Start

It begins now. 

Spirit

While coming back to home, before I noticed that I was shivering in the chilly winter winds, which gushed inside from all the sides nullifying all my efforts to stay warm, I was thinking of the things that were unchanged still. I was also thinking the last time I was involved in a night out. I could not remember one. Like this one night outs can never be planned, as they are the most impromptu and so most memorable.

 But what bemused me was the feeling as if only time had moved and rest everything was same. Corporate, IIMs and time had not made much of the difference. Tauseef is still the one who would go on to discuss the intricacies of all that has happened. Be it an AOE game or a test series or a quickly concluded poker hand. Sudhanshu would still set things up, be it distributing the poker chips, setting up the LAN or calculating the bail outs. Singhvi is still bold in his approach, be it bullying at poker table or standing up on the table in Maths tutorial. Khare is still the one who will play safe everytime. I tried to think about myself too but didn’t reach any conclusion. It is humorous that we are least observant about ourselves. I missed Pandey and all the other Cautley inmates. None the less it is off course a beautiful addition to the list of all those night outs.

 One thing which never changes is the spirit. It is timeless. I guess that’s what makes that night out wonderful. The assurance that any amount of water may flow through the Ganga Canal in Roorkee, the common spirit of your batch would still remain the same.

 I was thoroughly refreshed for a long day at conference, justifiably so. I had lived the spirit of the most beautiful 4 years of my life, in that one night out.

Difficult

Pulp Fiction. Jules: I'm not giving you that money. I'm buying something from you. Wanna know what I'm buyin' Ringo? Pumpkin: What? Jules: Your life. I'm givin' you that money so I don't have to kill your ass. You read the Bible? Pumpkin: Not regularly. Jules: There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you." Now... I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, that meant your ass. You'd be dead right now. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking: maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here... he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. And I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.

Simple

4PM winter sky was so beautiful that day. Violating the general principle of not noticing the most obvious things around us I just happened to look at it. There was a fleece of clouds. Clouds arranging themselves in a jigsaw. Winds were at work and the jigsaw was coming along naturally and beautifully. May be it conveyed a very simple thing that day. That it is always coming along. Even if you just stand and observe, even if you don’t put any effort, pieces are always getting in places. Probably to tell you that it is not your job to interfere with them. One of the simplest things to understand I guess. That just don’t interfere, you are not even needed. Everything is so simple. The travesty is the fact that simple is difficult; most difficult at times.

Inanimate

The other day I was discussing attachment with her. Next morning on my way to school, nonchalantly my eyes fell on the miles my bike had travelled. 22k and some more it read. I never felt the 3 year companionship until that moment, never realized that it is and had been the most important cog in the machinery of my daily life. One day I will bid adieu to it and would replace it by something similar while telling it that it had performed its duties in the most objective way. It was there when I wanted it. It was just there always, required or not. Isn’t this love devoid of attachment, though inanimate?

Ahmedabad

The worst part is that it comes so late. The best is that it is here. The rickshaw wallas in Ahmedabad were the most honest I have ever come across till now. 2:30 in the morning if someone goes by meter without charging anything extra, that’s it. Watching the kids do most of the talking was such a beautiful experience. It is so amazing that sometimes these kids instill confidence in the grown ups, with all those simple and innocuous deeds. And so comes the thought which has been in my mind since then. Read it at IndiCorps office. “If you are here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let’s work together”. Special thanks to Dev Bhaiya for providing us with the shelter. Finally one more thought which I read in the IndiCorps office. “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history”. There is lot more to come.

Off

The contrast cannot be clearer than this. Sitting alone here I realize that I have been moving on. Moving on, leaving behind the hurt received and caused, moving on away from that sense of belonging and fighting again to carve out an identity, just to move on once again. Detachment seems to have taken a new definition. Moving on with the dust of those crumbled dreams and wishing to reconstruct them, watch them. Moving on, on a timescale, with just memories of those moments spent with her during which time just stopped. In this whirlwind something has changed, something has gone unnoticed. I really want to stop for some time.

