Rediscovering the joy in the dismay

I just saw Andy Roddick dump Marat Safin out of the Australian Open in the 3rd round in 4 sets, including 2 tie-breakers. The match ran over 3 hours, and the quality of tennis was outstanding from both players. I've always had a soft corner for the temperamental types of players and teams (somebody did some research on this...I'll try and dig up that article in another post), and Marat has been one of my favourites ever since he dismantled Sampras in that amazing US Open final in 2000.

But going into his 28th year now, he's proven himself to be an underachiever of colossal proportions. Even before Federer came around and started winning everything, Safin was playing hide-and-seek with himself and with his fans, squandering his career away, while winning over hearts wherever he went with his supremely uncomplicated and unconquered nature. He turns 27 on January 27, and he will have, to show for nearly a decade of efforts, 15 titles, including 2 Grand Slams, which is both surprising, and not-so-surprising.

Today, he produced some enthralling tennis, but was defeated by a player whose combination of skill and method proved too good for his largely inspired, yet inconsistent, performance. It was the second tennis match that I watched live on TV after arriving in the US (the first being Federer's dismissal of Blake in Shanghai), and the moment of my favourite's loss brought with it feelings very familiar, which had been lost somewhere for the past few months.

Back in college, competing with a pack of guys who were very nearly at the same level as me, victory and defeat were regular ingredients of a memorable period of my life. I've not been a good loser, ever, in the sense that I lacked the desirable calmness and stoicism in the hour of defeat, even though I never retained even a smidgen of ill-will against anybody I lost to, and generally recovered well after a loss. However, the flood of self-reproach and dismay made THAT moment a very hard one to live through.

Since joining grad school, I haven't been involved in any competitive activity outside academics, and those days had receded into the distant past. I've often wondered at the emotional changes I've undergone, some of which I may not even be aware of. An existence devoid of any strong emotions doesn't feel like me at all. And it took Marat's defeat to awaken me to this realization. It feels so good to experience the upwelling of blood in the veins and tears in the eyes.

To rehash a cliche, I feel alive again!

Update to the previous post

The decision has come quickly, and Herschelle Gibbs has paid the price for, what is in my view, indiscretion and simple bad luck: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/rsavpak/content/current/story/276497.html

I don't mean to justify what he did, and apparently some of the things that he had said were too bad to be even hinted at in print. Saurabh had this to say about my earlier post, wherein I think he has raised the larger issue of the ghost inside the machine, rather than just the accident caused by a combination of circumstances. He says,

"..are the ideas of right and wrong based upon locality and convenience? the remarks - whatever they were - were found to be offensive by the committee. now, to say that "they were not meant for the public, but for the team"... doesn't make then right anymore."

I agree that the fact that Gibbs was caught mouthing whatever he was mouthing indicates something beneath the surface, namely the presence of some deep-rooted contempt and derision for Asian people. What surprises me is that Gibbs should be the one implicated, because he has, for a long time, been an automatic selection in the team along with Makhaya Ntini. Both these players have surpassed expectations in SA colours, while also making the stated agenda of including coloured players an easy one to implement.

Coming back to the point that I was trying to impress earlier, I'm less than enamoured with the idea that Gibbs deserved censure for what his opinions were, rather than that he was caught expressing them. It's not the politically correct thing to say, but I think it is fair to say that most, nay all, of us go through entire lifetimes addled with unreasonable and (at times) unfounded opinions on people and their philosophies. It's just that nobody comes asking us what we think, and most of us would rather keep our mouths shut than go and stick up for our trenchant views against people who differ.

Within the rules of the game, Gibbs got his just desserts, and in the future, I'm sure we won't hear any such chit-chat from him, but hey, he can always find ways to beat the microphone.

Adios!

"What is said on the field should stay on the field."

The First Test between Pakistan and South Africa is being played at Centurion, and I found this article as I was burrowing through Cricinfo for the latest: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/rsavpak/content/current/story/276456.html

The gist of the article is this:
"...South African officials are investigating an incident during the fourth day of the first Test against Pakistan in which an unnamed South African allegedly made an insulting remark which was heard by television viewers around the world.

