TaTa Bye Bye Kuchi Kuchi

We know and understand so little of the Universe, and what we do is actually just by a few individuals, who take pains to document all gathered knowledge for people who care, and are capable enough, to go through, validate and think further. And so the knowledge passes over ages. It's funny the way the creator created all this apparently mathematical universe and dropped us on a small round body called the earth (by us) to spend our time trying to figure things out, trying to know the reality. It's possible that somewhere else there are people who've discovered some other realities which are still hidden to us. I often feel that the 'reality', per sé, can't be so complicated. I was trying to discuss this the other day with Laajo. She is a Physics professor at Raapchaandoos Institute of Technology, Bilaspur. As always, she said 'stupid', slapped gently on my face, wore her chunni, said 'TaTa Bye Bye Kuchi Kuchi', and left for her lecture.

Happy Birthday To Me!

I've become 25 years old today. It cannot be considered an achievement since time passes on its own and we keep growing. As I look back, I find my 25 years full of experiences of many kinds. I regret some of my actions. And there are many things I feel happy about. I applaud myself for many of my choices. And there are a few I curse myself for and I guess I will keep doing that all my life, unless memory fails me. I am lucky to have been gifted with some of the best people to share my life with. I am grateful to whoever conceived and created this beautiful setting for my "Life".

I've come a long way since those simple childhood days. And yet, a closer look at myself reveals that it's not really that long a way. In fact, I am still where I have always been. And I will always be right there...right here. But something has changed.

Life is like a game where you have to keep walking. Choose your directions at each step and keep moving. There is no option to stop. At each step, you get a new mask. Wear it over the old ones if you feel like. We grow thick layers of masks as we walk into darkness, under faint spot-lights lighting each one of us. There is no destination, there is no goal. Throughout our lives we try to run away from death, live best hoping that we can manage to evade it by our cleverness and trickery. Though it's ironical that the best is often close to the worst.

There was a time when I was so small that everyone else around me seemed very big. I used to stick my face against the metal frame of the closed iron gate which served as entrance to my house, to look outside. Everyone else in my family was tall enough to see from above the gate. I was allowed a limited view of the world outside. I kept growing, and one day I was also tall enough. The gate ceased to be a barrier. I could see the world without obstructions. I also grew smart with time. I learnt to open the gate. One day, I walked out of it right into the world I was shielded from. The world which I had always wondered about. And as the world unfolds itself to me, I find fewer things in it that tickle my childish mind.

The first of the free airs that I breathed choked my lungs. It had dust, it had dirt, it smelt bad, it burnt my insides. I could see it if I tried hard enough. But its ability to kill was equalled, perhaps outdone, by an amazing ability to keep one alive, and breathing. With time, it made me fall in love with it. I've started enjoying the murkiness it induces to my vision. I cannot see far - the air doesn't allow me to. I want to walk slow, taking small steps, knowing where I am going. But there is a rush. One gets pushed or crushed. I prefer the former, it keeps me alive. We all move fast, carried away in the hungry tide of people. Not to a shore, there is no shore.

I hope, some day, when I can see my feet again, when I can bend down and run my fingers gently on my toe, when I can see the world with all its myriad colors, and wonder - where lies my destination, when I breathe the scent of freshness in the mysterious tranquility of the air, I will be born again, thence to live till eternity.

Digressive

I wrote a 'path-breaking' article on life yesterday. After I finished the article, I left the notepad open and went home. When I came back this morning, I 'accidentally' closed the notepad. The poor thing asked me if I wanted to save the file. Something made me click on "No". The article was gone.

I don't think I can re-think all those things again. Will definitely try. But I am sure any attempt will lead to a new line of thought and all those thoughts are not going to come back in their original hue. Though the new ones may be better, they will definitely not be the same.

Long back, when I was in my 12th standard, I wrote a 2-page-long poem in Hindi. I had it with me for 2 years. Then I lost it. It was a wonderful poem. Came from the deepest depths of my heart. I remember a few lines of it. Once I also tried to reproduce the poem by combining the lines that I remembered with some new ones by recalling the message and emotion that I wanted to convey. But the result was not as good. Nor was I so much in touch with the feelings that I had experienced when I was writing the original poem, though they were very much my own. One can never revisit the exact state of mind one has at a particular moment.

