Confused

 

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘Maybe we should just be friends’ or ‘How very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.” ~ Rose Walker (Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman: The Kindly Ones”)

Namana

Raju Ananthaswami

He could sing, compose music, play tabala — harmonium — keyboard –guitar — mandolin, he could act — directors say his comic timing was brilliant. He was the prodigal son of a legendary father.

His geocities page says “Not Online”……

He died without completing 40, with a mine full of talents untapped.

Raju Ananthswamy avarige anantha namanagalu ………..

DILEMMAS OF DEVELOPMENT

Our monsoons are erratic, we need water for irrigation and for our thirsty cities. We need electricity for power starving villages and growing cities. Elsewhere a dam has been built with claims of ‘5th tallest dam on earth’ . It has submerged the town of Tehri adding the prefix ‘Old’ to it.

At Deoprayag a graffiti says that Dam means the destruction of the hills. Another graffiti near the Ganga temple @ sangam says its the death of Ganga.

The Mahseer, which has migrated along the Ganges for thousands of years, can no longer take its programmed route. It’s an endangered species. Mr Sunderlal Bahuguna, the Gandhian activist who agitated all his life against the dam is a disillusioned man today.

There is a threat of earthquake looming strongly.

Experts say that development percolates, but when ….

Power and water to Delhi or Displacement of people in Tehri?

I guess, there is no clear demarcation of what is right and what is wrong? It’s a very thin, blurred line which keeps shifting with time.

I wonder

“I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can’t be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older, as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it’s already happened.”

Douglas Coupland; Life After God

What do we really know about …..

“We spend our whole life trying to stop death. Eating, inventing, loving, praying, fighting, killing. But what do we really know about death? Just that nobody comes back. Then there comes a point – a moment – in life when your mind outlives its desires, its obsessions, when your habits survive your dreams, and when your losses… Maybe death is a gift. You wonder.”

-from the movie The Life of David Gale

I, Me and Cricket

My earliest memories of cricket is the 1987 world cup finals. I have vague memories of Australians going around the stadium and David Boon’s mush. Then I remember Austrailasia cup and Atul Bedade [ of all the people, I donno why]

I studied in a school called Holy Saint English School in Jayanagar, Bangalore. When I was in first standard we had an alumni of the school as our guest. He was a thin tall ‘uncle’ with large spectacles. I remember my grandmother telling me he is a cricketer called Anil Kumble.  He had given us chocolates. After that it was a matter of pride for sometime to boast that I belong to his school or rather he studied in my school, whenever he came on TV.

Then there was Hero cup, Sachin Tendulkar’s magic over had snatched the victory from Kepler Wessels et al. The finals  was on a Ganesh Chaturti day and India had batted first and had scored a mediocre total. We left for the puja place after some time there were fireworks around. I rushed back home to find that India had beaten the West Indies. Anil Kumble’s success in a way became my sucess. I boasted around saying “he is from my school.”

Anil Kumble's Magical ten wicket haul

I really started following the game in Azaruddin’s era. Hero cup gave me an hero — Anil Kumble.  Then came Rahul Dravid, whose batting style I desparately tried to imitate [partially successful, I was nicknamed Dravid in school] I have done crazier things for cricket than any other thing ………./ stood in the rain watching match in a TV showroom/ prayed for people to get back to form/ sat superstitiously wearing blue/ running to the shop near school during breaks to ask for scores/ remembering people like Nolan Clark who debuted at the age of 47 for Holland in 1996/ knowing the records, full name and profiles of the players/ making a fm radio from an electronic model set inside a soap box to listen to the commentry[while i was in boarding school where cricket was a taboo]/ smuggling sport star to the hostel / doing extra things and homework early so as to get myself an extra serving of cricket during matches/ carefully scheduling a stomach ache or a head ache during key matches/ associating memories with matches –  I would remember things by associating it with cricket matches– like 2 days before the titan cup finals…. the day when Kambli scored a double hundred etc etc. ..

With all the fancy hype about T20, I wonder if this was the game that  made me go crazy. I dont know, if I can identify with the game like the way I did after Kumble, Rahul and Sachin. I donno if cricket will be cricket or rather I donno if I am the same ‘ I ‘.