"They're like animals," was the comment picked up by a stump microphone which apparently had not been turned off as normally happens soon after a ball has been bowled..."

SA coach Mickey Arthur was understandably displeased about the whole affair, and he clarified that the comment was not made at any Pakistan player, though he stopped short of saying exactly whom one of his players thought were like animals :)

It seems that SA left-armer Paul Harris was abused by some Pakistan supporters while he was fielding at the boundary, and the people in question were ejected from the stadium. While the comment itself leaves much to the imagination, I guess I would not buy the idea so easily that it was an insult aimed at a player. The test has been played in good spirit, and as I write this a somewhat interesting final day remains to be played out. However, several people don't believe so, and Arthur revealed that he had received complaining emails from Pakistan!

The whole incident is, on the surface, thoroughly hilarious, as far as I'm concerned. It is one thing to heap the responsibility of being politically correct, humane and compassionate human beings on prominent sportsmen, given the amount of spotlight they are in, and it is yet another thing to expect them to be gentlemen even on the field, EVEN when they are speaking among themselves!

Let us say that Mr. JH Kallis thinks that XYZ resembles some kind of animal, and he says so to Mr. HH Gibbs, in a perfectly amiable conversation, and they share a snigger at a men's joke. But that becomes a problem for a guy sitting 5,000 miles away, and armed with a deep distrust of the South African psyche with regards to racial issues, he gets incensed and addresses his grievances to the SA coach.

Really, I can't imagine how Arthur would have reacted to the first sight of such a complaint!

There are other things to think about as well. For the sake of raising questions, here I go:

One: Is calling someone an animal serious enough for Match Referees to get involved, as Chris Broad might do?
Two: How useful are the on-field microphones? Are they creating more chaos than the benefits they provide?
Three: Should the live feed be made accessible to television viewers, when there is no monitoring of the same?
Four: Was it right for the SA player in question to call the unruly spectators 'animals'? (assuming they were the ones being referred to)
Five: Are subcontinental viewers more touchy than they should be when it comes to racial issues?
Six: The SA players see as much sledging from the crowd in Australia, as a pig sees mud. Would Aussie supporters have been called 'animals'? (I don't imply that those folks would have been invited for drinks, but would the terms of endearment be any different?)
Seven: Which type of animal, Mr. SA player? Pleaeeeeeeeeeese! I SO want to know how good your zoology is!

:D

Adios!

The Last About Me I'm ever going to write on Orkut :D

Take a picture
Or take two, if you should.
Give me an excuse
To never forget where we stood.

But for all you know
Even though I'll save
What I wanted to remain,
I might also feel
What I ne'er wanted to feel again...

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Deviance....without defiance.

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TO ANYBODY....who has played sports or has felt as one in heart and soul with the tennis player who hits that last forehand into the net after a gruelling 5-setter to signal his defeat......the basketballer who goes for that three-pointer with one second remaining on the clock, and misses it......the marathon runner who strains every muscle, every neuron, every bead of sweat on his body on the home stretch, only to see himself overtaken by a fitter or possibly smarter rival........the footballer who finds himself with the ball staving off an attack on his own goal, with his team a goal down and with 10 seconds to play......the fielder who makes an acrobatic pick up and throw, knocks the stumps down, but cannot stop the batsmen from stealing the winning run.

TO EVERY ONE of you out there who knows what it feels like to be beaten , and to hate yourself for it. Not because you didn't give it all you had, but because it was all you had, and no more.

TO ALL THOSE who didn't allow this to break them down, or push them over....you are my heroes.

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PAINT your favourite smile on your face, clothe yourself in your best suit of irreverence, and be prepared to turn a sneering, insolent face to all that life throws at you. Even if it means telling lies to those who will be the most pained to see you in pain, even if it means forgetting how close you are to being somewhere you don't want to be, even if it means being misunderstood and criticized for trying to shield those you care for from the heat of your own sorrows.

