Exercise and me??

I won't blame anyone who knows me even slightly for laughing out loud on hearing my name and the words 'physical exercise' together. But surprisingly these lazy bones of mine are rather fond of a little stretching out as and when I find enough time after getting more than enough sleep done. Never mind the fact that I feel like sleeping for another two hours, after my exercise routine is done. In fact, I managed to push myself to gym for an entire month, while I was undergoing training at TCS Bhubaneshwar. The really heavy exercises were of course much beyond my physical capabilities but the regular thunk of metal coming together on the gym equipment was a rather comforting noise. It was actually some kind of meditation where the mind goes clear and all my energy subconsciously diverts to whichever unfortunate part of my body I chose to focus on.

And speaking of exercise, I feel there's no exercise like running. The early morning run from our quarters to the gym had to be one of the most exhilirating experiences of my life, as exhilirating as a daily pain can get at least. The first two days were of course rather painful but later when the rhythm kicks in, its a real pleasure. Feet beating their regular beat on the road with the cool, unpolluted morning breeze, the heart pumping out for dear life and at times it felt I could run on for ever, which of course would have been a fatal fallacy. Still however incongruous it may seem spouting of my mouth, exercise is quite fun while it lasts. Plus its a extreme game of will-power at certain points when I know that my body has given up but my mind is kicking it through the final few push-ups. Yawn! All this preaching about exercise is making me tired. Got to go, feeling real sleepy!

'Tis the season to be jolly

The older I get the more immature I seem to grow! Now I want festivals all season around, just a few months after I declared in my Diwali 2007 post that we have too many festivals here in India. Christmas is almost here and so is New Year, but I am bluesy again. The festivities will be over in a flash and it'll be back to the bread-n-butter routine! I just don't have enough long weekends and long trips and long sleep.

I am convinced that life was meant for better utilization. Why should my job have to be something to work on so that I can enjoy the other parts of my life! If I don't tire myself out on my regular job I really can't enjoy my free time and if I really work to my heart's content I find myself too tired to enjoy my free time. What a life!

A post without a picture

Everytime I post something on my blog, I end up Googling for an appropriate picture to put beside it. I guess it's some baggage I dragged out of my childhood after reading millions of those illustrated abridged classics with a picture on every second page. Words are never enough to cover the scope of my post and I feel this deep desire to complement it with a photo which unfortunately always turns out to be the real eye catcher. Adds a comic book effect to my blog, but I love certain comics/cartoons so much that I actually don't mind! Just for the heck of it, here's one post where I do away with the compulsory illustration!

The bridge over troubled waters

There's nothing much to say or write about. This is the river Narmada, much fought over by states, activists and actors. But spending my childhood in a little town on its banks, I never associated anything with it except for peace and beauty. Having crossed it a number of times, in a car, or train, or motorcycle, or bicycle and once even on foot, I never seem to tire of gazing at it ensconced in the deepest thoughts. And memories of the evening breeze bringing relief to sweat stained, cricket exerted bodies; of the never-ending conversations about our immediate lives as friends got together on the middle of the bridge; of my grandma's ashes who passed away there in Bharuch far away from her beloved Calcutta one with the water which has been flowing through the centuries.

Home again

It would seem that home offers the ideal circumstances for blogging. Ready to eat food at exactly the right time, the most comfortable bed in the universe and pampering of all sorts. But here I am at home, after a week of enjoyment at a classmate's wedding and pure laziness afterwards trying to work up at least a single post for my time spent here. But it really doesn't make sense to expend energy on any kind of thought when I am cossetted in the sort of luxury that the best corporate jobs in the world can't buy. The same visibly aging building, the river in the distance flowing past just the same as it did from as long as I can remember. Only a handful of friends who remain from the huge group that occupied the pleasant memories of my childhood. The familiarity of it all should bore me to bits. It's amazing how I keep hankering for change in the repetitive rigours of office life yet there are other things that I wouldn't want to change for anything in the world.

