Diary!!
How many of us have at some point or another maintained or attempted to maintain a personal diary? Almost everyone, I would reckon. Why? Granted, its a great experience to read ones own diary years after we write it and take the much touted walk down the memory lane.
Sometime back I read a few pages of my 2001 diary. I enjoyed keeping one then, in spite of being in hostel. My friends (should I continue to call them that) broke into my room once a week just to read my 'personal' journal and later made fun of me at the most unpropitious of moments. Grrrrrr.
Now I got to laugh at myself; how many totally-insignificant-now things meant a lot to me then and how I had rued or rejoiced them. Oh! The innocence of those growing up years lost now in the hard cynical world.
Diaries in addition to being nostalgic devices, I am sure helped me improve my writing skill - even I can't stand to read/write the same things everyday, can I?. So 'woke up at 7' became 'it was 7 when i woke' to 'the day dawned at 7' to finally 'the alarm screamed at 7 expelling all remnants of the jasmine fragrance of a wonderful dream'. Cool, uh?
And its a good mental exercise to keep a routine, form a habit.
But...
But maintaining that acquired habit takes some will power (like quitting the bad ones) .
Then one fine day, I decided that great men don't like being (and shouldn't be) fettered to boring routine - and I quit attempts to keep up my diary. So here it is, out in the open - I am lazy to maintain a diary.
P.S. And needI add, I am surprised that I have maintained this blog for over a year now.
P.P.S. This post is not a continuation of the previous one and any similarity is purely conincidental
Time whizzes by and I, I write of glimpses I steal
Monday, June 26, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Procrastination
I took Procrastination 101 in college and the teacher would walk in everyday and say, "Yeah! We'll do something tomorrow"
-Russell Peters in Show me the funny
-Russell Peters in Show me the funny
Friday, June 09, 2006
Be a sport matey!
I am scared to admit it. Being in a sport-obsessed nation now, I am truly terrified to admit that I am not too big on sports.
Fitness apart, the singular aim of all sports seem to be meaningless pursuit. Oh! I did stay awake till 4 in the morning watching the World Cup opener. Still!!?? I can't imagine the 'silliness' of spectator sport. Soccer, undeniably the world's most popular sport is just running after a ball. And one person with his nose at the right place at the right moment, bingo! a match is won. If you believe taking a round, air-filled rubber from one end of a green patch to the other is why we shed the leaves-skirt, shame on you.
And Cricket, the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent is sinful waste of good time, considering it is the only game I know of with a lunch break.
Spectator sports has its own heirarchy. Golf as you may all agree is at the bottom of the chain. Next being motorsports. You have to be made of some special stuff to sit through 50 laps. Round and round and round. Geez!
Soccer/football is very near the top. Still, I think Cricket is better than Soccer with regard to spectator interest. I mean, the trouble with football is that being low scored, (or at worst no scores), there is less to keep the fan thrilled. Very little happens for the majority of the match when compared to cricket where there is a boundary here and a wicket there and scores like 250-300. If only cricket took lesser time (the 20-20 is a positive step in that direction) it can become more spectator-friendly.
Given my constraints of time and love for big-sounding numbers, my vote goes to Tennis. It doesn't take all day. There are an awful lot of points to score. One silly mistake and the match isn't a goner. One can lose a set (or two) and still win (did you watch Kuznetsova win Vaidisova from one set down). And it is far more refined than any of the other sports. Take Rugby for instance. I don't know what cruel pleasure one can derive from seeing man maul another man, punch him in the stomach and drag him around like he was a rag-doll. Some sociologists have gone as far as to tell that contact sports like Rugby and Boxing needs to be banned and are strange reminders of a barbaric past. Not so surprisingly, I agree.
While we would frown at a Roman mob watching and relishing a gladiator fight and butcher another person to death and call them savages, we fail to see that these sports are the same. Maybe less brutal, but still savage.
(A Rugby player died yesterday after he sustained injuries to his head during a game three days ago. And here is the messed up part, his father says "He played the game they play in heaven and now he's there". What the f*ck?????)
Everytime an Indian fan howls that we don't have the animal-spirit to win in the international arena, I am actually happy. (I know it looks like a case of sour grapes but seriously). I think as a society we have shown sophistication. Our emperors did not (I hope historians reading this piece agree) conduct public spectacles of violent debauchery and spectator sport was near non-existent. Sport was an activity of leisure and a pursuit of fitness and was given no other status. While we still fought wars and warriors were respected and honoured for their skill, it is not the same as sports. At the height of its civilization, India did not initiate an Olympics, it did not construct a colloseum. We didn't lose out on anything, did we?. I am proud.
Fitness apart, the singular aim of all sports seem to be meaningless pursuit. Oh! I did stay awake till 4 in the morning watching the World Cup opener. Still!!?? I can't imagine the 'silliness' of spectator sport. Soccer, undeniably the world's most popular sport is just running after a ball. And one person with his nose at the right place at the right moment, bingo! a match is won. If you believe taking a round, air-filled rubber from one end of a green patch to the other is why we shed the leaves-skirt, shame on you.