IF THAT is what it takes to keep the world around you moving, then do it. Who knows how many people out there are seeing the world from your broad shoulders?

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THE BIGGEST challenge in life is to be able to live with who you are, what you have, what you want and whether all these put together make sense or not.

THE NEXT hardest thing to do is to have the courage to ask yourself these questions, and actually try to answer them.

I hope to be able to do both these things by the time I'm through with my life.

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(copied from my Orkut homepage on Jan. 13, 1954 hrs)

Self-improvement

I've never been a huge fan of the self-help genre of books, primarily due to 2 reasons: one, I am too entrenched in my own set of beliefs to yield to any external pressure, and two, they have this tendency to further their cause by propagating the idea that there is definitely something wrong with you and that the way to change that is ridiculously simple. The catch is that you are probably not smart enough to figure it out by yourself. Hence you need help, you need sugar-coated words of consolation, you need elaborate thought channels wherein you delude yourself with some peculiar thoughts, all in the name of healing and improvement.

As I grow older, and with my relocation to the US, I've become more aware of the weaknesses in people's mental make-up that these works target. As long as you're in a close-knit society of any sort, be it your group of friends in class, your mates in the hostel, or best of all, in a caring, understanding family, you get to observe people at very close quarters, and for considerable lengths of time. You get to appreciate the goodness in them, but more importantly, you regularly come face-to-face with the fact that nobody is even close to perfect.

It seems to alleviate the frustration that builds up inside at your own shortcomings, and you take a more realistic look at yourself. What's more, you don't spend hours mulling over these things and feeling a growing sense of desperation at the state of affairs in your life.

If I were to make a list of the things that I would like to remove from my psychology, then it would undoubtedly make very gloomy reading. And in my case, the step up to the next level of education has been accompanied by more isolation, which is partly due to circumstances, and partly due to the time it takes to adjust oneself to the new circumstances, provided an adjustment is possible, and you want to make it.

In such a scenario, I've fallen into the trap of excessive introspection more than once, and knowing how useless it is, I guess it should be unlikely that I would walk down the same road again. But the point is that, sometimes you are so fed up with trying to work out things by yourself, that you wish there were easy answers. That feeling is impressed further when you look around and see people ostensibly happy, occupied and leading 'normal' lives. And you ask, is there something drastically wrong with me?

Truth is, there probably isn't. You are no more sad, or confused, or weird, or crazy than the next person. But how do you know that with certainty? You don't, because you don't spend enough time in the company of people to be wiser. You end up feeling despondent, and it's something that arises out of almost nothing tangible. It's considerably worse if you have a slightly dim opinion of your abilities and your skills, because low self-esteem makes you feel like you're slowly sinking into anonymity, nothingness. Nobody cares for you, and even if you were to scream out in panic, you wouldn't be heard.

It's here that self-help gurus step in, and give you what seem to be the elixir: personalized solutions to all your issues. Prioritizing the scattered elements which sting like the thorns in a bush. Most of the people I'm in touch with seem to be affected by a pervasive loneliness. People look for support and attention from complete strangers, while traveling in a bus or at some get-together. It might even be possible that they speak to folks they don't know, more than they speak to people they do know. There are scores of general courtesies which the average person observes, such as saying thank you at every possible instance, or wishing each other a good day and many more. But I have no doubt that inspite of these gestures of civility, they can never make one feel at home or wanted in a way that our people in India can.

It is ironic that while you won't have any interaction with a person performing a certain function on a daily basis In India, as compared to that with his counterpart in the US, but still, the forced smiles and machine-like sweet nothings, thrust your own loneliness in your face. I concede that it's not the only factor that makes one feel a certain way, but it is so glaring, that I couldn't help noticing it, like most of the other Indians I've spoken to.

So! Are we all destined to finding all our solutions in the proverbial teacup? The cup with the magic concoction that cures all ills? I would like to think not. I'm still going to heal myself with the magic mixture of a willingness to fight the odds, and plain, simple, effective passage of time.

Adios!