Literature?

I’ve just finished reading the morning papers. Was thinking how our newspapers can be like the minds of people with multiple personality disorders. An IPL celebration a few pages ahead of the massacre of 76 CRPF personnel by Maoists. Rihanna talking about her pals having an Indian wedding a few pages up from a srap dealer dying of radiation he picked up from scrap containing Cobalt-60 lying around at a scrapyard. And then of course movie reviews – and then, how India is second only to China in the increasing sales of Light Commercial Vehicles.

The great news of 3G technology now being approved and auctioned by the government to private bidders came right below the radioacive waste and on the right of the Home Minister’s offer of resignation after the Maoist massacre in Dantewada.

It was while reading Eric Fromm, a brilliant psychoanalyst, that I got his description of the insanity of our media. Advertisements for shirts that will make you irresistible next to a child’s rape, amputated limbs next to a brand of designer sarees for weddings.

What does it mean? Has the world got so complex, and do all of us live in so many small particles of the world that we ourselves are like the newspapers – bits of unrelated human matter living out our own parts, like these unrelated and unrelatably unconnected articles – and we only become a part of a whole unconsciously by a scientist’s cold laws – Adam Smith’s supply and demand, Comte’s sociological theories, Freud’s priniciples of drives and instincts, Toynbee’s theories of factors that influence history. Is that what makes us a part of a whole – a theory in an academic lecture or Marxian discourse – an abstraction, observation, reflection, analysis, empirical statement?

After puzzling and being baffled over today’s papers – I sipped some steaming hot tea and closed my eyes under a cool fan that provided a tranquilizing respite from the scorching 40 degree Delhi summer outside.

As I closed my eyes in this safe haven – the paper stories came to life in my imagination – the growing up of these CRPF men, the time they were boys, their parents and school. Being brought up in their neighbourhoods, their parent’s responses to their decisions to apply for the paramilitary forces. Their children. The regular reports of their postings to their families back home. SMS-es, chats with kids.

And then the ambush, the soldier lying screaming as a bullet, mortar, shrapnel is inside him slicing into his body parts – maybe his eyes, genitals, spine – crushed, agonising. Screaming helplessly minute after minute, hour after hour to silence. Probably being kicked by one of the attackers and beng stripped of his ammunition and weapons in response – maybe thankfully shot in the brains as a respite to get out of the agony.

And then the reflection of the story – 400 words – next to a shirt brand that makes you irresistible to women and prospective emplyers, above the new 3G revoution that’ll make our mobile phone internet surfing be at double the speed, below a vibrant headline of the do-or-die IPL game tonight.

I opened my eyes, in this cool safe, secure South Delhi flat of mine, sipped some more tea that was growing lukewarm, as my eyes opened – imagination under closed eyes converted to analysis over opened ones. The paper had so much that I wanted to know – so much more information that I needed and wanted. How is our economy growing? Car sales were a good sign for India but what progress was their on alternative cleaner energy sources to petrol and diesel? When are the Nilekani’s Unique Identification Cards going to be out? What impact will that have on a nation – that is now traceable, accountable, contactable? I read about a Bangladesh judge thankfully banning Islamists from forcing women under the veil required in the shariat? More questions – how do moderate Islamist states function and integrate Sharia with modern democratic principles?

I wanted to grasp so many subjects that would provide keys to this plethora of puzzles in the newspaper laid out in front of me – the variety of contexts that I needed to have to each of the stories that intrigued me. Economics, Political Science, History, Sociology, Psychology, Ethics - would give me some answers I thought.

But then I realised I rarely read the newspaper in such detail. And then where’s the time to get to know so much?

More importantly I realised that this Multiple Personality Disorder, this skipping, unrelatedly on the surface of human events – carefully sliding over the dehumanised thin ice that prevents us from falling into any of the cracks of tragic human experience and pain that the stories hold in their limited words – keeps me away from being a media hound.

Am I an escapist then? An avoider? Perhaps. Somewhat. But I don’t think entirely. I like novels, or books that dwell through an entire experience of a subject. Is that an anal psychological trait? One thing at a time? Top to bottom? In depth? No. I don’t think so. I think a novel does justice and lives out a story. Fully encompasses, holds, delves and experiences. Falls under the thin cracks of these newspaper stories and drowns in the depths of human life and feeling. The Grapes of Wrath made us experience the Joads in their pain during the Great Depression across the hundreds of pages of that voluminous tome. And yes, I’m sure the New York Times had the heading and story (next to attractive adverts and baseball no doubt) of Depression deaths due to starvation. But I felt it in Steinbeck, lived and breathed with Tom Joad.

I’m still in my safe haven. I’m extremely community unfriendly, quite isolated in my own bubble. Perhaps I can grapple out of my self-centred existence – my comfort zone – and do more for my commnunity respond more as a citizen. (I actually plan to work on those traits this year. It’s a goal I’ve put down.)