Eerie

Standing in that corridor I notice for first time in 2 months, how intricate is the grill. A big grill before a small mesh of wires before one more small mesh. It seems that it has not been made to keep the men inside but to keep their spirits as well; at least it has been tried well. I am still numb to all that is going around which is nothing but chaos and unintended one. Intended chaos is such a welcome and unintended chaos is a curse. What if you cannot even tell anyone the feeling of getting cursed? What if the allegation comes before the acceptance that you have helped genuinely? What if you never get to talk to her after the day you had the best talk of your life with her? What if there is no one around to even give a glancing look at your misery? Pace is so dangerous sometimes.

Oil gives me an eerie feeling. What if you someday just drown in it? Gone without a trace, cry as loud as you can but no one would listen, not even your own ears. All you would hear is the globules of oil forming and bursting and penetrating.

Isn’t that numbness? All you hear is globules forming, bursting and penetrating. It prevails.

Run, Rain and Reminiscence

My eyes fell on that sprawling greenspread besides the road. The drizzle was still on and I was drenched, equally in sweat and rain. Oh memories, what you do sometimes. All that has been left behind, all that would never be discussed again, all those unsaid words, all those words said in vain and all those moments I am thankful of, but can still feel the pain. I am drenched, yes in rain and in sweat and I am soaked with all those leftover unexpressed emotions which are just there. Comedy it is sometimes when you think it, tragedy when you feel it. I can feel it now. All the love and hatred and some emotions which are still unknown, I can feel now. Mixed with sweat and the drops of rain, tears roll down. For all that innocence which got lost in the quagmire of being something and pretending to be something. For all those lost moments which have been beautiful at times or which I want to revisit and change again. Undo, sometimes is impossible to do.

It cleanses you. It does in any form. Water.

Choices

It is never easy. Never has been, never will be. It is always like that, the fight against yourself, your peers, against the doubts of many around you. But sometimes you tend to believe your instincts, instinct which is one thing that is yours when everything in this world abandons you. I somehow firmly believe in these instincts. You have got to respect those instincts inside you and sometime in life you got to do something for them. You owe them; they are the living example of the life inside you.

I will depict a simple story, simple yet powerful.

I know of a boy who prepared for IIT-JEE as every other youngster of his age does. He prepared in very adverse conditions and then when the 12th class result came, he got 56% (you need 60 to fill the form). Hopelessness was all around. Sharks smelled the blood and came to rip him with suggestions of joining some local engineering college. His brother and I just could not take it. I sat with this boy and asked him what did he thought about it. He simply told that he wanted to take a drop and take a shot at it.Instinct. I told his brother to let him take the chance. This brave heart took a drop, didn’t join any coaching that year (just a test series), took 12th exam as a private candidate in the drop year, secured 72% there and got through JEE that year. He is in IIT- Roorkee now.

This is one story which I know of. There may be many others like this which all of you know of. I told this story, may be to remind all of you of those stories. I told this story to just put a point on choices. Choices those are sometimes impulsive, instinctual. Sometimes they are right, many a times they are wrong. But more than being right or wrong it is the satisfaction to choose which tastes as sweet as nectar, even in failure. Someday in life we all are faced with a choice. It is that instant which decides everything that follows.

Instead of judging what is right and what is wrong I will stop right here with this.

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

What followed, we all know.

The one month - First of many

Past one month has been busiest in my life till date. I cannot remember another month filled with so much buzz, so less sleep yet so full of energy. Even I did not anticipate a month which would so full of emotions, objectives, and deliverable and yet would leave a permanent mark on me. And so I have full empathy, yeah I have learned to be a bit empathetic, towards all my friends and relatives who must have felt irritated at me. One question which must have crossed their mind at least once is “What is he doing? He went to teach.” Some also put this to me directly which I really appreciate because this article is for all those. Thanks guys for the question. Even I didn’t ever know that teaching is so comprehensive of an art to learn. It is less of mathematics or science and it is more of an art. If you want to know what I was doing for whole of last one month, please read on. If you don’t want to know, please close right here but I just request that please do not pose the above question next time. Just come and read this.

