What a final.

First, I confess, I did not follow anything in the Australian Open, except the last 2 hours of yesterday's match.

Yesterday, I also figured exactly why I stopped watching any kind of sport. I hate to have to go through the vicarious sense of loss. It is all ok when whomever you are rooting for wins, but when they lose, it is just way too much waste of emotions on a loss that is not even your own! I think when I was younger I could afford it maybe(?) but of late, I have completely shut off because I have other things to prioritize and feel a sense of loss towards..

So anyways, I stopped watching the match, when, in the fourth set, Djok could have broken serve but did not. He looked too tired. And I didn't want to see him lose, I was rooting for him (I know a lot of people will hate me, but I never liked Rafa ;), his sport is too rowdy, too burlish). But when we turned on the TV to see they were still neck to neck in the fifth set, I figured both are equally good/bad/tired/mentally tough and just watched it through. What a match! And what a reaction at the end from Djok, perfect! His relief (more than happiness) came from the pits of his stomach and everyone could see that. During the presentation which was short already, neither was able to stand on their own, total physical exhaustion! Full paisa vasool match for all those guys who stayed in that stadium till 2 AM!

Elastic!!!

I was having lunch with some of my friends from High School one Friday a couple months back, and I asked them if they remembered the "Elastic" game. Without spoiling the fun (and because I tried to explain this game to Subhash, with no success), I will simply say that its a game you play with human poles hoisting a band of elastic around them and you jumping up and down the two edges of it, skillfully. Initially the band is at the ankles, then as you display more skill, it gets tougher, and the band goes higher.

I was asking them if they wanted to play it sometime, and rightly so, they were a little hesitant;)

I remember, we were MAD about that game, any 5 minutes of spare time, would be consumed thus:

1)Setting up human poles (neighbor's kids etc) (1 min)
2) If not possible, even try to make do with the "modas" at home.
3)Play for the rest of the 4 mins;)

I think I could easily reach level 2 in 5 minutes.

The "Elastic" band of course would have to be of good quality. Supple, and stretchy ones were my favorite;) But I would adjust with anything. So many lunch hours spent on it!! So much so that the teachers started checking our bags and throwing out the bands aghast at the horror of this dangerous game!!

Fun!!

Of losses, excuses and SPAM!;)

So India or team-India like they fancy calling themselves, finally did the unthinkable. Kicked themselves out of World Cup 2007 in the most ignominious way. Well, what can we expect. I wasn't thinking they would go through anyway.

So that was the loss. But that was not the only loss. I don't want to write tomes about their incompetency, their staid game, their total shamelessness etc. I think enough has been said and written about that. But I know of more material and emotional (yeah, can you believe its not just a sport anymore!) losses. Of all the all-inclusive packages that fans bought, hoping we would go that far into the world-cup which turned to be not-so-inclusive in the end, thanks to our great heroes;)

When people ask me if I follow cricket or if I was watching the match the other night, I just say, man, I stopped watching cricket in 1999. In Eden Gardens, Kolkata, our "boys" were losing so pathetically in the semi-finals of the World Cup that audience had to take it into their hands (literally) to throw bottles and the works! I was so ashamed that night, that cricket just snapped out of my system. Till date I haven't watched one full match of cricket after that. Nothing by design, I just snapped. I was like, this is not even worth wasting your time on...

This Friday, I was working from home, told my boss that I wanted to see if I could revive some of my lost interest in cricket. But with one final swoop, it fell completely, with the blue-shirts going home with pathetic expressions...

Then come the excuses, and the different ways in which people try to console themselves. It was an interesting thought, and I hadn't thought of it myself. After our loss to Bangladesh, we were having dinner at a friends place and one of the company said, you know all these matches are fixed. And the expression was close to certainty, like having some real inside information. Then this other person started to refute it by saying, yeah I know you are hurting, so whenever we lose we try to pin it on something to console ourselves, let betting be your solace. Very thought-provoking. If we win we never think about maybe we "bought" this victory, but if we lose, oh yeah, someone else definitely fixed this match, yeah!!!!

Then comes the SPAM. Endless jokes on cricketers. They are fun to read though, especially when you are fuming about why we lost. After a while, they start getting monotonous at least to me.

And yet someone else was saying, we still have hope, maybe Bermuda will win vs Bangladesh, and I am like, well if its come to that, where we have to rely on Bermuda's performance to piggy-back into the World Cup, then thanks, but no thanks! We don't deserve to go that far only to lose more humiliatingly to some other brilliant team...

But then I saw the Australia-RSA match. And there was some cricket that reminded me of the days when I used to follow it. Excitement, action, fun, adrenaline!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Of course it fizzled out in the end too, but, it was still 2 -3 hours of pure entertainment) I think I might start watching cricket again after all, I know "who" to follow now to revive interest in the game, but the India team's "boys" won't have an audience in me, no no!

How my Racquetball went for a toss

..was thinking about writing this in the blog this morning when I was playing racquetball with Aayana;) I thought, why not, its a good matter for a few laughs!

So I took this course in Racquetball in Spring 2002 when I was doing my Masters in the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Actually, come to think of it, what my friends used to say about how I "played" through to get my Masters kind of sounds right to me now;):P

I took Racquetball 101 in Spring 2002, and Swimming 101 in Fall 2002, and then in 2003 I interned for GE, (which was a sizeable 1-year chunk of my Masters career) AND during that time I did a German 101 course:P I also dared to register for Golf 101 in the Summer of 2002 but later dropped out. Now none of these credits counted toward my degree as such, but I was so totally "vela" (read as extraordinarily capable of multitasking:P) that I did these anyway;)

So anyway I went and bought a Racquet dutifully at Dunham Sports in West Gate Mall and me and my roomie Navrina started going to the class. That was my first "unnecessary" purchase in the US ever (no, I am not counting all the double-scoop waffle cones I ate up every evening at Union Square or Memorial Union, and that got me to 145lbs too, mind you). The first time I dared to buy something that was not an absolute necessity.

Then we started playing, boy, that class was at 7.10 in the morning I think, and we started off in what is possibly the worst winter month in WI, February. I still remember wearing multiple layers of clothes and taking them all off in the locker room, and going out to play in shorts. This was one exercise that made us take 2 hours for what would have been a 50 minute class:P Wearing clothes and jackets and shoes and gloves and what-not = 15 min, taking them off in SERF = 15min, you know again wearing them and taking them off at home, phew!! A whole hour gone just in bracing against the winter demon.

So anyway I played and played all Spring and the instructor was really good. We used to have these fun tournaments, and eventually at the end of the sem, I think I used to always play in the "Winner's court", I was always second, there was this other guy who was totally good. But this morning I was thinking, whoa! that seems so distant. I still remember even after that sem, I continued playing Racquetball for nearly a year till Summer of 2003. I used to play alone, when I didn't have anyone to play with, but it was fun:P

BUT you should see me play now, this morning was my second round after nearly three years since I started, and I was pathetic:)) May the powers in nature, bestow back on me my once good game ! (That was a lame attempt at creating a blessing jibe)

So you are thinking, what is the ohh-so-important point in this blog, does this need so much blogspace? Answer is no!!! I wasn't having anything better to do so I wrote it, and if you are mad, then I am not responsible (Yes, this is a disclaimer!)

Howzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!