We all seem to be travelling into future. When we say 'Time Travel', it essentially means travelling faster than others into future. We are all continuously going into future. It means Time Travel is natural to our existence. We are so much used to thinking of 'travelling' as in terms of distances that we cannot imagine what travelling in time could mean. Even our clocks have a distance-representation of time. It could be a 'hand' covering circular distances at a specific speed. Or a digital clock which shows numbers whose periodicity of change we relate to some periodic motion in a way. We don't realize this, coz since childhood we've trained our minds to do this spontaneously. May be the most basic correlations are the movements of the Sun, the Moon, planets...It may also be like identifying instants with a particular state or position of a particular object, like the Sun. Coordinates are again distances relative to fixed references.

That was just a thought. It may not be true.

I am just wondering what should be a better way of looking at and understanding time at a very basic level, and whether a different way of looking at it has any advantages. Any ideas on this?

Am enjoying the digressions. A friend just phoned me. He had a question which according to him only I could answer. It was - "Why do people like the smell of their own fart but not of others'?" For a moment I thought - "do they?"

Then I felt I don't really hate my own fart so much. So it's more like not hating rather than liking. A related fact is that people don't mind washing their own shit with their own hands. The reason, I feel, is that a person's fart or shit is his/her 'own'. They may be one's dirt or waste material. But like a person always accepts his/her bad qualities, ugly physical features, etc., similarly a person accepts his/her fart and shit without complaining. They are a part of one's existence. My friend found this answer pretty logical. But then, he had something to add. That some people even start liking such things of their own. Like another friend of ours who enjoys farting loud, coz that way there is least smell, according to him. So finally, we concluded that people definitely don't hate such things, coz they are their own, and some even develop a liking for them.

I think another digression is necessary at this point, otherwise whoever reads might get frustrated. I am bound to enjoy this coz it's my own bakwaas. Wow, the above logic seems to apply in a lot of cases!

I was named Fartu during my 1st year in college. Not that I used to fart a lot. I mean I used to fart a lot, but not literally. 'Fart' also meant useless bakwaas which I used to do in plenty during my first few days in college. But this name did not become very popular. Nor did I. Coz I was one of those Enthu-less, homesick Freshies who didn't take part in anything, didn't give gaalis, didn't attend lectures, didn't mix with the 'bad boys' and didn't talk to any senior. I think these 5 are the success mantras for any college student. If you do these properly, in a college good enough, you can hope to be short-listed by McKinsey. I may be exaggerating...not sure whether about McKinsey or about the 5 mantras...there are many other good companies...there are many other ways to succeed...hmmm...I guess that explains why I am not in McKinsey :D

If you want to speak like P.Chidambaram, it's pretty simple. Always start your speech with "There is a saying in Thhamil". And after that talk any gibberish like "un pondati seriyaana naatu katta - meaning winners do things differently". And then start your speech. Make sure there is no one among the listeners who knows tamil ;-)

I hate reading blog posts which start with "This is my first serious post" or "This is my first attempt at writing something serious" or "I am trying to write something serious this time" or "This is my first attempt at serious blogging" or something like that. It totally turns me off. I think it is best to leave on the readers to form their opinions and comment on the nature of an article.

I need to make sure none of my own posts start like that :D But then, my 'own' posts cannot turn me off (by that 'fart' logic). And I don't know if it turns others off as well. Please let me know...(if you answer this question, I'll know that you've read the complete post :-P)

India - in Europe !!!

This morning, I checked what's written about India on wikipedia. The very first line surprized me. It says: The Republic of India (Hindi: Bhaarat Ganaraajya), commonly known as India, is a country in Europe. Click Here to read the complete article. Since the site is a Wiki, I think this error will be fixed by someone very soon. Also, a lot more information can be added in there about India. I may think about doing that some time, 'if mood strikes'. You can do it too!

CHEERS!!!

A few days back, I started the second innings of my drinking career. The motto this time is "Responsible Drinking". It started with my B'day treat on the 2nd of March. No, it wasn't my b'day really. I wanted to go on a treat, and nobody else was game to sponsor it. So I preponed my own b'day treat. I drank less than what I am capable of drinking without getting high. A few days after that, I had one small peg of Smirnoff Vodka during lunch. That was like 'OOnth ke mOO mein jeera'. And today I had beer for a change - 2 pints of Haywards 5000. For the first time, beer chadh gayee. My hostel-mate Ankit Bhargav used to stay awake all night and do a lot of nautanki after drinking a can of beer, shouting 'piyela hai apun' and knocking on every door of the wing. Beer is never so strong. Neither is it tasty. Wonder why people drink the bitter liquid. "Bumps" was all Ankit used to get in return for his nautanki.

