but to my surprise, next morning, I saw all the nieghbouring cats assembled outside. Shocked by the reaction, I called up the animal catcher and asked them to take away the animals. The animal catcher van arrived soon and started taking away the animals. There was a loud shrill, meows,claw fights,  fur and blood scattered on the streets. Finally, they managed to control the situation and  most of the animals were taken away. Madver was caught at last as she managed to disguise in lamb’s skin and keep the catchers at a bay for a while.

 I was relieved but I didn’t  realize, it was temporary. Next day, I received a summons from the “Against Cruelty to Animals and Pets Department” of the city and was asked to explain my undemocratic and cruel behaviour. It warned me that any such future actions would lead to severe penalty.

On the other hand, similar stunts were seen in several parts of neighbourhood. The war had begun!

Oh my Madver, did I not feed you well enough? Didn’t I take you out for a walk twice a day? Did I not stay quiet when you dirtied my room? Why do you have to be so greedy? And such a coward to take those steps? You have lost all your dignity and all the respect that I had for you till now.

IPL new Avatar

IPL4 has come up with a new avatar and this time it has come without any controversies as compared to earlier seasons of IPL.

There has been no buzz this time. It has come down smoothly and has been going on in the same manner. Even though, the face of IPL has very much changed from its first version, it no longer enjoys the trademark controversies like Test vs Twenty 20 or ODI vs Twenty20, youngsters vs the legends like Dravid/Kumble, or cheerleaders' culture. No more FakeIPLPlayer, no more Preity Zinta hugging Kings of Punjab. And no more Lalit Modi's press interviews. We also miss Vijaya Malya dancing after a boundary. Where are the MRF blimps?

The players have been reshuffled and two new teams have come. We also do not have our Dada in KKR and no one is cribbing any more, their attention now focused more on Sachin and Dhoni, thanks to the latest World Cup victory. All the illogical things like the Pune team, not having a home ground, playing in Mumbai and Indore stadiums, are hardly cared by anyone.The captains of half of the teams are now foreigners, a "taboo" in the first IPL but now been happily accepted by our cricket crazy IPL loyal nation.

The live telecast of the auctions was the only one that generated some noise and since then, no one seems to care about who are losing and winning.

Have the audience had enough of cricket or Has the IPL become so ingrained part of cricket that it cannot be questioned any more or No one now gives a damn about the direction IPL is taking since we have now won the CUP and we need to take a short break from cricket?

The loyal fans have been decreasing and many now don't keep a count of how many matches a team has one. What we now remember is that when we go back home and turn on the TV, there's going to two teams and we just don't care who wins, yet we do watch the entire match.

Perhaps after May, when the TVs would go blank in the evenings, we would fill an emptiness in the house as if some guest has just left the house. Till then, we will keep saying 70 matches are too many.

Reaching the “Break-even” point

Today morning, when I woke up, it was a different feeling. Unlike other days, I felt neutral. I did not feel any emotional attachment to my past days or towards my previous lifestyle. The feeling of change had suddenly disappeared.

The transition was a big one as in the days following the change; I was a person fighting with myself, struggling with the unknown. The fight was between a student and a salaried individual. It was the differences between a young, unknown college and an established reputed college where an engineering graduate tried to master the “master” courses . It was the transition from Bangalore to Mumbai, shifting from being a flat tenant to a hosteller.

It was the change that I had been disliking since. I had been trying to somehow compensate the negative feeling of the transition with the fond memories of the past, hoping that this change is just a short break and the past would again come back with a U-turn. 

I had tried to count the days and got happier with each passing minute hoping that the two years would end sooner. Three months have gone so far and to me it seems like 2 years.  But today morning, I did not feel any such kind of disappointment or frustration. I simple felt calm, as if I had been in this life style for years. I no more missed the Sunday wherein I would lazily spend away time sleeping and relaxing.  Perhaps I thought, this new feeling is just a hallucination and would quickly go away as the day progresses and I would soon return to “normalcy”. But the “normal” feeling never came, leading me to the surprising conclusion that there has been a change yet again.

I knew the change would eventually come but never knew that it could happen overnight without any warning.

 Ok, now that the break even point has been reached, LET’S RUN THE RACE!!

THEY SAY “DREAM BIG!!”

You are allowed to dream, dream BIG, really BIG. They say you should dream. They say you are free to dream. So, you dream but little do you know that you are not allowed to achieve them. Because these dreams are not meant to be realized by you. It is only meant to be dreamt of. And do you know the reason why you can't make your dreams come true, even after being allowed to dream, dream BIG? 

I shall tell you the biggest secret of why you can't make your BIG dreams becomes BIG realities. 

The reason is very obvious but no one realizes it. In fact, the reason is the very same reason why you are allowed to dream. Does it sound strange? or weird? Isn't it weird that the same thing is responsible to make you dream BIG and also responsible to prevent you from making them BIG? It might appear weird for a moment but ponder for two more such brief and thoughtful moments and the truth automatically comes to light. This truth is the very obvious truth. And I shall tell you the truth right away but before knowing the truth right away, to better understand the significance of the truth, we have to digress for a moment and go back in history to the point when you were formed. The time when you were formed, you were in majority and you thought you won but you didn't realize that the majority is the least powerful. Adding to your ignorance that majority had won and was free, was this assurance that they would listen to you. They told you that the time had come for all of you to dream and dream BIG. And so you did. The trend of dreaming BIG has continued since then by every one of you without questioning at any point, this line of thought carried over from generations. It is as though you have accepted this as a basic necessity of life and freedom. 