I start with classroom management. I have come to believe that learning starts from there. All of us have seen an ill-managed classroom. I will give a recap. Teachers asks a questions, kids throw answers at will, randomly so that in 2-3 seconds everyone knows the answer and teacher believes that everyone really does. The kids sitting on the last 3 benches do not even care and so do(not) most of the teachers. Involvement of kids in the class is 30-40% and most of the things are done due to fear or due to hope of getting a reward. A fight may start randomly anytime wasting the learning time of whole class.

And so we were taught to set rules on the very first day. Rules, simple and few, which would guide all the activities happening in class and no matter who you are they are applicable equally to everyone. Then came the procedures. Procedures which could be as simple as handing over the completed assessment to bhaiya and as complex as dividing the class in 4 groups without chaos. The question which would come is why so much emphasis on them. The answer is very simple. Suppose a chaotic line takes 3 min to form and procedure wise it takes just 1.5 then assuming that a line is made 4 times in a day, I save 6 min per day and 42 min per week and almost 35 hrs in one academic year. That I think is called sense of urgency. Every single second is important when you need to raise the level of child by 2 grade levels in a single academic year. A class is just like a team and the teacher is a manager and I think an ill-managed team should never dream to achieve stiff targets. A well managed class is a right of every child and he deserves it.

Then comes the investment plan for the kids, the parents and the people in the school. Out of 100 children entering the 1st grade only 14 reach the 10th grade and only 5 pass it. The reasons emanate from classroom, community, school and everywhere. As a grown-up we always have this tendency of looking for incentives and so does a child. So when I talk of investing the kids in learning, it means that giving them an incentive to stay on the path of learning. It is just like employee retention. So when I say that I am the face of the movement called Teach For India then I should give my utmost effort to keep my kids on the course of learning. The investment strategies involve building a theme for the class and setting a big goal for the year which would be related to the theme. A child should be able to relate to the big goal and should be constantly motivated to achieve it.

Investing the parents involve visiting kids home and staying in touch with parents and constantly telling them about the aspirations you have for the kids and telling them what you expect from them. It also involves looking for the reasons of child’s erratic behavior in the class and if possible addressing it by talking to parents. Investing the people in the school means coordinating with them by putting kid’s welfare foremost and building up a harmony with the system.

Then I would go on to backward planning. Annual Business Plan is imperative in every organization and same applies to the academic year planning. You first set the vision for your class and then set the big goal and then drill it down to the unit goals and then further down to weekly goals and finally to a single day and single lesson. This ensures that all your efforts are well aligned to your big goal. This ensures that you always know that even a single day without learning may poison your pursuit. And so it ensures that there is always a sense of urgency in you.

Now comes the lesson planning. Each lesson has to be planned in effective and aligned way. I am trying my best to stay away from jargons. The core of the lesson is 3 parts which I would describe here. First is “I do “where I will introduce the new topic and will solve a question in front of the class. The solution is based on the step which needs to be mentioned earlier in the lesson plan. Then I will give a sheet with questions and ask the class to divide into small groups and solve the question. Meanwhile I will go and check the weaker kids. That is called a “We do”. After this I will give the assessment based on the lesson. The questions in the assessment are such that I will come to know where the learning of the child breaks and so I can plan accordingly later on. The fact that every child is important makes it vital for me to know that.

This is just a glimpse of training I underwent in one month. There is lot to be told about the month. I will keep posting more.