I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts - drunk and blogging - about how I started drinking. I also talked about how I gave millions of innovative gaalis to my first-year room-mate after having a mixture of a lot of neat whisky, vodka and whatever Jeetu mixed and gave me to drink. It was great. I would love to do that again. Kaash somebody could record all those gaalis. I do remember feebly what happened that night. My x-roomie had said "Sudhar ja saale, kya buddhon ki tarah rehta hai"...not sure why he said that...possibly coz I didn't have a girl-friend or because he was too jealous of my maturity...haha... I also got irritated by something Somnath said, but I don't remember what it was. That was the most heavily-drunk I ever got. The only occasion when I didn't know what I was doing and when I eventually even spewed the daaroo. I remember in bits and pieces, how I was taken back to the hostel, how I pretended not to be drunk in front of the watchmen (who knew anyway), how I was stripped to chaddi (has this word already been added to english dictionaries?) and made to sit under the tap by Jeetu. I remember all this in flashes. I was totally gone. I got up next afternoon to find myself in my underpants and my spects safely placed on my table. Got up and checked my email to find one from Bablu, my BTech Project guide, that I had to do a few more compaction tests on 70:30 Kaolin-Sand mixture.

On one occasion, I drank 5 large pegs of Smirnoff Vodka and started speaking some alien language. I did realize that I was talking some crap, but I had no control over what I was talking at that time and I also wasn't conscious enough to make any sense out of it.

Another horrible experience at daarubaazi was in the recently held pan-IIT meet. The daaroo was served free, in the ICICI building at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai. The pan-IIT meet aimed to "Inspire, Involve, Transform" all IITians to work for India and thereby transform our country into a developed nation. Not sure how much of that purpose it attained, but there did happen a high level of Business Networking over there. Every delegate was charged Rs.2500/-. And in return for my 2500 bucks, I got to see the President - who talked about Carbon Nano Tubes, Lara Dutta - who gave fundaes on life to women, Nandan Nilekani, Shashi Tharoor - who spoke beautifully but ended up saying nothing useful, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar - who lives life very artfully, Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia - who was quite polite and smiled at a once-more from an ex-IITian and then said "Ok, we will play something", Shivamani - the drummer, Louis Banks, Shankar Mahadevan - breathless as always, Ehsan, Loy and many many entrepreneurs. I also got a Delegate's Kit which I lost. More on that later...

Most ex-IITians I met had started their own company. It was like either you had a company of your own, or you had to say you were willing to start one. Otherwise, you were a misfit in the event. One Sardar, who was a collector in Punjab asked me what I wanted to do. Without hesitating, I said "I want to Start up". On this, the Sardar gave me a wicked smile, as if after a long time he got someone to play Jhhingalala with. He asked me when I'd start. I said I was thinking and may be I'd start a company after doing MBA. He got my weak point. He almost shouted at me "Sochte rahoge to kuch nahi hoga, kood pado. Nandan ko dekho, usne itni badi company daal dee". He was probably referring to Nandan Nilekani. They must be langotiya yaars. He also criticized MBA's. "MBA's can only get you jobs in big companies. If you want to be an entrepreneur, MBA won't help you in any way". Then he gave me fundas about latest trends in business. He started talking about RFID tags which according to him was something I should think about. I pretended to be very interested in what he was talking. But, this may make you think I am stupid, I didn't know what RFID tags were. (Do many people know? It often happens with me - I don't know something and when I come to know of it, I find that everyone else knows it). I was scared that the sardar might ask me a question related to RFID tags. A guy, who was my junior during college days and who is now working in the US, was also sitting with me. He knew what RFID tags were, seemed to impress the Sardar by reacting with the right body movements, facial expressions and vocal sounds. He even added a few points to what the sardar was telling. The Sardar looked at me as if I was his prey. Lugai, a.k.a. Prashant Hiran was also sitting with me. I don't think he understood anything either. The Sardar gave me his card and went away.

I spoke to quite a few entrepreneurs during the 3-day event. One common suggestion that almost all of them gave was to get married. The logic was that if your wife earns, you can go around taking risks and starting companies. Well, that makes sense. Just make sure you put an RFID tag on your ass so that your wife can track you.