Another goal this year of mine was which degree I would choose as a field of study because I plan to complete my graduation in this ripe middle age and start the first year of my chosen degree this year (in a few months in fact). I scrolled through in great detail the courses of London Universities Distance Education section on the internet.

At the end of all the dwelling and ruminating - I didn’t go for psychology, economics, sociology, media studies or politics that I’ve talked about above.

I went for Literature.

I have always been with crumpled skin
Trying to feel through crumpled things
My thoughts dumped in crumpled bins
Freckled, pocked and sticky sins

I lived curled in womb-like warmth
‘Til I was unfurled, pinned
Pinioned, stomped
Breathless, windless
Sudden junk

Was hurled, uncurld
This swirled within me
I got drunk and stunk
Living
Mephistophelian funk

I loved, lost, lusted, mistrusted
Digested, Joked and Jested
Divorced, Debauched
De-drunk ‘til I slunk

Whimpering into quiet
Non-smoking edges of walls
White and logical
Analytical and brailled

I fingered blind reason
With pricked hands of faith
Bled through to dullness
Crimson to grey-green

I became translucent
Opaque, dull
Un-quaked

I neither uncorked nor paced
Didn’t steam got spaced
I lie crumpled now
In shedding skin
Crouching muscles
Hidden for a gym
I look lost
Talent-less, tossed
Not knowing begininings
Nor middles or ends
I find no bookmark
To rest awhile
I roll on
Urchinned entwined
Feeling in commas
Pausing at stops
Sometimes thinking my own
Sometime others quoted thoughts
I’m crumpled-stiltskin in
A corner found
Neither living nor dead
Not fading not found.

The Grand Cricket Appraisal

With the sheer variability of cricketing conditions - from the pitch to the weather conditions - affecting cricket scores, putting some sort of yardstick or benchmark for what determines good team scores, batting and bowling in the three forms of the game might sound like sheer stupidity.

But I’m embracing that stupidity and making a list of yardsticks for the fun of it, knowing very well how subjective it is.

There is a mild degree of objectivity in these yardsticks though. And in some ways one can use these yardsticks as a very broad thumb rule for the success or failure of teams and individuals.

OK here’s the Grand Cricket Appraisal

These are what I consider good or bad scores for teams:

Test

Lousy
100-200

Average
200-300

Good
300-400

Very Good
400-500

Outstanding
500+



ODI

Lousy
100-200

Average
200-250

Good
250-300

Very Good
300-350

Outstanding
350+



T20

Lousy
100-120

Average
120-150

Good
150-180

Very Good
180-200

Outstanding
200+

And here are what I consider good batting averages for individual players (for ODIs and T20s strike rates are essential too)

Great Test Batsman
Average – 50+
Strike Rate – N.A.

Great ODI Batsman
Average – 40+
Strike Rate 100+

Great T20 Batsman
Average – 35+
Strike Rate 140+

And for bowlers:

Great Test Bowler
Average – below 25
Economy Rate – N.A.

Great ODI Bowler
Average – below 25
Economy Rate – below 6

Great T20 Bowler
Average – below 20
Economy Rate – below 8

All comments, tomatoes, rotten eggs, suggestions, solutions, opinions invited

Boring Test Cricket

After my interest in test cricket being the "real" cricket got stirred again during the India-SL 3 Test series, the same interest completely zoned out in a horrendously dull and boring 3rd day's play of the deciding 3rd test between New Zealand and Pakistan at Napier.
After NZ got a sizeabale 250+ lead, Pakistan crawled their way to 128 for no loss by stumps.
Now, this could have been seen as an epic fightback, but after watching intently for over 2 hours I found it painfully dull and uninspiring, from a cricket lovers point of view. There are huge chunks of time in test cricket when absolutely nothing happens. The bowler runs in dunking almost the same thing ball after ball with slight variations and the batsman just defends decent delvieries and takes singles or twos of somewhat poor balls.
I contrast todays experience with the one I had yesterday during the mega-scoring 2nd T20 between India and Sri Lanka. The degree to which bowlers were under pressure to think and variate on each and every ball was amazing. Every ball was worth its weight in gold. One of the lessons of yesterday's match was Ishant Sharma who started off bowling beautifully yet ended up expensive with 2/42 of 4 overs. The reason he was expensive was he began in test mode with short bouncing and seaming deliveries and full, inswinging yorkers. One of those lethal yorkers was a classic test dismissal, bowling Dilshan for a duck. However after that, he carried on in Test mode against Sangakkara and Jayasuriya. He barely varied his pace at all. Therefore, while he got 2 wickets, he ended up expensive. In T20s the bowler needs everything - his test repertoire of full swinging yorkers, and short accurate bouncers to the body (the only test ball that ould be expensive is the one swinging outside off stump, while that can induce an edge in test cricket in the shortest format it allows batsmen to free their arms and whack). Apart from the yorker and short ball, the fast bowler needs a variety of slower balls - the very slow back of the hand knuckle ball, the leg cutter and the off cutter, also the slow bouncer and slow yorker. Every ball needs another strategy.
At the end of the day a bowler succeeds in any of the formats by being unpredictable. That's how a yorker after a succession of short balls gets a wicket, a googly after many leg spinners gets a wicket, a doosra after several offspinners, a quick arm ball after a series of flighted off spinners, an inswinger after several outswingers......
It's unpredictability which rewards a bowler in any of the forms - and the greatest pressure to be unpredictable comes in the T20 format.
Now, with batsmen too, the pressure to score takes them away from careful technique to unpredictable forays with both the willow and the stance. Backing away to the leg-side to make room, the dill-scoop, the moving towards off, the standing ouside the crease to convert a yorker into a full-toss, the reverse sweep etc. etc. etc. etc.
Fielding has to be at its best and so does captaincy, because every ball needs a careful look at the field and a word of advice to the bowler. There is no greater pressure on bowler, batsman, fielder and captain then the marvellous innovation of the millenium - the Twenty20!