Coming back to the truth which I had left midway to better understand its significance even after promising that I would tell it right away, the truth is that you all are still in majority and the truth is that you are still ignorant to the same extent as before and the truth is that you can do nothing about it. You can do nothing about it because you have never dreamt of doing anything about it. You have dreamt of all other things, but not this and that’s precisely why you will never do anything about it, even though continuing to be free and ignorant. This is the truth that you are free and ignorant. Free to dream the BIG dreams and ignorant of the fact that you can't achieve them.

Now, after understanding the truth and also after better understanding the significance of the truth, it's time to dwell upon the reason for the truth. Why can't you achieve your dreams, even after being allowed to dream? As I had already mentioned the reason was obvious, very obvious yet not being spotted by anyone. The reason that it was not realized by anyone of you was because none of you could do anything about it. So the obvious, yet unrealized reason is that you all are in a dangerous zone. It is dangerous because it is also the majority. It is dangerous because it is not the minority. It is dangerous because it is neither the upper minority nor in the lower minority. It is dangerous because it is in the middle. It is in the middle majority. They hate the majority. The reason that they hate the majority is also very obvious. The reason is because they are not the majority. And those who are not the majority hate those who are the majority. They are the ones who make you dream BIG and they are the ones who actually achieve them by preventing you to do so. Weird? I guess it is no weirder now. Instead it should be crystal clear. If there is still a shade of doubt in your mind and I know that it’s actually more than just a shade, as I knew you will not believe me, so I challenge you to achieve any one of your dreams, BIG or less BIG. And then you will believe me. You will believe me when you will be crushed by them at the very minute you think you achieved your dreams. And at that moment, you will realize that perhaps I am right. 

So can you never achieve your dreams? The good news is you can. The bad news is that after you achieve them, you cease to be the majority in the middle. You become them. Because the fact is that the middle is forbidden to achieve dreams.

Zindagi Migzara

Finally, I decided to rekindle my blog with the title post. This title couldn’t have been more apt as life has been back on track, after meandering off a bit. It had to come back. Everyone knew it. All were waiting for it. And I was more certain about it than the others. Since, life never waits. Because the fact of the Life is - “Zindagi Migzara”.

Life goes on. Whatever happens, it never stops to wait for you to recuperate. It never waits for you when you detour. It’s you who have to catch the train. And at some time, you are going to meet with the Train. Even when, one tries to change the Track, one will meet the same old Train at some point and then one has little choice other than to follow the Track.

But what happens, if two trains, which started together, after being away for a long period, happen to cross each other at a junction? Would they change their original tracks and go parallel for the rest of the way? Would they rather pause for a while to decide what to do? Does their decision actually matter? For, the truth is that the Track has already been laid. This track has been etched on the Life permanently and nothing in the world can alter it. An attempt to turn away from the track only results in false hopes and aspirations, which may be detrimental.

So, is there no other way? What if, the Train passes by and you watch helplessly? What if, even after seeing the Train, one is unable to board it? What if, one misses the only Train? How about getting a ride from another train to catch it? What if, this train meets the Train but still have to go separately? Is this how the Life moves on?

Is there no time to pause? Doesn’t life give a break? A short break to give time to think. A break very much needed to explain and convince the Train to change the Track of the Life.

Wrong Judgement

What is the one thing that we human beings keep doing all throughout our life?

We try to pretend as someone else.

We are never happy with ourselves. We always look out for other examples. Every minute, every second, we want to be someone else. We imitate someone all the time, both consciously and unconsciously. The reason for that is put below.

Everyone has an idol in their minds. That idol can be someone in their family, or some celebrity or just some fictitious person who possesses all the qualities and characteristics that they want their idol to have. All throughout their life, they want to get closer to that character. Hence, they talk like the idol, they laugh like the person, they walk, eat like him/her and in fact their every activity tries to imitate that of the idol.

Let’s analyze this hypocrisy from a different angle. Everyone behaves differently at different places. For example, a guy would try to behave like a romantic and loving husband to his wife, a strict and yet loving father to his children, a good, practical and professional at his office. Everyone have their different “spaces” and they adapt to that situation when they switch “spaces”. Hence the quick differences in behavior. The same guy might appear to be very strict at office, yet very compromising when it comes to family matters. The same girl might give the impression of being a very jovial person among friends but at work, she might act as a workaholic. Whenever strangers meet each other on a train, they all put up their best behavior and appear to be very decent and disciplined, which might be very different from their behavior in a familiar group of people.

Now that we have seen that human behavior is never constant and it constantly meanders between the different types of characters possible, the question is, what is the true character of a person? By looking at one face of the person, should one have the liberty to judge him/her? Now that it is proved that everyone constantly fakes their behavior, how does an outsider know which one is the real character?

In this world where we are constantly judged by the society, we live in the constant fear that we are being judged. And on top of that, there is the additional fear that we are being judged for the wrong type. To give an analogy, it’s something like we hate to be tested when we are not ready for the test and that too, when the test is for a different subject itself. It is because of this innermost fear that we, unconsciously, project ourselves as someone else, whom we think would get more score in the exam conducted by the society. Hence, we do not get, even one moment, when we are “unwatched” and we can enjoy the joy and the freedom of being ourselves.

We work so hard , we use all our spare time to get more money and during the process we lose the time to be ourselves and we keep masquerading as the fictitious, wannabe person, who is constantly fighting with the innermost true and realistic person.