Part 1

This would not be the first time that I have felt compelled to blog, because a friend was looking for some entertainment. Since I have never intended to make this a regular blog, I reckon it is not an unusual thing.

If this was indeed a regular blog, I would write about the fact that I am sitting at Dubai International Airport and am enjoying Wireless access. And that I am excited that I am on my way to Bombay. That I might be watching Sachin play at Wankhede. That I expect to play a decent game of cricket on Sunday. But I always imagined that whoever read any online journal I kept, would not need to go there to find out these things.

What I do intend to talk about is an interesting dream I had a couple of nights ago. I must warn people who have not been subject to this before, that my dreams are extremely hilarious, and full of comic irony. But that is only on the morning after.

This particular dream is hardly an exception:
I found myself ranting to Friend after I just got a girl’s phone number:
Me: Do you always check that a number is divisible by 11? I think numbers that are divisible by 11 are easy to remember. In any case it is a trivial test and doesn’t take time. Besides obvious regularities, which are difficult to quantify, it is the best start.
Friend: Do you remember anything about the girl you just spoke to?
Me: Er. No.
Friend: That can’t be good.
Me: Well, the world would be so much simpler if women were just numbers.
Friend: But names are so much better than numbers.
Me: No, not their names. I mean if they were numbers themselves. Physically. Well, metaphysically at least.
Friend: What!?
Me: Well, you could be walking down the road, look at this woman and quip “666, no way!”. You’d go past 6 and 9 holding hands, and chuckle. You’d see all those 8′s and 88′s at fish market on Sundays. You would not make the mistake of asking 13 out on a Friday night. You’d pass a 362436, not be able to take your eyes off her and bump into 36D. You’d apologize to her, then turn to me and say [thumbs-up]“Hexadecimal dude!”[/thumbs-up]. You get the picture?
Some chick who overheard me from the other table: Well, I’m 23. What do you have to say about that?
Me: Well, what’s your phone number called?

Part 2

I watched India chase down an Australian score for the first time since 1998. To put it mildly we did not dominate the match. The parts where Australia were on top, which wasn’t surprisingly the early overs in both innings, they looked the better side that they are.

But the Indians fought hard for this victory. At least the ones on the field. In the Sachin Tendulkar stand in the North End of the Stadium, we were sitting close to both the fence, and the sight screen. I have to admit that the people I saw around me did look as stupid as they acted. There was a large section of the audience chanting obscenities at any of the Australians who threatened to perform – or if they simply walked up to field by the boundary. I was surprised when an announcement actually got them to sit quietly for a while. For the better part of the game, India could have done with some support. It was appalling to see that this thought hardly crossed the minds of the crowds, and one could sense a mass pride in abusing a white man. There were even chants against Pakistan, which just sounded ridiculous.

The Australians and the papers continue to insist that this is racial abuse. Especially the monkey taunts that Symonds has to face. But I have to admit, the crowd seemed hardly racist. They were just downright abusive. It did not matter who. I would have thought of apologizing to the Australians, but I know that the Australian crowds are no better. And probably racist as well. None of which condones what the crowd did.

Of course I could not tolerate this, the entire length of the match. There was this vendor selling packets of chips the whole day. Towards the end of the match, Stuart Clark was fielding down at our end of the ground. The vendor I just mentioned, was taking a break from his work and decided to make cat calls to the one Australian within range. He kept talking to Stuart Clark in Hindi. When someone pointed out to that he probably did not understand the language, he kept saying things like “biscuit’, “hello”, “thank you”. Which I guess he assumed would annoy Clark. There was a point at which I could not stand it anymore. I told him something like “You can malign your own country’s honor, don’t mess with mine”. His retort was something about them having ruled us for 200 years, and I had to haphazardly point out that it wasn’t the Australians who did that. I even asked the policeman to take care of this and he mumbled something that seemed to dissuade the guy from continuing. As Krishna rightly pointed out, if we all try to point out to people that we as spectators need a sportsman’s spirit as much as the players on the field, we will be able to take our kids proudly to a stadium and show them that games, battles, hearts and minds are won by good cricket in good spirit.

Meanwhile Sachin’s strokes continue to be examples of a sublime beauty, that only a sport as elaborate as cricket can bring to the stage. Something that on a cricket field, has a dazzle and shine of it’s own. And there is nothing that can take away from that.

Part 3

On my flight from Dubai to Bombay, we got stalled on the runway with a malfunction. The captain made an announcement that sounded something like “we might have forgotten the engine on the left wing, we are going to call for someone to tow us back”. When I got up 2 hours later, we were still in Dubai, and we were told that we’d have to get onto another plane.

Before I boarded the first plane, it occurred to me that I hadn’t penned a poem down for a really long time now. And of course I had to correct the situation. So, I put together this:

Blind

If I were a brook,
I’d be the one that took,
The tumble down the rock,
To be one among another

If I were a tree,
I’d have broken free,
From the shadow of the forest,
To be with certainty

If I were a mole,
I’d have dug the hole,
That fought the rock and earth,
Until there was no more

But then,
I am inclined,
To wait for imminent doom
And keep the blindfold on,
In a dark room

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