Sunday, January 27, 2008

2D Life: Really Clueless Cartoons



I drew a few cartoons last night, and to appear very flippant about my lack of drawing skills, labelled them as 2D Life. I know this might appear to make no sense at all, but if I had to apologise for something, it would be the sick shade of green :P

Now will never be again

It's been a day of very striking contrasts in world sport, as I see it. On one hand, I saw Adam Gilchrist play what will most likely be his final test innings. On the other, we had a Grand Slam champion not named Federer or Nadal for the first time in three years. Gilchrist has been one of my must watch cricketers for many years now. Ever since I've had some intelligent outlook on the game, I've marvelled at the way he played his cricket: full of enthusiasm, energy, and a never-say-die spirit. I've been held speechless by the number of highlight reels he has generated over the years, and most of all, he embodied everything that was great, and could possibly be great about a sport and the men who play it.

His clean hitting (sample this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPOOhFmUprA), his athletic catching (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3st72UDKIk) and his down-to-earth personality made him a stand-out cricketer in the era of increased policing of the game, brought about by many ugly incidents which will probably be talked about in the decades to come. It's true that in the heat of the moment, people have always, and will always, do things that are over the top. But in the last few years, with the explosion of live telecasts and sites like youtube, the amount of public reaction and expert analysis has gone through the roof. A player like Gilchrist has, though, invariably made the news for all the right reasons.

His style of play was such that I never associated him with his age. He played very unlike any other 36-year old sportsman I've ever seen, and that only made the news even harder to digest. I watched him play his last innings today, and as he departed after making a quickfire 14 off 18, it suddenly struck me that these moments will only come faster as days pass. I don't know about you, but for me, the end of the career of one of my boyhood heroes punctuated the inevitability of the passing of time. Feeling a certain age is not just about how old I am, the feeling of age is in fact the sensation of living in a certain period of time, with the same rules, the same pastimes, the same dreams and the same priorities. When I will look back at this time in my life, I was always going to bed at 4 am, Federer was always weaving his magic on the court, we were always talking about how drunk we were last night, every second guy was falling for some girl and in the same way, Gilly was always murdering bowling attacks around the world.

This feeling has been around for a few months now, with many of my friends graduating from grad school, a few people getting married and engaged, some people into their second jobs, some others on the way to owning big companies and one really talented, determined fellow is even about to release his first music album! Me and my friends laugh and crib about how such people have destabilised our notions of youth and the irresponsible, impulsive selves that we've chosen to identify ourselves for a long, long time.

Strangely, even as Djokovic won the Aus Open tonight, there was no real thrill at seeing him do it. I still feel much more moist-eyed when one of the old-timers does something really good. I still remember how I was in seventh heaven when Goran Ivanisevic finally won Wimbledon in 2001. That's nearly the only time I've been moved to tears while watching a match, and I don't think there's another man who deserved those tears any more than he did. That was the accomplishment of a titan of my generation, a man whom I idolised while growing up, a man for whose success I actually prayed. The flip side is, of course, that if you've supported Ivanisevic for a decade, like I did, it's very hard to get put off even when the guy you are rooting for loses :)


Take a good look around you folks, and even if you think that it isn't a whole heap of fun right now, it's the only time you'll be living through these moments. I'll never be 23 years, 5 months and 26 days old again, and I'm glad I get the chance to experience instants like these, even though the emotions don't last forever!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

I'm normal => I'm made of plastic. Yeah, I know.

I can't count the number of times I've been gripped by an idea or a feeling (or maybe sensation is a better word, it hardly gets enough time to develop into a feeling, i.e. I can't put a label to it) that I felt I should put down somewhere, that I should document. You know, just like that Facebook application that allows you to say 'Ritwik is feeling _________' (by the way, I'm feeling like I have irrevocably tangled innards right now....I'm having to type so many of these words again, and again, ouch). So anyway, I can't classify that sensation. The nearest I can come to talking about it is by simply saying what thoughts are running through my head. Just the other day, I had one of these moments of clarity when I said to a friend that I'm so sick of pacing the house and reading terrible (turrrrible, turrrible...as Charles Barkley would have said) and pessimistic news items on CNN.com, that I could do with some company. The only catch was that I would've bitten the head off of anybody who approached me at that point of time because I was in such a foul mood.

