Dear Youngest Federer...

Time to write about the Swiss boy, Roger Federer. Just finished watching him crush Hewitt on way to another Australian open finals. What caught my attention about him suddenly out of the blue was the video which one of my friends had posted in her facebook account. It is a beautiful piece of narration, the link to which i have provided below. I wont write much about this man. Watching him play is like visual poetry.

 A wrist made of rubber and the calmness and poise which would put even the greatest of athletes to shame. Greatness never got on his head, and his humility still wins the heart even if he loses the game. Pistol Pete was considered the undisputed king of modern Tennis, but not long before this kid jumped into the fray. He just allowed 7 years for Pete to keep his record.

Check out this link......
ESPN'S letter to Roger Federer's Children

This was a tribute by ESPN to the great star. The video is in the form of a narrative about the legend himself addressed to Roger's kids. It goes like...


Dear Youngest Federer,

By the time you are old enough to understand this, your father wont be the player he once was. So this is for you from those of us who were there, just to tell you who he was.

He was like a champion like tennis had never seen. He was like a page out of the most romantic novel. He was so graceful that any ballet dancer would want to burn her shoes. He was fast but not the one you would notice, he was powerful but like a Ferrari and not a Hummer.

They all came at him and they all fell to him, major after major, year after year. Your father dominated the sport the way avalanches dominate the trees and yet he was so humble and decent that it became no shame to lose to him. In fact it became a kind of honor. To lose to Roger Federer meant you were woven into the fabric of sports history. And what a history he wrote.

You will read about it some day and it will shock you but his finest moment might have been a sun splashed sunday at Wimbeldon when he passed the Pete Sampras record for majors with 15. Some thought we might not ever see that day, thought Pete was followed by younger, bulkier and useless models. But they were wrong. God's never get vanish, they reincarnate.


When you would be mature enough to understand ,Tennis would be less important. Majors would become minors, trophies will become showcase pieces. But your father's perfect life would become somehow, get even better.

How Sweet.....this is the way greatness should be praised.... :)

One more advertisement goes like this,

15 Grand Slams

John McEnroe: 15 majors. It is double of what i got (crying). Congrats (grumbling). Thanks for making us look so average.

Serena Williams : Wao. It makes me wanna cry.

Miachel Jordan: I didn't win 15 anything. Congrats.

Pete Sampras : 7 years, you have me keep this record. It's is tough to swallow. 15 this is your number. Congratulations Roger, you did it.

Tiger Woods : That's pretty cool. Hmm not bad.

LOVE 15 

IBS Hyderabad Unintentionally Seminal....

I wrote this blog on the morning after our farewell. Waking up early morning and standing in your balcony, you look towards the campus and realize that your journey in the campus is about to end. The early morning mist welcomes you and through the fog, you can see the academic block which had been your mecca.

Looking back through the mindless classes, boring lectures, proxies, assignments, printouts, I M Pandeys & Kotlers, powerpoint slides etc in the end nothing will matter. What matters most to us is the time spent here and the memory we will carry through. The Binger's coffee, the college canteen, the gaming sessions, the cricket ground, the mess, the never ending discussions, the grapevine, the gossip mongers, the city bus, the Ramalulus, Dhabas and the Sharmas, the birthday bashes, the night walks, stu-z, movies, files trasfer of gtalk etc was what made up our life here. The days spent here would carry on to be the best days of our lives...(sounding cliched :) yes..). In the end everyone will get a job and get settled but that leisure and free time will not be there.We had the power of youth with us.Your youth is that moment, that spark which you will always carry in your heart.  

 

The last two years in the campus has been breathless, tumultuous, acrimonious, humourous, chaotic, crass, and unintentionally seminal. You name any human emotion and you will find it here. How the coming years will shape up will depend a lot on the beliefs, memories and wisdom that you gather from this place. You end up making some friends as well as some foes and learn from their life. The place may not teach us be good great managers/damagers, but it surely will enrich your people management skills. Sometimes i think we lived in a utopia here.