At the cocktail, I met a few very interesting guys - a sardar with a bunch of funny guys. I drank with them and we all shouted shit. Wonder who all of them were. That's the most interesting thing about drinking. You drink and then you do all kinds of bakwaas with guys whom you've never met before, and then you talk all personal things and crack stupid jokes like the closest pals, but in the end you go away in different directions not to meet ever again.

I don't remember how I came back from the ICICI building, where the cocktail was organized, to the MMRDA grounds, where the pan-IIT event was taking place. The next scene after the ICICI building that I can recall being in, is that in which I was sitting in front of a literature professor of IIT Bombay. I faintly remember that as I enetered the venue, I saw her sitting with her husband. I went close to their table, asked for permission, and sat with them. I am polite even when drunk. I told her that I was pretty drunk and to pardon all my gustaakhis that she was soon going to witness. She said she was ok with it. Then I talked to her all through the dinner. Don't know what we talked. I did give her my blog's URL and also told her that I wanted to write a book and needed her help. I came to know that I also took her email id, as I found it in my pocket the next day. I had done an introductory course in English Literature in which she taught "Doll's House", the play by Ibsen. I told her that I had always thought she was a very strict prof, but now she seemed very frendly.

The prof finished her dinner and left with her husband. Lugai joined me with Amrish Acharya and another alumnus from IIT Bombay, 1984 passout. The alumnus was also very drunk. Lugai (who has never tasted daaroo) asked the alumnus the most common question at the event - "Who do you work for?", and he got the most common reply of the event too - "I work for myself", followed by "Do you have any problem?". Lugai would have run away, if he didn't have to pretend that he was unperturbed. After that the alumnus gave many fundas about women and starting companies. Sorry, I don't remember any.

After this, we went into the hall in which Shankar, Ehsan and Loy were performing. I didn't hesistate the least bit and started dancing. Daaroo is great if you want to get rid of your shyness. Lugai was still standing far from the stage, he was still too shy to dance. I danced like a mad man for about 30 mins. In the end, when the stars had left, one Sardar took the mike and sang a song on friendship and good times. Everyone was clapping and applauding him. I also felt like singing, so I requested for the mike. I got it.

Kishore Kumar's "Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna" is normally the first song that comes to mind on any senti occasion. I felt a kind of competition with the Sardar. So I had to sing the best I could. But as I started singing, I realized that daaroo had badly choked my throat, and my voice was badly cracking. But I had never sung with more energy. I was singing and also dancing in front of 1000 people who were standing still. That for me is an unimaginable thing to do in a normal state.

One of my biggest worries as I was singing was whether I'd be able to recall the whole song in such state as I was in. Still, I started and went on singing. At the end of each line, I tried to recall the next line and there it was on my lips. I sang the whole song without a stop or confusion anywhere. I'd say, singing wise, it was my worst singing performance, and after half the song, quite a few in the hall started feeling disinterested, some got irritated, some turned to go out. But I totally enjoyed singing that night. It was the first time I could dance alone without worrying about anyone else, without any mental inhibitions and sing the loudest I could. After I finished the song, I started to say "Thank you dear friends, I know I am drunk, but It's fun to be with you all, and I will always remember this day". Something like that, but I had barely started, in fact said it till "I know", when the mike was plugged out. I felt a little embarrassed. Everyone stared at me for a while as if I was a mad man doing clumsy things in front of the elite. For a while, I couldn't figure out whether to be happy or upset. But it takes a lot of effort to concentrate well enough to stay confused while you are drunk.

As I was coming out of the hall some of my friends patted my back and said "Koi Nai, Accha Gaaya"...why were they confused? Soon after I came out, I found that I didn't have my "Delegate's Kit" with me. Don't know where I'd left it - ICICI building, dinner table, somewhere on the roads, or the hall in which Shankar, and later I performed. So after paying 2500 bucks I didn't have anything to carry back home. The Delegate's Kit consisted of a few useless books and one T-Shirt placed in a nice executive bag. I was sad at having lost the T-Shirt and the bag. I felt a sudden bout of kleptomania as I was walking out of the venue.

The huge loss made me want to quit drinking. I made resolutions as well. But then, drinking is fun, if done responsibly and within limits. So "responsible and not-too-frequent" drinking is the way to go from now on!

Had 2 pints of beer during the lunch hour today! It's been great working in the office after that! I did some great coding too! Also had my performance appraisals! Boss said "Great Job Done"!

