Maktub

This is for all the philosophy lovers. Philosophy as in, the real thing. If your definition of philosophy starts and ends with 'life is like an icecream so enjoy it before it melts', probably you're not the right audience for this.

There are certain words that have a ring of magic to them. To me, Maktub is one such word. It obviously means nothing to the uninitated, but once you knwo the meaning, I'm sure you'll be a bit enchanted too.

The Arab culture has an ancient belief, or rather, an archaic saying. It simply says "It is written". Three simple words that convey the most amazing meaning. You could read a million books on self improvement, or about how to deal with it when bad things happen to good people, and all that, but believing in Maktub is much easier.

It is written. Meaning no matter how horribly things go wrong, or how badly life deviates from the script you had planned, believe that if you want something with all your heart and you believe it is your destiny, then the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it, because it is written. And if it is written, it happens.

Maybe you wouldn't be too sure about it now, but you'll see. Believe in yourself, and no matter how messed up things may seem at that moment, things will fall into place, because you believed in yourself and your destiny. And when the pieces of your life fall into place, you'll find yourself muttering 'Maktub', because you will realize that miracles do happen, but not to those who call themselves 'lucky', but to those who believe in them.

So, if you are reading this right now, and if you have a dream, go for it. Make it your destiny. Failures along the way are immaterial, because your destiny never changes. And one day when you achieve it, you will have made your peace with the universe and all its mysterious ways, for it has worked for you and your dream.

P.S: As is custom, I have someone to thank for being the inspiration behind this article. This time its Paulo Coelho. His was the book in which I'd read about Maktub in the first place.

The strange case of Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly-part 2

Then came the fateful tour to Zimbabwe in the end of 2005. Indian cricket saw its most public mud slinging, and consequently, Ganguly was unceremoniously ousted from the team, and banished to the wilderness of Indian domestic cricket. He's gone for life, said most pundits, giving him less than a chance in a million to come back. And so it was that Dravid became captain. His statement of "being happy" at his promotion no doubt belied his true feelings, after having waited in the wings for years. That was Dravid the gentleman, trust him to be magnanimous at all his successes.

Gone with Ganguly were most of the seniors who had become complacent, and there was a glut of youngsters in the team at once. Exceptional performances in the beginning of 2006, including historic wins at Pakistan and West Indies lead many to believe this was the revival of the Indian team.

Meanwhile, unnoticed, in empty stadiums and foregone tournaments, Ganguly rebuilt himself. The fact that the team was doing well without him must have deterred him no doubt, but to his credit, he never gave up. It was his trial by fire, and he never once flinched or shrank back.
On the flipside for the team, with youth came inexperience. A horrendous tour of Malaysia, followed by nightmarish defeats at South Africa, lead to serious doubts about the quality of these overnight heroes, and a few called for the seasoned hands again. As destiny would have it, his name was on the cards, on the selection meetings, and on the lips of every bereaved fan in the fanatic country.

When India lost all the one dayers in South Africa, that was it. Out were Raina, Kaif and their fickle promises, and Ganguly flew in. When he walked out to bat, that pompous air was gone, so was most of the arrogance, the arrogance that waved a shirt from Lords and made Steve Waugh wait, but was replaced by something grittier...his inner fire burned brighter than ever.
He looked a tired man, in body yes, but not in spirit. Atleast he hadn't given up his own fight. Dravid meanwhile was the same as ever, rock solid in his own form, and still the paragon of perfection, both as a human being and as a cricketer. As a leader though, he was a little less efficient.

I guess to be a leader, you have to be able to lower yourself to the imperfections of others and tackle them. Dravid somehow never seems to do that till date, and continues to be his own God.
Today, both Dracid and Ganguly take to the field, much the same way they have over the decade gone, and Ganguly sometimes cuts a lonely figure fielding at long on, and Dravid seems lost in his own worries, and neither can give up being themselves, which has been their boon and bane over these years.

Their story has taught me that drama is not limited to Bollywood alone. If cricket history was an epic, then Dravid and Ganguly would be characters to emulate.

They are both reaching the end of their careers now. Is there another twist in the tale? Might not be surprised if there is.

