Dehradun and Beyond

Just got back from a trip to a place I have never been - Dehradun. The biggest driving force for me to go there was to see the grandeur of the Himalayas, even from far, and I set off to Dehradun. Apart from wandering around Dehradun and trying to spot places that Ruskin Bond has so delightfully mentioned in his novels and other books, I also travelled to places like Chakrata which gave me the first and rather distant views of snow capped Himalayan peaks, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Mussoorie, Dhanolti (which had far more awesome views of the snow capped peaks), Chamba and even a peek at the awesomeness of the Tehri dam.

The mountain air, the flora and fauna, the blue skies, the birds, the tranquility, the peace that seeps in at Haridwar and Rishikesh, the steep walks of Mussoorie make you aware that these places are not to be visited as places to be ticked off. They have to be imbibed, stayed in, sat quietly, walked through until the experience becomes part of you.

One can walk for days in those mountains, along roads lined with the sangwan, pine, sal trees that seem to touch the sky. One can sit on the banks of the Ganges at Haridwar and Rishikesh all day and just seep in the experience. One can breathe in the mountain air, try to name the birds and plants and flowers and it could take a lifetime.

And not to forget that I was also keen to meet Mr. Ruskin Bond while in Mussoorie and did get to meet him for a delightful half hour as well. More on all this later, as I catch my breath in the plains after the rush in the mountains.

The Ruskin Bond Festival

One Indian writer I always wanted to read but never got down to was Ruskin Bond. I only heard and read stories of this mysterious writer who lived in the hills of Mussoorie and wrote children's stories and other stuff and wrote stories for a living. So the other day I picked up several of his books from the bookstore and started reading them one after another.

The collection included 'The Best of Ruskin Bond' which has many short stories, excerpts from his novels and a novella that made its appearance the frist time, 'A Season of Ghosts' a collection of ghost stories and one detective story, his first novel which he wrote at 17 'The Room On The Roof' and 'Vagrants In The Valley' a two-in-one, 'A Handful of Nuts' a novella on his younger days amid friends, 'Landour Days' and 'Roads to Mussoorie' both short essays and articles about his days in the hills and plains of Dehradun, 'Our Trees Still Grow In Dehra' a collection of stories which includes 'The Flight of Pigeons' which was made into a movie Junoon.

Reading the books is easy, pleasurable and for the first time since my childhood, I got thesame feeling that one gets during the first days of the summer vacation when you have a seemingly endless stretch of vacation before you, a good book to rerad and no one to disturb you in your kingdom. Ruskin Bond's books have that pace, that ambience and flavour and are ideal to curl up with and read. More on them later.

Dhoni - Clarity and Simplicity

If ever Dhoni wishes, he can become a great novelist. He has amazing clarity and he keeps it very simple. I loved what he said the other day after losing the match against South Africa, when a clearly uncomfortable, ill looking Ravi Shastri asked in a voice that was giving way - "so what are the lessons you carry from here?"

And Dhoni says with a smile - Don't play for the crowd, play for your country.

My vote to Dhoni for President any day. It is the most inspiring slogan I have heard in any field in our country by any leader. And yes, if and when Dhoni wishes to enter politics, I will support him in every way I can. This guy has clarity, he knows how to get the best out of people, he supports his team and he does what he thinks is best for the side.

So my dear leaders, it goes for you too - Don't play for the crowds, play for your country!

Sachin's hundred - A jinx?

It is tragic but true. How can a wonderfully compiled hundred go against the team? And not one - Sachin has made so many hundreds which were wonderful to watch, made against great opposition, sometimes with injury. But on the verge of the seemingly well-fought and well-deserved win, the rest of the team has somehow conjured up several different ways to lose. From the loss to Pakistan in Chennai many years ago when Sachin made a valiant 158 with a troubled back and made one indiscretion - of getting out some 17 runs before crossing the line. But then 5 wickets fell in a heap after his wicket, giving Pakistan a most improbable win. So it was the other day when India was looking good for 400 even after the start Sachin and Sehwag gave, 350 at the very least, and we conjured another loss out of nowhere.

What happens to the rest of the team when Sachin scores a hundred is a mystery. This is what someone who has the capabilities to understand the dressing room psyche needs to analyse. What we need, and quickly, is a team that can add around what Sachin has built. He is scoring hundreds very rapidly now, almost once in every two innings, and we need the rest to get their act in place. Do they lose their focus in awe? Do they think okay, let him do it since he is doing such a great job? Do they think - who will notice us when someone bats like this? Do they think - ah, let us also try to bat like this? Or does it so happen that all their energies are used up when Sachin is batting? Or do they think - no way, we cannot win when Sachin gets a hundred? Someone please solve this mystery to me - why do all batsmen lose their batting focus when Sachin gets a hundred?

If this greatest of all mysteries is not solved soon and set right there can only be another way for India to start performing as a team - retire Sachin at 99 so we have more favourable results when he is on song.