As a neutral, strictly

I resumed watching cricket, and following it, in 2008. It was the year of inaugural season of famed IPL. One match, between Kings XI v/s Mumbai Indians, I vividly remember. Mumbai Indians lost that encounter after a tight contest and that day I became a Mumbai Indians fan. Three and a half seasons of fanship and the fact that Mumbai Indians has gone from strength to strength just delights the fan inside me. This season they have also made for one more weakness of last season. Last season I thought there was thin layer between opening batsmen and Pollard. This year, as MI showed in the latest match against champions CSK, the middle order is studded with quality batsman like Rohit Sharma and Symonds before Pollard comes in. The postponed Sri Lankan series has also helped the case in a positive way with Malinga staying till the end. So obviously everyone would expect me to think that this year is MI’s year but believe me I am really not hopeful. I cannot be. Or for that matter no fan can be sure about his team becoming champion. The case I build here may have MI in it but the disappointment is of every fan of every club in general.

T20 version draws a major inspiration from football leagues but falters in one thing. The one thing I feel is to reward consistency. A league is more about consistency, rather relative consistency. A club who is relatively more consistent compared to other clubs should be winner of the league which is what happens in football leagues around the world. In a cup format, or a knock out format things are little different in a way that the team can always be pumped up to perform on that single day. It is hard to consistently perform with the same tempo if you are not a quality side. Ask South Africa to play in a league format and I guess 7 out of 10 times they would win it. Ask them to win a knock out cup and evidently so for 20 years a team of the day, recently NewZealand, can knock them out of the most coveted cup. And so the point is that keep the league for rewarding consistency. Keeping the format of Champions league cricket same, it can be ensured that only teams who were consistent get distilled to play for the prize that rewards the brilliance of the day. In the end we would have a winner who is consistent as well as has the temperament and nerves for the important day.

It would be unjustified to criticize the format and not coming out with any suggestion. We can retain the current format, with slight changes and still have a worthy winner. I am not at all saying that winners of previous are not worthy, because they performed best according to the system. Have a semi final where there are two matches at home and away venue. Winner of the semi final can be decided on the basis of net run rate. Have 3 or 5 final (like there are 7 NBA finals) so that the team has some time to react. The changes I suggest is just a point of view of a neutral as well as an ardent fan. After all IPL is just a synonym of fans and junta.

This is our day

All credits to Indian cricket team to bring joy to billion plus people by producing one of the stellar performances in semi-finals of the cricket world cup. Such dates and matches get itched in the memories and become the part of the gospels told till eternity. This match, apart from the win in the world cup semi final on the arch rivals, would be known for the amount of dignitaries that made there to cheer the Indian cricket team. Politicians, industrialists, film stars every one made it there. Certainly the match deserved an attention of all of them. But moreover I felt that our team deserved the cheers of those who were not there.

I felt that the crowd support in the match at mohali was not just enough. This got lost in the fact that we won against our arch rivals. I compare the situation to a football match where the home support acts as a 12th palyer. A goal is palpable when the crowd gets behind the team. It was missing. How can you just clap when a local lad produces a brilliant piece of fielding? Unacceptable. How can’t you cheer for every dot ball the boy of the nation bowls? Unacceptable.
The fact that a 500 rupee ticket got sold for 10k says a lot. What it did was to bring all the people who would usually occupy a seat in VIP box in whole of the stadium. A class of people who are really not used to those mad reactions for the team or maybe they have forgotten it. They are too high for that I think. Really no offence to anyone. One more thing which added to misery was, celebrities going to stands to capture eye balls and some click of cameras. This is the day of days and the celebrities are right there in front of you slugging ball in ball out, diving in, putting desperate efforts, injuring themselves to catch. I actually feel that when you are emotionally attached to your team, miracles happen, predictions start coming right. And by taking the attention to somewhere else (read as Ms. Sonia Gandhi in stands to get in touch with “aam admi”) you are defeating the purpose.

The same thing, a hope against hope, is going to get repeated in Wankhede in the final. I sincerely hope that everyone there comes out of their shell to be a real common man, rather than coming out between a common man. Our lads are playing in one of the dream finals and they really need every one behind them, certainly not as celebrities but as genuine “aam admi”. Be the 12th player. Win or lose (I say that the cup is all blue) I just hope that the flowers of India do not get disappointed with the support. It cannot get bigger than this and let us shed all our sophistications to cry out loud for India. Chak de !

