To Cricket or Not to Cricket

Some of you may raise an eyebrow, while others may give me a virtual whack for saying "I observe that Indian cricket is one phenomena which unites the entire country. We all easily forget our 1000+ differences and rally behind the set of 11 men identified as Team India."So what am I saying new here? I know, everybody is aware, we are called cricket crazy nation for nothing...Cricket is a religion, not sport..and cricketers Demigods !

Frankly I do not care about the game and probably don't understand it much ( Yes, i am the minority, and may require constitutional laws against Cricket-loving people looking down at us and treating us like an outcast.)
However, I do have to give its due to this game for bringing this diverse country together every-time this game is on. So I am interested to know how they achieve this unlike other major influence-rs of our country & society like cinema, religion or our leaders. In-fact some of the other influence-rs have bought in more division than unity.

Sports usually have the tendency to evoke passions (positive) as well as obsessions (negative) among the fans and followers around the world.
Cricket is our passion, but why do we identify so much with this one particular game that other sportspeople are almost living a ghetto life...I think it started during the British rule in India, probably we as Indians wanted to beat Britishers at their own game and excel at it ( a la movie Lagaan) or probably like other things just wanted to ape them and consequently a false pride in playing the game of so called superior race instead of our native sports .

British legacy or not , It is our game now. And it brings us together like no other. I believe it is because we play against the world with one Team, and the whole country identifies and rallies behind this one team,we all become part of this team, which has one language and one religion - Cricket.
We know that this team has players from diverse background, different religions, states etc. but instead of looking at differences, we look at  their merit. And this is no mean achievement.
Of course since this game evokes such strong passions, there are also some negative backlashes in case the team disappoints fans.

One may ask, why rant so much when I proclaim to not care about cricket. Yes, I don't. It's the game's ability to bring people together that I am always in awe of.
Looks like this is all changing now, this last bastion of indivisibility seems to be not so strong anymore,now with the onslaught of new shiny shimmery format of 20-20 game with the extra dose of all things beautiful and promise to make us play against each other...time to put the notion of one Team India in the back-burner for now.

"Oh! Apple I-pad ...Please make it better"

A thought crossed my mind...If life is such an important thing..how come we end up not giving any time or thought to it ! You might say, "eh! what is she talking about ? everything I do is for my life, or my family's or some close friends...but most of all everything I do in this life is for me..my life". You know, I want to agree.

Then I hear those nice often repeated jewels of wisdom like "Stop and smell the roses" ..."when was the last time you did something for the first time"..." Do something that makes YOU happy"... Aren't they so confusing and misleading ?

Well, the fact is if you stop to smell the roses (before that you might need to find them !) ...chances are your boss might not appreciate it and you don't really want to carry the thorns of bad appraisals. And if you are your own boss and unless roses are your business, you would not care... why would you ? how does it make life any better? ....you know there are important things that make difference like career,job, business, money...ah,yes money.

"Money,oh Almighty moolah,greenback,riches !...You,the real tangible one that makes the world go around. Why are these armchair, very rich and comfortable philosophers and thinkers propagating such misleading thoughts in our minds and hampering our pursuit of you and ultimately a comfortable life"

Guess my prayer to Almighty Money has cleared my confusion and provided me an answer I was looking for..Life is important , hence we give it money and enhance it with riches...time and thought is not going to buy that dream house in that posh area of my dream city, or that dream car, all those gadgets , clothes , jewels, travels to expensive and exotic locales ...my dream and life will only be fulfilled with money, and that's what makes me happy, this is what I want to do first time,last time and every time.

But then again these distracting thoughts creep up in my mind,"Give more thought to what you want to make of your life, your pursuits, your goals and your purpose in life".
Oh my tireless mind ! I want to make my life rich and comfortable and my current goal is to buy that new Apple Ipad 3 just launched in the market,and no-where the price is mentioned in thoughts...."thought that counts" is a phrase, ultimately we need to count that money to fulfill any thought !

Looks like I need more nice,luxurious materialistic riches around me to suppress any more disturbing thoughts about life's purpose blah blah...till then my struggle continues.

Rotis, Rice and blessed souls

When was the last time I had a perfect meal ... the one that made me so happy , that I had nothing but blessings and gratitude for the person who made it, or the person who paid for the meal or me if i happen to  have made it.  Well, this definitely is not one of those life's profound questions, but I still had to think hard and search my entire lifetime to pinpoint one perfect meal of my lifetime so far. Some may think its too simple a question to spend so much time over, while others may opine that its simple and stupid.
Well, I am entitled to my simple thoughts,stupid is just an opinion. So while my mind wandered through the events of my lifetime, I realized  two things...One, that its not just one meal and Two, the definition of perfect meal for me changed over the time as mind grew from innocent to complex-ed !

So as i grew in age, and my mind grew in complexity, and fortunately my personal finances grew from zero to some , I got opportunities to eat food in various restaurants in cities, bigger cities,metros,some international cities...expensive meals, international, gourmet, local and whatnot. But like many others, my favorite and always comforting meals were found at my home... courtesy mom's cooking, if your mom is able to cook up fairly decent... of course there are mothers who cant cook to save their lives, Its not a mandatory skill in mom's resume..!

So that elusive perfect meal or meals were those simple ones that cost me nothing , had no fancy names, weren't laid out to me in a stylish manner....they were like every meal in my life that satisfied my hunger but with one difference,they made me so happy that i would remember them always.

I was about 10 years old, went to an old woman's hut in my mom's village with my cousins.she gave us one of my life's perfect meals. We sat crouching in her small mud kitchen near the chulha (mud oven),also ducking the dense smoke  from the burning wood enveloping the low ceiling.She gave us simple dal, rice and potatoes right out of the chulha in a big thali. Perfect meal !
I was about 16 years old, went to an adventure camp in Uttarakhand hills with friends, while coming back me and my friend had to stop by at an Army transit camp to wait for our train.The camp was virtually deserted and both of us starving. Found one soldier, so we asked him where we can find food , he offered to cook for us as there was nothing available around. So in his small room where he was lodged temporarily,our saviour cooked us tomato tinda(round gourd) curry over a small heater and roti rolled by using an empty beer bottle. Voila, another perfect meal !

And yes those countless times , when we moved to new house on account of my father's job postings, and we weren't unpacked or fully unpacked, and ma would still make that wonderful meal with whatever was available and served in whichever utensils we could pull out of the box.

I remember all of these meals , all of them made me very happy.    All of them were made with love !

So all those times when i dressed up my best and went to those fancy upscale restaurants and burned a hole in my pocket to satisfy my base desires with those really tempting looking dishes, i couldn't even recall them ...forget about them making it to my list.

Makes me think, All the perfect meals in my life were simple , basic, without any pretense , no frills ... just like the blessed souls who fed me and feed me.