Sachin ala re

Some people say he's a selfish player playing only for personal records and sponsorship money, some people say that he can relied upon not to perform in crunch matches and some people relish every chance to brutalize him on even the slightest dip of form. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar may not have led his team to glorious victories worthy of his extreme talent, but that is only a poor reflection on his team rather than his personal failure. For someone to soldier through 18 years of international cricket and perform at the stratospheric levels that he has, cannot be possible without love for the game and his team. That a World Cup trophy is not among his list of honours is merely because fate is a big player in all sport whether one chooses to acknowledge it or not.

After bearing the burden of millions of hopes every time he walks out to bat for these many years it must really hurt to hear two-bit commentators or even the man on the street advice him on what to do or worse insult him for a variety of made-up reasons. Forget about his die hard fans like me but every unbiased cricket lover will have to accept that the sport will never be the same without Sachin. The diminutive but distinctive frame taking guard, and then the flash of the blade as a booming cover drive takes shape, or the solid thunk of the middle of the bat striking the ball sending it speeding ramrod straight past the bowler's despairing hands or Shane Warne's look of despair as the batsman moves away from the wicket, comes down the pitch and puts a glorious shot out into the stands. The thought of Sachin at the wicket brings into so many lives an intense happiness, a ray of delight on even everyday tasks. Every time a school kid takes guard at his local ground facing a critical ball, he is concentrating not on the name of some God in a distant heaven, but on a chant inside his mind that he knows will make him rise to the occasion. The chant which goes "Sachin..Sachin......Sachin..Sachin". And to be able to achieve that kind of devotion and awe from people around the world, is a glorious achievement that no criticism in the world can ever tarnish.

Its not OK

It was only this Friday evening that a few friends and me were having our weekly meandering discussion at a local coffee shop, relaxed in anticipation of the weekend to follow. Amongst the great variety of topics that we touched upon from art movies to career ambitions, we also had a brief banter on corruption. Some of my friends professed a tolerance bordering on admiration for people who took pay-offs under the table but got the job done, citing the example of a certain politician from Bihar, his undeniable charm and his recent success at turning around the Ministry under his charge. After all, the pay package in government jobs hardly amounts to anything, they felt!

Corruption is not exactly the murder of men which on the face makes it seem less evil. But the important fact that most people miss out on is that it is the murder of dreams which is as bad if not worse than actual murder. Money meant for a noble purpose, for the education of those school-children in the rural hinterlands, for that much required government hospital revamp, for that metalled road that would have ushered in a new life into the dying village, all reduced to shambles because of the greed in the system. And why pick on only government projects, the passing of a corporate tender with a little help on the side just means that the actual best offer lost out!

Add to that, the countless frustrations and roadblocks that the man really intent on improving his conditions the right way has to face, finally bowing to them broken and stripped of all hope. The rot that sets in with every hand-out is a cancer eating away all sense of honour and morality, making all intelligent but honest men seem like idealistic fools. The unaccounted for money feeding countless vices and evils which seem to have reached unsurmountable levels today. Unfortunately, people bred and fed on that money unable to think beyond their own sorry selves worship the source of that money as if he/she is some magnanimous philanthropist, forgetting that it's money stained with dead dreams and sold honour. Corruption is choking our breath out and the funny thing is that people are mildly tolerant of that fact.

Its not OK that today the line between heroes and criminals is so blurred, and it really surprises me that people are so confused for it is really not so complex. A businessman who makes his pile cheating the government of taxes is lauded as the harbinger of India's economic boom, worshipped as the face of new India! That the means to getting to an end is as important as the end itself should be a self-evident fact. If a person doesn't care for the means to get to his end, he's just a desperate criminal, plain and simple. A true hero is the one who knows that he has to get there only by the right way or not get there at all. Its not OK to hero-worship someone who jumped the queue, broke into the ticket counter and now is virtuously claiming that "Look! I am giving away free tickets!"