The World is Flat

Nandan Nilekani told Thomas Friedman that 'hey, the world is getting flat'. Thomas Friedman went home and wrote a book on that topic titled "The World is Flat". I don't mean to differ from Nandan Nilekani or Thomas Friedman in any way. They are both very intelligent men. I'd say, the book is a 'must read' if one wants to comprehend the way Globalization is changing our planet, and our lives. Many other popular writers and journalists have come up with imitations of Thomas Friedman's work, but none of them could match the alacrity and attention to detail in Friedman's narrative which virtually touched upon all the aspects of Globalization.

India is one of the countries which have gained tremendously because of Globalization; mainly the IT, BPO and Manufacturing industries. It has generated employment for India's huge educated population and has thereby raised the living standards of millions. But then, there's a far more huge uneducated, illiterate population that's struggling to catch up.

India is a land of contradictions. It is famously said about India that for anything that is true about it, the opposite is also equally true. I think the image below says it all. I took it from inside an aeroplane as it was taking off from the Mumbai Airport.

Lets Play Cricket

India lost its first match to Bangladesh in the World Cup. It found it hard to overcome the Bangladeshi youngsters. And on the same day, Pakistan lost to Ireland. Bob Woolmer, the Pakistani coach, died of a cardiac arrest. And Inzamam Ul Haq declared his retirement from One Day International Cricket.

These are some interesting happenings over the past few days in the World Cup. I normally don't watch cricket. I used to, when I was in school. But all those match-fixing scandals unearthed a few years back totally turned me away from it. But the India-Bangladesh match on saturday rejuvenated my interest in watching cricket. I was amazed to see the underdogs win. I am not very patriotic when I watch matches. I like to see a good game. And for me, a good game is one in which the weaker side fights hard, performs its best and finally defeats the stronger side. Yes, the result does matter.

I used to be a great cricketer. Really! Though it's long time since I played, I think I can still play very well if I try. I was an all-rounder. I batted with great technique, learnt by watching matches on TV for hours. Nobody else in my team could play the Sweep. I was also a medium-fast bowler. Tried spin once, but the ball stopped turning after one month of spin-bowling. I was the only one in my team who never did pathra (like throwing a stone - patthar) bowling, though because of this, I had to compromise a little on the pace that I could generate. And I was also the only one in my team who dived and took catches. I watched Mohinder Amarnath's lessons on DD to learn how to catch the ball in the right way. I also used a heavy bat, just like Sachin, though we had one light bat also (2 bats for two batsmen at the striking and non-striking ends. One bat was put down and used as a creeze at the bowler's end when we played without a runner). I was a pinch hitter, trying to hit every ball to the boundary. Tennis ball, though. I was well known for my technique.

I started playing cricket very early, when I was in my KG classes. I remember arguing with Mannu, the pados ka bigda baccha, that I should be allowed to bat first coz I was the only one wearing a full-pant, and in "actual Cricket", everyone wears a full pant. Everybody agreed after a few minutes of argument and I was allowed to bat first. I know it was a stupid argument - Effect of remnants of stupidity from my previous birth...showed up often when I was very small. Even now they do. But now I don't realize when and how often.

My friends and I got our preliminary Cricket lessons by watching it on TV and we got heavily misled because of that. For example, on TV, the pitch is normally shown longitudinally, with the camera over the side-screens, as the bowler bowls and the batsman faces him. But in this view, the pitch looks very small. So for a few years during my primary-school-days, we used to play on a pitch almost one-third of the normal size. We used to play with a plastic ball and a small bat which Hitesh Chikate had bought. The wickets were 2 stones placed about 2 feet apart. If the ball went over the gap between them, the batsman was out. And when there was confusion about the height the ball went at, the issue was settled by argument...the little Argumentative Indians. 2 more stones were used to indicate wides.

All except me did pathra bowling even in those days. We hardly knew any english at that time. All we knew was the alphabet and a few poems learnt by heart which we didn't understand the least bit. So we mistook "spin" to mean "fast-bowling" coz the word "spin" sounds like that. So most of us did "spin" bowling. On such a small pitch, it was hard to face fast-bowling. But we practiced a lot and became experts at hitting plastic balls thorwn fast. Hitesh was the only guy who played almost as good as I did. In fact, he and I were the only two permanent members of the team. The rest kept changing. He was a passionate player. Sometimes he used to spend hours bowling at a wall. He was a good right-hand batsman and bowler. But something made him want to be a lefty. He practiced left-hand bowling and batting for months. He was crazily dedicated to becoming a lefty. Finally he could manage decent left-handed batting and bowling. But that affected his right-handed performance.