 

Someone said very correctly that as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth. The future experiences will make you more smarter and street smart. But while driving your car back from the office and gazing at youngsters hanging out, do remember the life that you left behind. IBS Hyderabad for good or for bad, i surely will remember you for life.

 

State on Steroids

Before going through this post, kindly have a look at these two links.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/Bihar-grew-by-1103-next-only-to-Gujarat/articleshow/5405973.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/New-Delhi-Patna-best-cities-to-start-business-World-Bank/articleshow/4720294.cms

For a person belonging to Bihar, the news comes as a huge sigh of relief. Finally the state is on a growth path and the state goverment is actually taking measures to bring about a major turnaround in the state. For people who have not been to the place, Bihar projects an image of poverty, lawlessness, corruption and anarchy. We should not blame them because we ourselves are to blame. It is a very common thing to see people from our state trying to hide the "Stigma" of being called a Bihari. Once people migrate to other places they try to put a fake accent and make fun of their own language. Bhojpuri and other regional languages have become a topic of mockery beacause of the way it is being projected in the media and the cheap and offensive music videos.

Let me serve you some facts about your motherland: (Taken from http://www.gov.bih.nic.in/)

• Earliest myths and legends of hinduism the Sanatana (Eternal) Dharma - are associated with Bihar.
• Sita was the princess from Bihar. Sitamarhi was the place where she was born.
• Sita was born to Janaka who ruled Videha, which comprised of a major part of Bihar.
• Original author of the Hindu epic - The Ramayana - Maharishi Valmiki - lived in Ancient Bihar. Valmikinagar is a small town and a railroad station in the district of West Champaran, close to the railhead of Narkatiyaganj in northwest Bihar.
• It was here that Prince Gautam attained enlightenment, became the Buddha- at the present Bodh Gaya- a town in central Bihar; and the great religion of buddhism was born.
• It is here also that Lord Mahavira, the founder of another great religion, Jainism, was born and attained nirvana (death). That site is located at the present town of Pawapuri
• It is here that the tenth and last Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh was born and attained the sainthood of sikhism, that is became a Guru. A lovely and majestic Gurudwara wa built to commemorate his memory - the harmandir- and is located in eastern Patna. Known reverentially as the Patna Sahib, it is one of the five holiest places of worhip (Takhat) for Sikhs.
• The advent of statecraft, administration and economics can be related to the kingdom of Magadh.
• Kautilya, the author of Arthashastra, the first treatise of the modern science of Economics, lived here. Also known as Chanakya, he was the wily and canny adviser to the Magadh king, Chandragupta Maurya.
• Chankya brought about amicable co-existence between the Greeks and the Mauryan Empire, at a time when the greeks had razed a major part of India. Megasthenes, an emissary of Alexander's General, Seleucus Necator, lived in Pataliputra (ancient name of Patna, the Mauryan capital) around 302 B.C. He left behind a chronicle of life in and around Patliputra. This is the first recorded account by a foreign traveler in India. It describes in vivid terms the grandeur of life in Patliputra, a city established by King Ajatshatru, around 5th Century B.C., at the confluence of the rivers Sone and Ganga.
• Another Mauryan king, Ashok, (also known as Priyadarshi or Priyadassi), around 270 B.C., was the first to formulate firm tenets for the governance of the people.
• Also, Ashok's dharma chakra was incorporated into the national flag of India, the Indian tricolor.
• Ashok was responsible also for the widespread proselytization of people into Buddhism.
• Ancient Bihar also saw the glorification of women in matters of state affairs. It was here that Amrapali, a courtesan of Vaishali (the present district of the same name) in the kingdom of the Lichhavis, attained and wielded enormous power.
• It was here that Budha announced chose to announced to his disciples the news of his impending niravana .
• At Nalanda, the world's first seat of higher learning, an university, was established during the Gupta period. It continued as a seat of learning till the middle ages, when the muslim invaders burned it down. The ruins are a protected monument and a popular tourist spot.
• Nearby, Rajgir, was capital of the Muaryan Empire during the reign of Bimbisara. It was frequently visited by Lord Buddha and Lord Mahavira. There are many Buddhist ruins here. It is also well-known for its many hot-springs which, like similar hot-springs elsewhere in the world, are reputed to have medicinal property.
• In medieval times Bihar lost its prestige as the political and cultural center of India. The Mughal period was a period of unremarkable provincial administration from Delhi. The only remarkable person of these times in Bihar was Sher Shah, or Sher Khan Suri, an Afghan. Based at Sasaram which is now a town in the district of the same name in central-western Bihar, this jagirdar of the Mughal King Babur was successful in defeating Humayun, the son of Babur, twice - once at Chausa and then, again, at Kannauj (in the present state of Uttar Pradesh or U.P.) Through his conquest Sher Shah became the ruler of a territory that, again, extended all the way to the Punjab.
• During most of British India, Bihar was a part of the Presidency of Bengal, and was governed from Calcutta.
• Rajendra Prasad, native of Ziradei, in the district of Saran, bihar became the first President of the Republic of India.
• It was from Bihar that Mahatma Gandhi launched his civil-disobedience movement, which ultimately led to India's independence. At the persistent request of a farmer, Raj Kumar Shukla, from the district of Champaran, in 1917 Gandhiji took a train ride to Motihari, the district headquarters of Champaran. Here he learned, first hand, the sad plight of the indigo farmers suffering under the oppressive rule of the British. Alarmed at the tumultuous reception Gandhiji received in Champaran, the British authorities s
• Some of the prominent leaders and freedom fighters belong to the state.
• It was Jayprakash Narayan (JP) who who steadfastly and staunchly opposed the autocratic rule of Indira Gandhi and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi. Fearing people's reaction to his opposition, Indira Gandhi had him arrested on the eve of declaring National Emergency beginning June 26, 1975. He was put in the Tihar Jail, located near Delhi, where notorious criminals are jailed. Thus, in Free India, this septuagenarian, who had fought for India's freedom alongside Indira Gandhi's father, Jawahar Lal Nehru, received a treatment that was worse than what the British had meted out to Gandhiji in Champaran in 1917, for his speaking out against oppression.
• The history of Hindi literature can not be complete without mentioning the names of Raja Radhika Raman Singh, Shiva Pujan Sahay, Divakar Prasad Vidyarthy, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Ram Briksha Benipuri. They are some of the luminaries who contributed to the flowering of Hindi literature, which did not have much of a long history.