The strange case of Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly-part 1

Personally, I love them both. I almost idolize the former for his perfection, and admire the fighting spirit that the latter exhibits. Both arguably among the best that this nation has ever produced, have careers that have run parallel over these years, and have been inexorably intertwined with each other at the same time too.

They made their debut together at the Lords in 1996. Ganguly, ever the more flashy of the two, got to a century on debut. Dravid, a ton unlucky, missed his ton by 4 runs. That somewhat set the tones of their careers then on. Ganguly was touted for his aggression and style, and was seen as the man who could make his own luck and laugh in the face of danger. Dravid hung on too, albeit a lot less convincingly, and his was an ideal case of 'slow and steady' not impressing all. He was seen as too slow and technical, and unable to improvise most of the times, and consequently was in and out of the one day team. But test matches told completely different stories. His application and diligence was the stuff of legends, and his extreme concentration and immaculate technique became the subject of many an animated coffee table conversation. And so it was that these two players became indispensables in the team.

So Tendulkar proved he was a pedestrian captain sometime in 2002, and the reins had to be handed over to someone else. Obviously it was Ganguly, for he was the one who could inspire confidence in teammates and awe among foes. He did a few audacious things that went well, reaching the world cup final being one of them, and ventured where no Indian had gone before, like making Steve Waugh wait for the toss, and ripping off his shirt and waving it from the Lords Balcony. That was an unforgettable era of Indian cricket, and what went unnoticed behind his astute leadership was the fact that his deputy Dravid was in the form of his life, and the fact still remains that most of the victories in that period were carved out of Dravid's willow, and by his amazing decision to double up at wicketkeeper, in order to make place for an extra batsman.

It was a peculiar arrangement though. With Ganguly, there was too much drama, and the feeling that something is about to explode in your face. His flamboyance and authority is something that no other Indian captain can boast of, but he courted controversy, and when his form began to dip, talks of nepotism within the team, factions, and bickerings began to do the rounds. Conversely, Dravid continued to stay away from teh spotlight, background man that he was.

Such were these two, unaware of the sweeping changes that were around the corner.
(cont'd)

The last supper...a little known tale

I’m a self confessed Paulo Coelho fan. I’ve read almost all of his books, and I wince at the criticism that most cynical readers throw at him. I think they make sense, because he does a fantastic job at blending the spiritual and higher aspects of life with the everyday stuff. And, master of words that he is, he does it with a bit of magic.

For all those uninitiated into the world of books, Paulo Coelho is the author of the Alchemist, the book that changed the lives of many people, including the likes of Will Smith and me, and though his other books have never come close to that sort of popularity, they’re intriguing to say the least. Those who haven’t read them, go do it now.

Anyway, there’s this fable in one of his lesser known books ‘The Devil and Miss Prym’, a story which deals with the millennia old fight of Good versus Bad. I really don’t know if its true or not, but I’ve never forgotten it, though its been like three years since I read that book. It goes like this…

Centuries ago, in the age of the renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci had just conceived the idea of painting the Last Supper, a painting which shows Jesus Christ having supper with his apostles, and the painting is special because it shows Jesus, the embodiment of good, and Judas, the doer of evil (because he was the one who betrayed Jesus) in the same painting, along with the other devotees. Da Vinci had his own style of going about his paintings, and it was to seat a live subject in front of him and paint. But this style of painting often required him to go on long ‘subject hunts’. It was on one such long and arduous subject hunt that he discovered a cherubic looking church choir youth, whose face had an angelic look to it. “You’re the man for my painting” said Da Vinci. He invited the youth to his studio, and the face of that youth became the face of Jesus in that immortal painting. So the painting was half done, and Da vinci now wanted someone to paint with as Judas. He searched far and wide, but he could never see evil and avarice manifest themselves so clearly on one face, and he had all but given up hope.

He had almost given up, when he discovered by the roadside one day, a drunk drug addict lying unconscious. His face had all the world’s sinister darkness on it, and he was the quintessential dissipated evil man. He dragged him into his studio, and immortalized the features of that wasted man as the face of Judas in the painting. A few hours later, the man came to his senses, and when he saw what Da Vinci was painting, he said “Hey I’ve seen that painting before!” Da Vinci was perplexed…had some painter stolen his ideas? “Where, Where?” he shook him by the shoulders.

