Cricket Meri Jaan!!!

Today was an experience of a life-time, not just for me but for everyone who watched the clash of the Titans in the second semi-final of World Cup 2011 between India & Pakistan. I was just lucky enough to be in India to witness history and realize one thing!!!! Cricket is the only and the single most unifying factor in a country riddled by corruption, inflation, terrorism and division. We may fight amongst ourselves over the silliest of things like which city should be named what or denizens of which state should work in which state, and whether a temple or a mosque once stood on the most disputed piece of land in Indian history, but when it comes to cricket, we are one nation and one voice. India..India..India!!!! Was the only war cry resounding, resonating, and echoing throughout the country on 30th March 2011 after India beat Pakistan.

Today’s traffic jam at 11.30 pm on NIBM Road was unusual in only one way, that it had nothing to do with bad road conditions, lack of traffic signals or road encroachment by street vendors and car parking. It was caused by the mob that had gathered on the streets to celebrate India’s victory over Pakistan. No sooner did Virat Kohli catch Misbah-Ul-Haq off Zaheer Khan’s bowling, did the fireworks start. They were bigger, brighter and seemed happier than Diwali itself, perhaps because this was the first time that not only Hindus, but Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis et al came together to put up a brilliant show that lit up the dry, hot and lackluster March skies like a heavenly abode radiating with thousands of suns. I sincerely wonder if so many people just happened to have such expensive fire-crackers at hand or they had planned for this precise moment. But it felt like a planned series of events where one after the other people from all buildings around started the fiery visual displays. The entire universe seemed to echo with the go-India war cries. And soon after residents of my society started flooding the road shouting, screaming and cheering. Hundreds of bikers hit the roads, all carrying at least 2 to 3 pillions and waving flags of various sizes and heights. Following them were dozen odd cars with people reeling out of their windows and shouting, clapping and waving. After that on-lookers and passers-by also joined the celebrations along with the people from the other societies on our street. All were dancing, singing, cheering to a single tune. For almost an hour the police did little to curb the celebrations. But then many people started stopping passing cars and bikes and started dancing in front of them and lighting fire-crackers stark in the middle of the road. Some did not fall short of even rolling on the road to express their ecstasy. Seeing this, the police had to intervene and bring order. Not be discouraged though everyone then re-started the celebrations on the footpaths and inside the societies. The revelries continued well after mid-night and I can still hear some fire-crackers being burst.

It was a very very happy, jubilant and innocuously infectious atmosphere and I doubt anything but cricket would ever make the people of this country so happy and most importantly come together on such a platform and express their excitement and joy unabashedly, united in true spirit! Today’s match wasn’t important just because it was the semi-final, but more so because it was against a young and volatile Pakistan. It was the first Indo-Pak clash and any game between these two rivals is exciting, let alone a knock-out match as important as a semi-final. After 26/11 and the heavy human losses suffered by India and the following investigations seeming like flogging dead horses, the thirst of revenge and desperation to win had spiraled skywards. Add to it the diplomatic and strategic (read political) move of inviting the Pakistani Prime Minister by our own counterpart Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani accepting it, and we had The Perfect Recipe for a thrilling, edge-of-the-seat, gripping encounter and the Indian team didn’t let us down even once. The match was a perfect entertainment package with all the right ingredients of masala and chutzpah.

I too was a die-hard cricket fan once, long time back during my school days I didn’t miss a single match of Team India. Even when the matches were played abroad during our nighttime I used to sleep in front of the television, set an alarm and get up in the middle of the night to watch the matches. Me and my girl friends in school used to bet on which batsman would score more runs and who would take more wickets. I had a crush on Rahul Dravid and one of my dear friends on Saurav Ganguly (Tilo, if you’re reading this, yes I’m referring to you ) and we constantly argued over who’s better. We collected posters, photos, information, gossip on everything related to cricket and the then on-going World Cup. In those days India-Pakistan relations though not very cordial were not as strained as they are today either and liking Pakistani cricketers was not totally un-happening. We even teased one of my best friends with Wasim Akram just because they shared birth-dates (Not points for guessing that best friend is you Shef) and I know all you guys reading this are thinking we girls are hopeless. Yes hopeless we were, but not as hopeless as we became when all the match-fixing scandals came to light. It broke my heart. All our time, energy, enthusiasm wasted on cricketers who never deserved our admiration and hero-worshipping. The whole of India was let down and I somehow lost complete interest in the game, having practically stopped watching it. Team India has come a long way since then. Winning the first T-20 World Cup was a turning point in Indian cricketing history as well as my feelings towards Team India. After today’ match my interest in cricket has started re-kindling and I hope it never dwindles again.
I will never forget today's match and the events following it. Nor will I forget the smiles of unadulterated joy that lit up each and every Indian face I saw today, and the one and only reason for all those smiles, Cricket Meri Jaan!!!
Looking forward to the nail-biting Final on Saturday!!!

Jogwa

This is my first attempt at writing a Marathi film review. Until quite recently I was hardly into watching Marathi films, I was a hard-core English & Hindi movies’ fan. The very fact that many others like me, have now taken to eagerly watching Marathi films bears testimony to the fact that the Marathi films have come into their own. Their quality, substance, popularity has suddenly taken a surge and a sort of much needed re-birth, not only at the box-office but also in the viewer’s hearts. I profess myself surprised, albeit happily, that the storylines have taken a bold turn. They are more open-minded, contemporary, experimental and brazen.