Art Garfunkel

I don’t know if we have souls
But imagine we do
Then play Garfunkel singing
“I only have eyes for you”

His voice
Like clouds
Angelic
Will stroke your soul like
Warm, amber honey
Unguent, glowing
Anointing
Gently inflaming
Like seeping perfume

Or

Like Amber again
On shallow pools at the seaside
Rippling and reflecting sunset.

Perhaps he sat looking at East River
Or the Brooklyn Bridge
Maybe the Statue of Liberty melted
And lowered her gaze
Looking out towards the Atlantic
Graciously welcoming a breeze
That resembled his voice

The fiery glow of neon
And the wandering pathways of Central Park
The austere gothic skyscrapers
Measuring miles in the sky
And the steaming subway manholes
Belching out citizens
Into orphaned streets

The butterfly buzz in the atmosphere
After a baseball bat swings
And touches the electric crackle
Of glistening Times Square
All melting into your coffee cup
Gulped gently
Sipped slowly
Smoothening the crevices of your soul
As the song (timing it’s seconds out)
Comes to a slow stop
Leaving on your tongue
The aftertaste of heaven

Ave verum corpus

Every few days I pick a song
And wear it for a week or so.
Last week it was Bach's "Air"
This week, Mozart's "Ave verum corpus."

It's a privilege to stand in that line
Where the orphans are given food by the faithful.

I wore "corpus" the first day
When some of its divine choral voices
Came to me like a streak of holy sunlight on my bed.

I saw the twirling dust particles go back and forth
Like wavering humans in this still spiritual light.

I wore the song through shimmering heat-haze
On dusty roads, driving for an hour.

I wore it sitting on my terrace
Gazing at my potted plants at dawn.

I wore it the next day
Watching my daughter, fast asleep.

I wore it at midnight, hearing the hum of the AC
And the quiet of the moonlight.

It's strange to wear divine music
Through so many alleys and lanes
To hear it touch with grace whatever it sees

A week's gone by, it's time to take the song off now.
But before I do I want to hear it one last time.
With the tentacles of my imagintion withdrawn
I want to hear it
By itself
Pure
Naked
Music

Perhaps this time it'll be like the "brahman" the mystics talked about
When the senses detach themselves from illusory objects.

And I hear music in - only itself
Pure
Divine bliss!

Music.....now

Music now, belongs
To the cynic, the critic
The slayer of sound

To lyrics that blush
And music of embarrassed
Nursery rhyme

To marketing
The press-con, the byte hungry
News hound

Songs educated by MBAs
Cast out for surveys
Abound!

Is it tra-la-la enough?
Does it merge
With the breeze?

Is it hipper and hopper?
FM friendly?
A traffic stopper?

Top 40, Top 50,
Sweet melody
Dolloped on ice cream

As background,
For teenaged, backless
Backseats

Behind sunscreen
In ear-piece
Amid elevators
And hotel lobbies

On posters with freebies
On facebook, on mp3.




Sound hasn’t thundered
Or wondered
Or mellowed
Or howled

Or disturbed
And perturbed
Or mangled
Or growled

Hasn’t
Used Art for art’s sake
Used craft or stave
Not written or smitten
Or educated and played

It’s under a thumb
Thicker than dumb
Eclipsed by a moon
That deafens tunes

In AMTs and Sec A-Bs
As backgrounds for TGs
Hooks please
No cacophony

It’s found its resting place
De-fanged and commodified
Turned into a product
That you sell
And I buy.