Banter

1)Last time I wrote snippets because I had nothing much to write. This time the reason is that I have something to write on many things. Thoughts which I don’t want to elaborate, random ideas.
2)I was waiting in the office lobby for the meeting to start and I noticed that red dot in the schematic diagram of the office building. Against it was written “you are here”. I remembered a line from shantaram. I will put it in my words. In this infinite mesh of life your coordinates are determined by your friends, family and foes. Then you always know “you are there”.
3)There are so many days these days. Mother, father, brother, sister, teacher, this, that, how, why, where, which and the list goes on. Well I have no issues with people celebrating each and every day but I have real doubts about the enthusiasm for some days which you ought to celebrate. So I feel choosing the “days” to celebrate would be a good idea. I have made my list of “days”. Just don’t ask it.
4)April is a massive month for me as a football club fan. Make or break.
5)I wind up my shop at Jamshedpur now. Its time. It feels so drab somehow. Alas! The life and times of the steel city.
6)Beauty is the easiest thing to get in this world, some are born with it and some people buy it. Read it somewhere. Saw the facebook later.
7)Wednesday is a big day for a nation. Feels good to have written an article just before the world cup. Reiterating, it is most important to put up a good fight.
8)Survival is instinctual. You just have to devise an idea to live for. You may end up spending your life to devise that idea. The try is worth it I think.
9)Testing times ahead. Exciting times ahead. I am game.

The Name

What’s in the name? I cannot disagree more. For all the idealism this question carries with it, it decimates the importance of the echo which a name generates. A name invariably invokes memories in us because of the namesakes we know. There is so much associated with a name. The teacher you dread most, the girl you loved, the actor you like, the place you visited, the colony you lived in, the roommate you had and it would go on forever. Suddenly you realize that the life is about getting associated with names and remembering them later on with fondness, with dread, with pure hatred and with every emotions which our age can conjure at that time.

We form our thinking, our rules through different stages in life and we keep amending them. And hence the people we meet during different walks of life attach a behavioral tag to our name. The surprise when someone meets us after long time and the remark you have changed is just an indication of the image our name invoked in that particular person. The image may be of physical appearance or it may be of certain peculiarities.

They say the name sticks. The cruelty associated with a murderer, the dread associated with a murderer is nothing but the nature attached to their names. And so a change in name and the place may mark a rebirth of the person. No one is bad, each one of us suffer from bad assumptions. The assumptions are associated with the name. And hence the name of a dumb child (though I personally feel that no child is dumb), a prisoner, a murderer comes with those assumptions attached with it. Seldom, as a society have we given them a chance and rarely do they get an opportunity to forsake the name. And so the struggle of Gogol Ganguly in The Namesake seems justified.

What’s in the name? Oh, there is a lot. A lot.

Supporter's plea

I came to cricketing consciousness with 1992 world cup. Without reading any records I just remember the color of the Indian jersey, some shade of navy blue and how I used to dislike it. But still since it was cricket there was nothing in it to dislike. I remember being told that we would not win the world cup since we were knocked out and later on I found out that “the format of 1992 world cup” was not good.
When 1996 came I knew Manoj Prabhakar, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Srinath, Jadeja, Azhar as if they were my next door neighbors and really felt, with all the innocence of that age that this time we will win. But that time “the pitch” was not good and later on I learnt that the decision making was not good.

Then came the 1999 world cup and this time I was filled with all the cricketing knowledge and with some know how of all the teams in the world cup. But then again the format and the introduction of super six went against my team and we were ousted.

Well then came 2003, and after a wake- up loss to Australia we finally lost to Australia once again. I remember buying loads of cracker for every four that India hits and I also remember that most of them were left as they were that day. Next four years would tell that this was the best chance in 20 years.

And then came 2007 world in which I saw, on a big screen put on in Open Air Theatre of my college, my team lose to Sri Lanka in a make or break league match and being dumped out in the first round courtesy of a loss against Bangladesh in the previous league match. Till then my cricketing sense had matured and I knew that ruing the result has never done any good.