One such completely unconventional, bold and groundbreaking movie is Jogwa. Not for the faint-hearted; it is a heart-wrenching tale of a society still riddled with superstitions, hypocrisy and exploitation of an oppressed community, in the hinterlands of Karnataka. Jogwa literally translated means “alms given to a person”, in this case a jogta (he-devotee) or a jogtin (she-devotee) of one goddess Yellamma, whose wrath the people of the village are afraid of. The story revolves around two protagonists Tayappa (a man played by Upendra Limaye) and Suli (a woman played by Mukta Barve) who are forced into becoming a jogta and jogtin. A jogta has to dress and live like a woman, a jogti has no rights to get married or have children. The villagers’ belief in superstitions is what feeds and fuels this outcaste of certain people and them being turned into so-called devotees of the goddess. These people include those suffering from strange or unknown diseases, people signaling so-called bad omens etc to name a few. These devotees are condemned to a hellish life of being ostracized from society, sacrificing their lives in the so-called service of the goddess, living off alms and being denied many of their rights as human beings. They are ill-treated by society, made fun of, taken advantage of sexually, viewed as nothing better than eunuchs and prostitutes and in a nutshell treated like vermin, all in the name of God. Their lives are a living hell filled with nothing but misery, woe and damnation.

Tayappa and Suli are both thus damned by a self-proclaimed messenger of the goddess. Tayappa is forced to wear a saree, bangles, necklaces et al and live and behave like a eunuch just like the other jogtas. However, he is never able to accept this fate. Hidden behind the garb of a woman he instinctively behaves and thinks like a man from within. Suli on the other hand, in spite of becoming a jogtin, dreams of love, marriage and children. Her dreams come crashing down when her lover abandons her thereby dashing any hopes she ever had of leading a normal life again.

One educated and open-minded educator tries to change the mindset of the villagers and help these distressed souls only to be laughed at and thrown out. Tayappa and Suli find a friend, confidante and companion in each other and end up falling in love. But their attempts to break away from their shackles and live normal lives do not go down well with the rest of their community and the society. The movie outlines their emotions, afflictions, betrayals, struggles and their final triumph over the very superstations and hypocrisy that destroyed their lives. Upendra Limaye and Mukta Barve’s power-packed performances are par excellence as is the direction. The music by Ajay-Atul is simply superb. The movie has won many a well-deserved National Awards. It might leave you reaching for a hanky time and again, but the happy ending showcases the triumph of perseverance and common sense over prejudice and blind faith, as it defends to death the right of every human being to a fair life and happiness.

The Gift of Hands

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, is so true. We never value the things we already have, running after the ones we don’t, we realize their value only when they are taken away from us by some freak twist of fate. “Ghar ki moorgi dal barabar”, you know. 

Each one of us is in that mad race for money, fame, success, that overdue promotion, that pay hike, that latest state-of-the art sleek car, that designer diamond necklace and so on and so forth. Wants, wants and more wants. Mahatma Gandhi once wisely said, “There is enough in the world for man’s need, but not his greed”. But in the midst of this insane rat race how many of us pause to think about what we already have? How many of us express our gratitude towards God for all that he has already given us. I didn’t till a few days back.

Like any normal person I too wanted this, dreamt of becoming that etc. etc. All I thought of was what I didn’t have and cribbed about it. I worked too hard to prove myself, to climb up the corporate ladder and have a meteoric career graph. I worked till my limit’s end and then went on to stretch those limits. I worked 9 – 12 hours a day regularly, even weekends sometimes. Sounds normal I know, because most people do that now-a-days. Nothing could stop me, after one achievement there was always the next rung to aim for. Suffering from constant neck and shoulder pains was routine, nothing that Iodex or a pain-relieving spray couldn’t cure. “I’ll worry about it later, I’m too young to suffer from anything serious”, I mulled. 

Then suddenly out of the blue, my left upper arm started aching beyond normal proportions. Typical of today’s fire-brand, stop-at-nothing, always on the move generation that has grown up looking for the fastest solutions, I gulped down some pain-killers and as usual did 'Iodex maliye kaam pe chaliye'. All was hunky-dory for a while and then the pain re-surfaced. This time much more aggravated. I did the same thing till my body decided it had had enough and broke into a mutiny.

I hardly slept that night, twisting and turning from one side to another as shots of blinding pain crippled by arm and shoulder. A visit to the doctor the next day revealed an appalling story of cervical spondylosis, bone degeneration, oesteopenia, muscular spasm and possible injury. Terms meant for the aged, as I’d not so long ago thought. I couldn’t lift up my hand by even an inch, its movement completely restricted by the sudden spasms of pain. I was confined to my house, had to miss work for 10 days, and could pretty much do nothing else that didn’t classify as killing time, except writing. There’s only so much you can do when you’re denied the use of the faculty of one of your hands. One hand, such a small, simple thing mundane even, that brought my life to a standstill. All my life I took my hands for granted, never thanking God once that He gave me two normal, natural, strong, beautiful hands. I was so much luckier than the unfortunate ones who are born with defects, crippled, or lose their hands in accidents.

Now I realize that one should always count one’s blessings, the very fact that we breathe is by God’s grace, but do we thank Him for that? If we don’t then it’s time to take a long, hard pause and do now.