The more you dig into the history of this place, the more it continues to amaze you and makes you proud. So next time when somebody calls you a Bihari, for heaven's sake don't consider it as a stigma. By doing so you are not only bringing shame to your state but also to the great souls who lived here. A state or a nation does not become great unless it's people help it become one. If you only abandon your motherland then how can you expect it to become developed.

The idea behind laying down the facts above is not to glorify the state but to make people be aware of their glorious past. Talk to people of our generation and these facts are only lost pages of our history books.  The pillars of modern India were formed in ancient Magadh kingdom. The greatest epics and the most widely followed religions found birth in this place. Long before you talked about megacities there stood a place called Patliputra which laid the foundations for the modern civilisations. With the passge of time and growing misrule lead to a gradual degradation of the place. Added to it poverty and caste war, we had a perfect situation of jungle rule. Right from my childhood, i have seen abject conditions in the state. Everytime we used to visit other states, i used to wonder that why can't we also be like this. Even the basic ammenities of life like good roads and electricity used to be a luxury for us. The state kept on churning wonder kids with a major share of seat in IIT's and civil services taken up by students from Bihar. But no one stayed back because of the dearth of opportunities here and moved to work in other places. The only thing in which the state flourished was poverty, lawlessness and the casteism. It is sometimes very funny to notice that how much importance is given to your caste here. The jungle rule and Lalu Raj lead to state spiralling towards further degradation. With the formation of Jharkhand, the state was left with very few cities and important centers of trade and commerce. Things started going from bad to worse and then came a change in the fortunes of the state when Nitish Kumar was voted in to power. Bihar’s GDP grew by an astounding 11.03% in the fiveyear period between 2004-05 and 2008-09, much more than the national average of 8.49%, and ranked second only to Gujarat, which recorded a growth rate of 11.05% during the corresponding period. This is a very good example of what good governance can do even in a god forsaken place.