And Cricket, the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent is sinful waste of good time, considering it is the only game I know of with a lunch break.
Spectator sports has its own heirarchy. Golf as you may all agree is at the bottom of the chain. Next being motorsports. You have to be made of some special stuff to sit through 50 laps. Round and round and round. Geez!
Soccer/football is very near the top. Still, I think Cricket is better than Soccer with regard to spectator interest. I mean, the trouble with football is that being low scored, (or at worst no scores), there is less to keep the fan thrilled. Very little happens for the majority of the match when compared to cricket where there is a boundary here and a wicket there and scores like 250-300. If only cricket took lesser time (the 20-20 is a positive step in that direction) it can become more spectator-friendly.
Given my constraints of time and love for big-sounding numbers, my vote goes to Tennis. It doesn't take all day. There are an awful lot of points to score. One silly mistake and the match isn't a goner. One can lose a set (or two) and still win (did you watch Kuznetsova win Vaidisova from one set down). And it is far more refined than any of the other sports. Take Rugby for instance. I don't know what cruel pleasure one can derive from seeing man maul another man, punch him in the stomach and drag him around like he was a rag-doll. Some sociologists have gone as far as to tell that contact sports like Rugby and Boxing needs to be banned and are strange reminders of a barbaric past. Not so surprisingly, I agree.
While we would frown at a Roman mob watching and relishing a gladiator fight and butcher another person to death and call them savages, we fail to see that these sports are the same. Maybe less brutal, but still savage.
(A Rugby player died yesterday after he sustained injuries to his head during a game three days ago. And here is the messed up part, his father says "He played the game they play in heaven and now he's there". What the f*ck?????)
Everytime an Indian fan howls that we don't have the animal-spirit to win in the international arena, I am actually happy. (I know it looks like a case of sour grapes but seriously). I think as a society we have shown sophistication. Our emperors did not (I hope historians reading this piece agree) conduct public spectacles of violent debauchery and spectator sport was near non-existent. Sport was an activity of leisure and a pursuit of fitness and was given no other status. While we still fought wars and warriors were respected and honoured for their skill, it is not the same as sports. At the height of its civilization, India did not initiate an Olympics, it did not construct a colloseum. We didn't lose out on anything, did we?. I am proud.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Flash-back
The post I should have written two weeks back... in screenplay
*Red carpet. Stage. Blinding lights. (Imagine Oscars). Dressed in tux clutching the 'ONE YEAR' trophy in one hand and my speech (written by a jobless student) in the other*
Me: Ladies and Gentlemen! I am so honoured to be among you with this award. This means a lot to me.*Choking with tears*
*Takes a spotless white kerchief from an inner pocket and dabs at the face - feelings maaa!*
Me: I have enjoyed writing in this blogsite and I can't tell you how proud I am that somebody, other than my dad and the friend I bribe chocolates to keep visiting my blog, actually reads them.
*Joke! Can also be considered as being modest*
*Camera pans to crowd where three people are seated, two of them ogling... the third*
Crowd: deafening applause. (remember two is company...three is a crowd. well! I take my sayings seriously)
*Camera pans back to the stage where I am still standing, furiously turning the paper. The egghead speech writer has forgotten the 'I wish to thank so and so and so on' part*
Me: I don't know how many people I should be thanking today. Thank you all of you who think I owe you thanks. I declare to my faithful readership that I'll continue to blog as long as I have you people to support me and entertain, educate, enlighten and eradicate you with this blog (never mind the flow).
*Raising the li'l statuette like it was a tea-cup or a wine glass*
Me: To more years of blogging
Crowd*gasps*: Oh! No!!!!!
*The crowd becomes company and then becomes solitary and ends up as nothing*
*Red carpet. Stage. Blinding lights. (Imagine Oscars). Dressed in tux clutching the 'ONE YEAR' trophy in one hand and my speech (written by a jobless student) in the other*
Me: Ladies and Gentlemen! I am so honoured to be among you with this award. This means a lot to me.*Choking with tears*
*Takes a spotless white kerchief from an inner pocket and dabs at the face - feelings maaa!*
Me: I have enjoyed writing in this blogsite and I can't tell you how proud I am that somebody, other than my dad and the friend I bribe chocolates to keep visiting my blog, actually reads them.
*Joke! Can also be considered as being modest*
*Camera pans to crowd where three people are seated, two of them ogling... the third*
Crowd: deafening applause. (remember two is company...three is a crowd. well! I take my sayings seriously)
*Camera pans back to the stage where I am still standing, furiously turning the paper. The egghead speech writer has forgotten the 'I wish to thank so and so and so on' part*
Me: I don't know how many people I should be thanking today. Thank you all of you who think I owe you thanks. I declare to my faithful readership that I'll continue to blog as long as I have you people to support me and entertain, educate, enlighten and eradicate you with this blog (never mind the flow).
*Raising the li'l statuette like it was a tea-cup or a wine glass*
Me: To more years of blogging
Crowd*gasps*: Oh! No!!!!!
*The crowd becomes company and then becomes solitary and ends up as nothing*
*curtains*
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