Something about Nothing

There are some days when you do nothing wrong, you hit Gold wherever you start digging.

There are some days when you do nothing right, you find only rocks & stones no matter where you choose to dig.

And then there are days, when you have a map pointing to all gold mines, you start digging at the right place, find nothing; move to next mine, again find nothing; and carry on this futile exercise for the whole day - only to find that the map was valid in the other state.

I am having one of those days.

I need a break; wish I could just leave everything, go home & curl up on the bed with a nice book. And stay like that for an appreciable amount of time. I want to go home.

… get injured!

I have been playing (Cricket, Badminton, Table-Tennis, Football, Volleyball, you-name-it…) for whole of my life. My earliest memories comprise of playing a cricket-match with my brother in a 10×8 room. At best I can claim to be average, and sometimes above average, in all my sporting endeavours; I have never been Tendulkar-esque, or even Dravid-esque, or for that matter not even Kaif-esque. No claims to glory But one thing I can claim with conviction - sports injuries!

Injuries generally mean time-out, but me being a sports-maniac, injuries have never deterred me. If I have one hand, or one leg functional I will most probably be on field. And I have noticed one peculiar thing when playing with an injury. I play better, not just having-a-good-day better, but whoa-wth-happened better. My performance improves by leaps and bounds and suddenly I am a force to reckon

I think it was 1997, when I broke my right-hand index finger. I was playing badminton doubles and my partner instead of hitting the shuttlecock hit my finger. That time I did not know that I had 207 bones instead of the customary 206 and carried on the game ignoring the searing pain. The subtlety of the drop-shots I hit that day still reminds that I had the potential to beat Gade

Then during a Volleyball match in 2000, I scraped my left hand badly, the whole left palm had almost no skin left and for about 15-20 days I played with a bandage wrapped around my left hand. The spikes I hit during that period had immense power and almost all of them were precise, and all this when I had just one hand functional. Friends were ecstatic to see such form from my side, but the bandages came off and so did my form. Have never hit a powerful spike since then

And recently, while playing football, I was better on the days when I played with a sprained ankle. I was passing perfectly, I was at the appropriate spots to take the passes, I was pouncing on the loose-balls with more ferocity, and I was playing a much smoother game then I have ever played.

Injuries seem to unleash some hidden talent in me. The injuries, the deterrents bring out the best in me.

So now you know, if I am not playing well, injure me

What is with phoren and chocolates?

Imagine, your relative/friend had gone on a phoren trip and has just returned or your relatives/friends are coming down to India from phoren; what is that you, me, everyone looks forward the most to? Or the first question we ask them as soon as the wheels of their plane touch Indian soil? “Did you bring chocolates?”

And no, this behaviour does not come only after the relative/friend has arrived. This behaviour starts emerging as soon as we come to know of any impending visit to the phoren by any relative/friend. Any such news is greeted with “Chocolate le kar aana” (“Bring chocolates when you come back”). The relative/friend may be your uncle’s brother-in-law’s second-wife’s brother’s neighbour’s dog’s ex-owner’s son; we don’t care, we need the chocolates.

If someone actually dares to come back from phoren without the revered chocolates, that person is outcast. He is shunned from society and looked down upon as the snooty guy who does not care for social relations. Even his immediate family shuns him and he is never invited to any wedding/party/social-event (lucky guy! *wistfully stares into the blue sky*)

So what exactly is the scenario with phoren and chocolates? Are people in other countries too the same, or is this behaviour under desi copyright?

Ahh, now where are the chocolates my roommate brought back from phoren?

A great article on Tendulkar: Must read

Technorati: Sachin Tendulkar

There I was, nodding along, and occasionally smiling, trying to keep the conversation rolling, without me contributing anything to it. And when I thought I was on safe ground, I put in a sentence, “That yellow Skoda also looked good”. Deathly silence follows, 5 heads turn simultaneously and 10 eyes rest on me - mocking me, I want to dig a hole and hide in it. Then a voice booms, “Idiot, that was an Octavia”. I am exposed. The group knows about my car-illiteracy.

I am generally comfortable with any conversation. Talk about Music, I’ll tell you that Pink Floyd really rocks on the Sarangi; talk about Movies, and I’ll tell you that Harry Potter almost died at Mordor in Spiderman-II; talk about Books, I’ll regale you with the antics of Sherlock Holmes; talk about Food, and I’ll teach you how to make Vegetarian Chicken Tikka… You get the drift; I am pretty good at conversation except when it comes to cars.

There are some people who by just looking at the screw of the spare wheel lying in the boot can tell you that the car is Ford Mustang GT, make 1967, the car has had ten repairs, the driver is 37 years old, and the car is shiny-silver. No! I am not kidding, there are people who can do this. My kid-brother (of the infamous 9-word essay fame) is one of them. He would take one look at some part, actually any part, of any car and rattle of statistics about it as if he himself has made the car! And then I have some friends who talk about drift, engine-capacity and some such weird stuff with such fascination and passion that for a moment I am left bewildered are they talking about cars or Elisha Cuthbert?

Me? Land the whole car in front of me and I would not be able to tell you what model the car is. I may be able to recognize Maruti-800, but then again Uno/Zen/Alto all look like that! Similar is the case with bikes, I can recognize my own Splendour, apart from that, I would not be able to name a bike/car if needed to save my life. Predominantly I have been a part of a guys-only-group and a large part of our intellectual conversations revolve around the cylinders & chassis of the machines; actually it is not *our conversations* per se, it is more of their conversations and my time to wander off in the la-la land.

I’d better learn Greek; rather then try “How to recognize a car/bike from a spare part?”