It has been 7 years now since i left Patna, but everytime i go back it continues to amaze me. It seems that finally the place has started ressurecting and you can visibly see the changes. The infrastructure of Patna has seen a revamp in last three and the city is undergoing a major facelift. Same development should be carried to other towns and villages also. Things will only improve from here, and hopefully a day will come when we can go back proudly and work in our own native place.JAI BIHAR....

Sachinism..

It would be criminal on my side not to write anything about Sachin in my blog. After paying tribute to his disciple Sehwag, now it is the master's turn. I cannot imagine any sportsman in my memory to carry the enormous burden of millions of fans  over such a long span of time. Sachin for India is a national treasure. For a  country of over a billion, if ever there has been a single soul to bind the nation together, it's no one but him.

My fantasy for the gentleman's game started in the early nineties. Soon the fantasy turned into craze and now a religion. The early memories of Sachin batting was him opening in India's tour in New Zealand in 1993-94.

During those times cable television used to be a luxury, so we had to visit the nearest electronics store or a neighbour's house to watch India play unless you were lucky enough to have DD telecasting the match. Watching him play the punching straight drive, as well his attacking cricket soon got me hooked to his style of batting. He got his first century after nearly playing 80 ODIs and since then there has been no looking back.

My love for Sachin is unconditional or it's no love at  all. You may like someone conditionally on their personality or behavior or circumstances. But true love for a hero accepts no boundaries. I never say "I adore you Sachin because....", for true respect and adulation has no cause. Love comes from god and in your case i am sorry to say that even god turns human. One fine afternoon a big banner in the infamous 2007 Syndey test (infamous for monkeygate scandal) read like this, "Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting, for even god stops and watches him bat". How true....

Today there is a lot of debate on ODIs and 20-20 replacing test cricket. But for purists like me, test cricket is the true test of your callibre. Players like Sachin make watching tests even more engrossing because of the sheer amount of skill and mental focus required in this form of the game. Going by recent trends the amount of tests being played are dwindling alarmingly and it would become very difficult for any player of this era to beat Sachin's record in test cricket. If anything only Pointing posses some real threat. Sachin would still  remain the supreme king in the ODI format for a long time to come.

Critics often compare Sachin with other greats and complain that he is not a match winner. I would like to remind them that put them in Sachin's shoes and then see how they perform. When Sachin bats a billion hopes of a cricket crazy nation are resting on him. To constantly deliver for years and then promising for more speaks volumes about his consistency and the love for the game. While his counterparts have fizzled away and retired Sachin still stands there with the same passion for the game. His cherubic smile and the infectious childlike passion for the game still keeps on inspiring his teamates. Batting greats like Lara, Mark and Steve Waugh, Inzamamul Haq and many others have always been there but no one has stood the test of time like him. He single handedly lead Indias quest for world cup glory in 1996 as well as 2003, and almost got them there. Still critics question his ability to deliver when it matters. It can't get bigger than performing at the  world cup. With 2011 world cup being played in the subcontinent next year, it wont come as a surprise to me when he again lifts his game and propel India towards the ultimate glory.

The big question which often strikes us is the future of Indian cricket without the master. It is a scenario which  is  something very difficult to imagine. The void left by him will be irreplacable. He will leave behind a legacy which can put even the great greek warriors to shame. It is often said that records are made to be broken but please dont be heart broken if his records remain intact for generations to come. Talking about his life apart from cricket, he is a complete family man. His upbringing, his mannerisms and the way he carries himself off and on the field should inspire us. The success and adulation has never got into his head and he still remains the family man.

If ever the lyrics of  the song "Hallelujah" was rewritten, it would go like this..

Now i have seen there was a secret shot,

That Sachin played, and it pleased the Lord,

But you don't really care for glory, do you?

It goes like this,

The fours, the six,

The upper cut , the major hit,

The baffled bowlers composing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

Hallelujah Sach...