“A few years ago, before I lost the singing job at the church choir, a painter…was it you? Called me as a model for Jesus Christ in this painting. My memory is lulled by my intoxications now, but I believed the painter was you, and this was the very same painting.”

Moral of the story: There’s no good, there’s no bad. You’re both, and both are in you.

Birthday no. 20....

(Written last night)

So my birthday will be over in an hour. The hoopla and hullabaloo has already subsided. Not that I’m much of that type. I often get a lot of flak for not being ‘up to the occasion’ as these people put it. Guess that’s not me. loud celebrations don’t interest me, nor do overt displays of birthday-pride and birthday-importance. Call me shy. Call me reticent, prudish, whatever.

And so its 11pm, and I’m looking back at the day. Raucous dinner with best friends, cake cutting with family, special moments with someone, a new shirt that’ll grow old someday, resolutions that will grow cold someday. That was the day.

I look back at other birthdays. Same scenes. What changes? A birthday is portrayed as a change inducing day. “ooh you’re twenty now. Someone’s growing.” “Good lord was it yesterday that you peed on my pants?” and stuff.

Nothing changes. I mean, sure, stuff changes. Circumstances change, surroundings change, but people never really do. The Bharat who got rapped on the knuckles by the teacher in school when he was eight, is not really different from the one who gets reprimanded by his father now for over using the phone. The Bharat who felt shivers when his name was called for oral examinations in fifth standard, is exactly the same guy who feels a ball of fire run down his insides when he approaches the results notice board. The Bharat who cried on watching Border is the same guy who merely pretends impassivity now. I used to cry in Junior KG when my mom used to go to office. I still feel the same tinge of sadness when she leaves. I desperately used to wait for 5 pm, counting down hours, everyday so that I could go down and play. Now I desperately wait for weekends to play, counting down days. See? Nothing changes.

People fake wisdom, they fake worldliness, they fake sophistication, as they progress. To show other people, or to inflate their egos or maybe something to that effect. Either ways, none of it is necessary.

If you accept that you’re the same, maybe the pangs of growing up and losing things will not bother you that much.

Retain that little kid in you. You’re nothing without that kid.

The God who cried like a baby

I’m not a great tennis fan. Prior to yesterday, I just used to watch it for the short skirts, and that too was a turn off when the Williams sisters were playing. And I never quite paid attention to the Wimbledon final build up, except coming across contrasting eulogies such as “God made Roger Federer” and “Roger Federer is God”. And he proved all those crazy statements right as well. A sublime match it was, with Nadal biting at his heels all the time, threatening to lunge ahead a few times as well, and its just as well that the champion of grass continues to be just that. I pledged my unfailing loyalty to Federer after yesterday.

All through the match, the contrast between the two players enraptured me, as must have been the case with all amateur tennis fans. Nadal was the more expressive of the two, with his “Ums and Ahs” resounding across centre court, his unbridled exaltations after a few winners and his histrionics all showing us how pumped up he was. Federer, on the other hand, being completely inexpressive, rarely ever bothering to even clench his fist in aggression. A knitted brow showing a hint of worry was all he would reveal, and that too only briefly. It was as he was above the emotion showing level, and as had been my guess from the start, he did win in the end.

But what happened thereafter, surprised me. On hitting the winning shot, he threw himself on the court, clutching his face with his hands, and cried. Sobbed, even. Wowie, I thought. Now what’s with that?

All his pent up emotions rushed out, and he looked like a disheveled baby in the few minutes after the victory. And in those few minutes he revealed that he wasn’t God after all. No more a god than you or me. Just a guy who kept his cool, and weathered the storm. What’s the harm in crying after winning?

The bore well kid

“Hey you heard about the bore well kid? He died today evening”

“Jeez…I didn’t even know there was a bore well kid…”

“He was stuck for fifty hours it seems. How can you not know about it?”

“I’m not exactly the 24hour news channel types…maybe that’s why I missed it”

This is the conversation I had with my mother yesterday. I don’t watch India TV, I haven’t been reading newspapers lately, and so this piece of information had completely eluded me. Until now, that is. Oh well, too bad I thought. Poor kid.

