Saurav long live

It was July 2002. My dad had just had his bypass surgery. The previous month had been extremely stressful for me.

And then on 13th July, the epic Natwest final happened. I still vividly remember the scenes in Vikaspuri after that. People bursting crackers everywhere, dancing in joy. I remember being overjoyed too, for some moments, forgetting the stress at home. I felt extremely extremely good when dada did a salman khan that day.

Somebody who visited my dad the next day in hospital told me that one of the first questions he asked was what happened of the Indo-English match.

Now, these are moments in the life of an Indian cricket fan that one cannot quantify. Statistics will reveal that India won by two wickets with 3 balls to spare. Nothing on earth can quite reveal the joy Dada’s men provided us that day.

There have been multiple such moments where Dada has brought us infinite joy. Quite a lot of us actually believed that we could win the 2003 world cup. With Tendulkar- God himself- blessed be his name, Dada formed the most destructive opening pair in the late 90’s and the early 2000’s. We finally had our own (better version of) Haynes and Greenidge.

Lets go back further into history. Remember the Sahara cup in Canada, India v/s Pakistan. Wow what a series it was. One of first times I remember seeing India rout Pakistan so mercilessly. Dada was man of the match in 4 out of 5 matches. He excelled with the bat and the ball.

Remember Lords, 1996, Dada scoring that century on debut.

Remember that century at Brisbane.

Remember Steve Waugh’s last match when the Aussies were literally fighting to save their ***.

Remember those clean lofted hits over long on and long off…straight into the stands.

Dada would always be remembered as that guy who taught the Indian team to fight and win.

And then remember all those brickbats thrown at him. When that stupid egotic, Greg Chappell did whatever he did, we, as a nation, instead of standing by Dada, chose to speak Chappell’s language.

Remember those who said Dada’s career is over when he was dropped. The epitome of yellow journalism in India, the TOI, wrote a headline “has this man played his last match” with a snap of Dada walking back to the pavilion.

Remember that pepsi ad when Dada came and asked us if we still remembered him.

Remember the way he came back into the team and scored that 50 against South Africa. To me, that would remain the best ever knock he played. It is not easy to perform so well when so many question marks hover around your neck.

He scored so so so many runs after coming back. And yet, he was dropped. No cricketing reasons for sure.

What is it that made him Indian cricket’s favourite whipping boy?

Lets look at this further. There are people in our classrooms, in our offices, in our neighbourhood that we love to hate. Some for reasons genuine, and some, purely because of some insecurity we get by seeing them. Was this the case of Dada as well?

They say perceptions are hard to make and harder to break. My sense is that it is these perceptions that made Dada the favourite whipping boy. Some people just probably felt insecure with him around.

Can any sane person stand up and say that Dada’s cricketing days were genuinely over?

Dada and Tendulkar- God himself- blessed be his fame, are still better than any Tom Dick or Harry in the team. I aint getting into rhetoric. If you wanna debate around the stats or non-stats, welcome.

As a cricket fan, I feel I have been robbed off at least 18-24 months of Dada’s cricketing days.

I shall await the IPL season the next year to watch Dada in action again, thought it wont be half as good as watching him play for India.

When the history books on Indian cricket shall be written, Dada shall stand tall amongst the mortals. There will be only Tendulkar-God himself- blessed be his game, above him in this era.

Was a pleasure watching you play Dada. Privileged to have grown up in an era where you did all that you did.

This blog is dedicated to my good friend, philosopher and guide- my role model- Sir TP, the other Dada fan that I know. One sms of Sir TP sums up the spirit of the quintessential Dada fan. Once when Dada got out, Sir TP sent me an sms- “Dada has just sacrificed his wicket for the nation”.

Jiyo Dada!! Thanks for those amazing memories.

Khayaal-e-Kashmir

Its 11.30 in the night. I'm walking on a dark lonely road. This is one of the militancy hit places in the country. I can't think of anything more adventurous to do than take this late night walk. The clear night sky looks beautiful. There are twinkling stars strewn around- some randomly and some in constellations. And then there are some hiding behind the tall mountains, black in the night. And then there are those handful of houses on these mountains, their lights forming a pattern not different from the stars in the sky. Given the height of these mountains, it takes a while to differentiate between the stars and the light-bulbs. The river, blue-green in the morning, black-silver and mirror-like in the night, flows by silently. The cold wind caresses my hair, stings my face making me numb on the nose and the cheeks.

And then, for a moment, the lights go off. In the silence that pervades the night, I suddenly hear Aamir Khusro's words-

Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast.

Welcome to Jammu & Kashmir.

My long awaited tour to Baglihar got over yesterday. There are some sights of J & K that words cannot do justice to.... for eg., the 15 minutes before the flight lands in Srinagar, the first sight of Chenab, standing quietly at Patnitop, the trek up Vaishno Devi....

For an outsider, it can be quite scary. You see army convoys everywhere. And you see bearded civilians in pathani suits everywhere. No offence meant to the followers of any religion, but it can be scary.

I spoke to quite a lot of locals there. They are very warm and cordial. They express surprise when a Keralite quotes Urdu couplets ("Thats India for you my friend"- a thought I did not verbalise)

A muezzin I met there best summed up the feelings- "Chayn se nahi jeene dete- na yeh na woh". I'd been warned by friends to not talk of the Indo-Pak issues with the locals. I could not resist the temptation. I asked the gentleman, "Hindustan se kya problem hai aapko". He replied "kya saab", smiled sarcastically, looked up towards the sky. I did not press further.

A Kashmiri Pandit, now at Baglihar, said, "Sab saale aurangzeb ki galti hai. Aur ab humaari sarkar bhi toh napunsak hai. Hum sab ko ghar se nikaal diya saab".

I'll probably not go deeper on this issue here.

As I drove back to the airport, I had memories aplenty to carry back. As I reflected back on the ironies of the day, Rumis' gem played in my ears- strangely, made popular in the modern times by Pandit Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah who jointly quoted this at Lal Bagh in Srinagar-

Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun shudam tu jaan shudi
Taakas na guyaad baad azeen, mun deegaram tu deegari

(I've become you and you me,I am the body and you the soul
Now no one can say from now on,that you're someone and me someone else)


Afterthought: My good friend tells me that this post would be incomplete without this song that I quote often- "ye kaun chitrakaar hai" ... this i learnt from a very a special friend and senior.

For this good friend, and for you...here go the lyrix
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/lr/17/1139/