The logical and expedient answer to that rant was a very measured "Uh, I think you should just go to bed." And I know that it almost always works. It took me a while to find that out, but I can't put myself to sleep simply by shutting off my brain and letting it float away, far from the shores of madness nation. And, I'm remarkably drug-free (maybe too much for my own good) so sleeping aids aren't my prescription. I just let myself get so tired that I can't lift an eyelid (or hit a key, whichever happens later..hehe) and then I'm good to go.

There used to be a time, and a place, and a bunch of people that I knew, who didn't think that being weird was much of a disadvantage, socially. Perceptions of the world, each crazier than the other, were tossed around like joints in a dope club. We all relished to some extent, the variety of viewpoints and had some sort of pride in how tangential our views were, and yet how much sense they made.

But coming out of that cocoon was in almost all ways, a very bruising experience because in the normal scheme of things, I ended up dealing with a disproportionately large number of people who hadn't a clue that such errant minds existed in such self-congratulatory harmony with each other. In this new world, weirdness or simply, being different was not looked at very kindly. Call it fear of the unknown or call it insularity, there was something that drove people nuts when they saw somebody behave differently from their own rules of normal behaviour.

Or let's call them the advertised rules of normal behaviour. I haven't seen anybody, that I know well enough, to be anywhere close to what they consider normal. And really, the only people I think are normal are probably the ones I don't know well enough. So these people are no more deviants than I am, which is fine with me (I'm called a crank collector by some folks, but that's for another post), but what amuses me most is that they are quite desperate to conceal their quirkiness even when the person in front of them is a guy like me (who once never hid his weirdness, but I've mellowed...or become more manipulative, whatever you want to call it). I mean, how weird can people be? If you ask me, I'll always say, not weird enough. But, what I see is something of a denial in action, and the amount of high ground claimed over these issues is nothing but the world's largest garbage pile with stink included.

It's not unusual to find people being driven into a corner (that's another one of my weaknesses, sorry) and then breaking down for that instant and letting me peek into the little crack on the surface of their polished surfaces at the ghosts in the machine. It's like watching one of those videos in which dogs sneeze, because it comes out all of a sudden and it's very funny. However, the flip side to the entertainment is that (and that's why I don't try this with many people any more) they'll get all worked about it and go on the defensive. See if you can spot the phrase "That's just the way I am" floating around in one of these psychological moments (I still remember Poirot very fondly...sigh).

Personally, I've always enjoyed observing people, what they say, what they do, how they react to situations and especially, how they change under pressure of emotional stress or intense scrutiny. I'll admit that I'm not good at all at predicting outcomes in situations I'm personally involved with, but I've seen a lot of different emotions from people that I'd have never guessed existed inside them. I've come to enjoy the quirks of people and I absolutely despise the vain attempts at projection of normalcy. To some extent, you may fault me for being a rabble-rouser and a trouble-seeker, but I'm always thrilled by the prospects of making new discoveries about folks in such a scenario.

I grew up with the deeply impressed notion that being different is not only the key to your identity, but also inevitable. I know it's equally true that some quirks are not for public consumption, and are better kept locked up, to be enjoyed sparingly. Still truer is the advice that many people have given me: it is sometimes a disadvantage to be too open, especially if you're very trusting and take the plunge first. That move doesn't work with everyone, and it leaves you vulnerable to manipulation. But I suppose that's a choice that each of us makes. I'm not alone in the way I think, and I get along very well with people who share my respect for the infinite possibilities of discovery in human nature, however, in a finite life, like a game of poker, one must learn to make the most of even a bad hand :D

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Wanted

Settling scores...
Mending fences...
Building bridges...
Forgetting history

Spending all your money on fines and beer...
Peering out of a dirty window to find the moon...
Having nightmares about the door with the missing hinge...
Pretending all questions have answers

Ending each sentence with...
Wishing on fallen stars and hollow icons...
Climbing higher, and higher, and higher...
Only to fall deeper, longer, harder

Fishing for maps, ignoring the GPS...
Staring at the Sun, scouring the shadows...
Standing in line to lose your identity...
Shivering to death while you're at it

Mercury falling
Cold sunshine
Winds that blow you away
As the world passes you by

Writing songs with no music
Reading dead people's diaries
Talking to the ghosts of friends
Getting cheap thrills while the sand runs out

Wanted, a recipe for immortality
Wanted, a love which doesn't fade
Wanted, failure without a price
Wanted, success with no expiry date.....

Wanted, five minutes of your life back
Wanted, a kick on the backside
Wanted, better things to do
Wanted, a ban on bad poetry on the internet

Amen.