That's a simple recap. No detailing.

I read somewhere that in India your heart always guides you better than your head. And this thought personifies itself in the passion this country has for cricket. We, as a billion plus cricket lovers have seen it all and yet the passion remains the same. We have seen the game in the quagmire of match fixing, we have seen the phase where it was always 20-4 and then robin singh would bat us through only to lose in the end. We have seen and taken all that lack of temperament, all those spineless displays and all that time when we were drooling on lowly 7th on ICC rankings above some non-test playing nations. Yet we have endured. I think and I think without a sense of exaggeration that only Sachin Tendulkar must be the representative of what we have seen. He is the only one who represents the fact that inspite of all the love, dedication and passion for the game you would return disappointed at the end of the day. Off course there were few highs between all these lows but then that wait for ultimate high for the post 1983 generation still eludes.

But every truth sees the light of the day and I think this phase (past 8 years) of Indian cricket represents the truth of the faith we all have put in our heroes for years. The phase where we could see our lads putting up fight not just with bat or ball but equally with words, where they would not budge with some sledging but go on to show that there also exists a long tradition of gully cricket in India and the sledging there would never even come close.

So I think, in earnest, that the time has come. The time to show that, what a blend of youth and experience capped off by an ever cool captain can go on to achieve. The time to emphasize that all the displays of recent past were just a run up to the finale where triumph would just indicate the execution of prediction. I write all this without an intention to put any pressure on the team. I write this simply as a fan and as one of the billion followers of this religion called cricket.

A win would certainly give immense hope to this nation marred by scandals and inflation. A hope that not all hard work goes into vein, a hope that truth sees the day light some day. I bear my allegiance, as always, to Indian cricket team and a loss would not matter. I just hope for a decent fight.

McDonaldisation

There is a term I learnt during my sociology elective. It was McDonaldisation. In simple words it means the replication of the USP across the chain. Basically the term originated from McDonalds itself which ensures that our taste buds would never be able to differentiate the burgers, from 2 different outlets, from each other. Every customer should feel at home inside a McD outlet, that is the main aim.

I belong to Indore, a city in Madhya Pradesh and right now I am in Tatanagar and some days back I was in Delhi. The taste of one thing has remained same though. We have Mcdonaldised ourselves in disorganization. Instead of going on to a discourse on how we can improve by getting organized I would rather tell that one thing which I learnt from being unorganized. I found out that it is fun. I mean it is good that everyone must be organized and it becomes very imperative as a professional but still it is fun to be unorganized, at least for some time.

As I was travelling in train, I realized that each person who has lived in India for sufficient amount of time (*By sufficient I mean that he has travelled in trains and on someday his plans were ruined by a train delay or some day he missed the train because he assumed that like every day the train would be late. On the contrary the train was right on time) will have at least a good incident to tell that how he got duped by Indian Railways. Imagine if Indian Railways were the most organized rail network in the world. The people of india would have been robbed off all those stories. Life, by the way is all about the stories you have.

I would always maintain that considering the volume of passengers and goods handled by Indian Railways it is doing a commendable job. There is certainly no doubt about it. But anyone who has travelled in Delhi Metro will realize that the experience of missing train do not itch much because there is next train in few minutes. More so DMRC has ensured that in most cases even a layman can easily reach his destination. The less organized the system is the more the users need to ask and the more they ask the more they talk. It is certainly not surprising that most of the conversation between the co-travelers start with a question on a next station, seat number, compartment, pantry and so many more things.

While coming back from my office one day, I was on a road, made narrow by encroachments on both the sides. Just ahead of me was one confused uncleji on his Royal Enfield. I think he knew the house number but didn’t know the left or right and so he was exhibiting Brownian motion on the road. As he went to right side, I thought to overtake from left but soon he changed his mind and came to left and we nearly missed a collision. Angrily I turned to look at him. What a saw was a wide Happydent smile which tried to say that may be you are new in the system, it is like this only. My anger vanished in an instant. I felt at home. Mcdonaldisation, certainly.