Our first match was against RTS Colony. My classmate Javed lived there and challenged us on behalf of his team. Their team was more experienced and had played baaji matches with many colonies. All our team members were very excited. It was going to be our first match! But we all refused to pay for a baaji match. In a baaji match, the losing team has to pay a fixed amount of money to the winning team. The RTS guys agreed to have a non-baaji match considering the fact that we were all inexperienced kids. We also asked them to bring wickets, bats and balls, since we didn't have wickets, had only one plastic ball and our bat was humiliatingly small and broken here and there.

On the evening fixed for the match, all the players in our team reached the ground pretty early. We all wore our school-shoes - the white ones that we used to wear for school on saturdays. Some of us wore full pants too. We discussed our strategies - that we will do "spin" bowling, hit all the balls and win the game. There were 5 guys in our team. Javed and his team arrived. They had six wickets which they fixed, 3 on each side of the pitch. We got scared by looking at the length of the pitch. We protested. But then a big guy from our colony who knew the RTS colony guys said that that was the right length for a pitch. We got it reduced a little bit, by persistent protesting, but it was still double the length that we were used to playing on. They fixed the boundaries too far. They started laughing when we told them about the roads and trees that used to serve as boundaries for our daily games. They fixed some other trees and roads, that were double the distance we had been using. It was as if suddenly the whole ground we used to play on was magnified by a scale of 2 and we had to play on it. Some of the RTS guys were double our sizes.

We won the toss. And like with all normal kids, we were eager to bat. It was a 5-over game. Our innings were a huge mess. We couldn't lift the bats the RTS guys had brought coz they were too heavy, we couldn't face their "spin" (fast) bowling, and we had no concept of actual spin bowling, which some of the RTS bowlers did. And the "Dog" ball was a lot quicker than our plastic balls. We were also not used to playing with runners at the non-striker's end. We were 5 players in all. And in 1.5 overs, we were all-out for 5 runs. It was a shock. Hitesh and I were very disappointed. The RTS guys were telling our colony's big guy that our team didn't know how to play Cricket.

Hitesh and I decided that our "spin" bowling had to be at its best if we had to win. I started the first over, but the match was over in 2 balls - one four, one wide and one two. There were no runs for wide balls. The "Dog" ball was so much heavier than our plastic ball and the pitch so long, even I had to do pathra bowling so that the ball reached the other end.

It was disappointing. But we learnt many things about how to play cricket and made all those corrections in our game. As I grew up, Hitesh also grew up and so did many other kids in my colony. We started playing with bigger kids. Now with tennis balls, longer pitches, wickets and bats of standard sizes. We played many baaji matches later under Kakku, our Sardar Captain who used to get pocket money from home which he invested in baaji matches. I never gave a penny. Kakku was great. He never asked us for money. Though we did win a few of those matches, we lost more.

Kakku thought I had great abilities, and wanted me to be a vice-captain. But I often revolted against him for silly reasons which hurt him coz he was an emotional guy. One such revolt split our team altogether. That was unfortunate. We never got together again.

After 10th Standard, I stopped playing outdoor games that involved running around. You can guess the reason. Besides, my interest in sports decreased and that in music increased. I grew a little fat too because of this.

But for as long as I played, I enjoyed the game very much. I will always remember some of my innings. Like once, I hit a lot of sixes and fours and was not-out. And once, in a baaji match, I opened the innings with a six and was caught in the very next ball. I was feared by all batsman during the one month when my balls used to spin by 60 degrees. The wonderful dives in grass are unforgettable. In 10th Standard, I got a chance to play with cork balls - the actual cricket balls. Since we used to play without pads, gloves and guards, we used to bowl slowly. That gave enough time for batsman to follow all techniques and hit nice shots with perfect placement. I was very good at Square-Cuts, Down-the-Wicket Shots and Glances. I practiced a lot to be able to Sweep. It was a great experience. Though I hurt myself on a few occasions, I never had a major injury.

Those were great times. I wish I could bring them back. It was so much fun. May be all of us at o3 can get together sometime for a cricket tournament. I will bat first! Maine pehle bola.