That night, for some reason I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the thunder outside. Maybe the disquiet inside. I switched on the TV sometime around midnight. It was on, as expected. The whole episode about the boy.

I learnt his name was Suraj. I learnt he was six years old. First standard. He fell in while playing, they said. Apparently, it was a desolate area and he was playing by himself. Now that’s news, I thought. What kind of kid plays alone in a desolate area?

A little later the answer to my own question came to me. The kid who plays alone in a desolate area is the kid whose parents cannot afford him a cricket bat or a football. He’s the kid whose parents are helpless as they see their child pass his time with pebbles and slingshots. Maybe they were casual laborers with no time for him. Maybe he didn’t have friends. Maybe he wandered there all by himself on his way home from school. Maybe he was scouting for new pebbles, or had spotted a few colorful odds and ends in that desolate area. Maybe he just shrugged off his school bag and went behind a big butterfly or something. And fallen in. Must have been the longest two days of his little life. More so for his parents. I realized my eyes were moist.

The world works in mysterious ways. What kind of God allows this to happen? I cried a little that night. And I went to bed hoping Suraj awakens in a better place.

Recollections of a July 11th guy

A rainy afternoon yesterday. I was in the train traveling to Andheri. It was a boring journey…uncharacteristically empty trains, a steady drizzle outside, implying all windows had to be closed, the stuffy interior of the train that bore a morose silence punctuated only by cell phone rings and the own rickety sounds of the train.

At Kandivali, a middle aged man came and sat beside me. nothing out of the normal, except for the fact that his left hand was amputated from the forearm downwards. I made the mistake of staring a second longer at his hand, and he noticed, as do all such people. He smiled. God. Embarrassed, I smiled back wanly. “July 11^th. Borivali blast” He said. I nodded, not knowing what else to do. If I’d looked away, maybe I would have missed out on this narrative. But I kept nodding, and looking in his direction, like I expected him to offer the details. Stupid me as usual.

As if on cue, he started talking. About wanting to buy a car last year, being confused about the model, going over prices, stats and features in his head whilst in the train on that fateful evening, when it happened. A concussion in his head that knocked him out. Waking three hours later at Bhagwati hospital, a poorly run government place. He talked of being on a mattress on the floor, half soaked with blood. Maybe his. Maybe not. Not that it mattered. Searing pain in his left hand, metal pieces probably. The hurt crying out. Bodies being brought in as if they were so many mannequins. Volunteers running in. Haziness in his vision. An injection. Rain battering the decrepit windows. Water seeping in. Flies on the blood. The car debate seeming funny at the moment. Nothing seeming important but the two words “I’m alive”. And wanting to be so. And then passing out, as the sedative took effect.

At this point, he realized that maybe he had let loose a little too much. Sorry, he says. Anyway, time for him to leave. Goregaon approaches. ‘I’m getting down here.’ He promptly gets up. The train lurches a bit, and he struggles to balance himself for an instant. The next instant, he smiles at me. I say…wait, what about the car finally? He laughs and says that his son will be old enough to drive in another year. I’m settling for a Swift he says. The train stops and he gets off.

The Path

(A poem that'll hopefully offer solace to the restless and a hope to the wanderers)

The path

When on your journey you rest, with feet gone sore,

When the struggle seems meaningless, and with love gone cold

When none heed your call, neither friend nor foe,

And when you’re lost, knowing not which way to go,

When you know not what it is that you seek,

But it haunts you in your wakefulness and sleep

When you lose the urge to get up and go forth

For letting go seems easy, giving up, a welcome thought.

And in this moment of defeat, listen to your soul,

Your soul, the one God you believe in…

‘Oh weary traveler,

Many walk the road to their dreams

Until greed and lust befall them all.

But what you seek is special, the meaning of life,

The nature of love, and the essence of happiness.

But not to capture for yourself these secrets,

Or to peddle as wisdom to those who crave them.

You seek to assuage the storms that rage within yourself

Know this oh lost soul,

Just as he who thirsts does not always find,

He who wanders is not always lost.

Go forth wanderer, your journey awaits you

But never once should you give up on your quest.

For heaven awaits not those who find,

But those who search. And stay on the path.

You search, therefore you are.’