India Makes Heavy Weather of Netherlands - World Cup

The Indian team scraped through their match against Netherlands in an inconsequential match. The bowling looked ordinary as it always did during this tournament and whatever accolades people are showering on Zaheer and Yuvraj are, I feel, rather overenthusiastic. Harbhajan lacked bite, Piyush looked ordinary, Nehra went for a few. This is Netherlands mind you and one would expect a better performance.

But if the bowling was iffy, then the batting, our main strength got us worried. This total should have been overtaken without a sweat with our famed batting line up. Instead we were in a spot of bother and another wicket at the stage when Gambhir left, would have made us really sweat. Again, though it will add tremendously to Yuvraj's confidence, which is good for India, I see no reason for everyone to go to town about a fifty against Netherlands.

Overall, it looks shaky, tentative and not confident which is rather surprising because this side is capable of doing much more. So much self doubt at this stage is not warranted.

In the morning I was subjected to many discussions, though for a few minutes each, on why Ashwin should play and not Piyush. Mandira Bedi led the discussions, led a bunch of retired cricketers, a couple of loud mouthed cricket journalists, coyly on why Ashwin should have been there. Please, give me a break. What will all your discussions do, why do you discuss such issues at all when none of you have played even 1% of the cricket that Dhoni has played or won for India. Leave the guy to his own machinations and stop talking about things that you know nothing about. Least of all, from a program anchored by Mandira Bedi who seems to the heights of cricketing intelligence these days.

If that is not all we have all sorts of programs these days that add nothing of value to the cricket fan save a lot of speculation, a complete waste of time. They have even stopped being entertaining - anchors, commentators. Maybe for a change they could try and do something intelligent like making some intelligent cricketers or journalists talk about the game. No one can hold a match to Richie Benaud of the current crop and I do miss Holding, Boycott, Greig. I was glad to find Ian Chappell in one panel though and he spoke as he only can - straight, well thought of analysis that is to the point. It is amazing how he remains relevant even today though he has played so many years ago. Good for you Ian. As for the rest, please pull up your socks guys - your commentating is getting as boring as your cricket was in your hey days.

Anjali - New Avenues, New Conquests

And as Anjali grows and explores life around her, I can see that she is progressing quite rapidly these days, mostly without our help. For example the other day she was all set to change the CD in the DVD player and I wondered what she would do. I asked her what she proposed to do and she demonstrated it to me. She flitted across to the DVD player, pressed the button to eject the CD, pulled off the CD, put another one, pressed the button again and for good measure, pushed it in physically. I told her that she need not push it in, and that she could rotate the CD by pressing another button and she happily does that. Yesterday she came and found out how to get the TV set onto AV mode and she seems set with her CDs, long as they are within her reach.

Another thing that she learnt to do recently is to check out the other links on youtube by herself. If we get her on to a nursery rhyme she has learnt enough control of the mouse to check out the links by the side by clicking on them. This is obviously much faster than what the older people can learn - I remember trying to teach that to other older people and somehow their motor mechanisms are so rigid when compared to young children.

Among other new stuff she has started to do is draw her own shapes of flowers which she then proceeds to colour. Earlier she would ask us to draw and the colour what we have drawn but now she seems to have realised that her drawing is probably as good as ours and she has decided to do it herself.

It is an interesting phase and one that keeps us wondering on how the human mind can work if it wants to.

The Heat Is On

Reminds me of the Glen Frey hit in the 'Beverly Hills Cop' and fun times we had around it. One of the biggest fans of this movie was Naresh who found Axel F's theme music really intriguing and I remember seeing him do a break dance at the CBIT festival on that number. Now doing anything beyond dark in CBIT those days in the mid-eighties seems like madness - the entire place was deserted and I wonder how everyone survived, but that's besides the point. The point is the Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy, Naresh and Glen Frey. A nice peppy number, good to listen to but one of those numbers which never got under my skin. I mean I could listen t it but I never found an urge to listen to it over and over again.

Anyway, every time the heat goes up, we do remember the song faithfully. It is that time of the year that the heat starts to go up and in Hyderabad it has gone up significantly in the last few days. I mean the rise has been so sharp that we could catch ourselves saying - 'hey, someone go easy on the thermostat'. And if the weather God was a service provider within our reach we would have many indignant callers and writers demanding that he be hauled over by CBI or whatever department which does this work for doing an inefficient job. But suffice to say, I have not seen such a sharp rise in temperature so suddenly in so many years. The kind of a summer heat that stuns you into sleep mode after lunch compulsorily.

Till a couple of days ago I have been able to do my work in my room without the services of my ceiling fan - a faithful relic from the past which seems to have gone beyond all repair. It just refused to move one fine day a month ago and I let it be, hoping that the cranky old thing might start work again. Until the other evening when I really felt the need for one. The heat was really getting to me so I decided to retire the said fan and get a replacement. Old went out, new came in and started whirring with great enthusiasm..

Last summer the heat in Hyderabad hovered around 45 degrees for most part. This summer has started off promisingly as well and should be in that region or more by the looks of it. Indoors, is the place to be. However the clear blue skies are a great sight, just as the prospect of mangoes and other summer related stuff. Onwards then, to meet summer.