Connection of Cricket, Honesty and Hardwork

Cricket is one of the most addictive things around. Only those who watch it know it. The excitement of each ball, each run, classic cover drives, unconventional cut over the keeper and all those things that happen in a day’s play are unparalleled and unmatched.

Besides this excitement of sports, cricket also represents the classic philosophical aspect of life. This is best reflected through the uncertainty and honesty of the game. In one of the recent test matches India won the game just by one wicket, Bangladesh defeated New Zealand very dominantly. In both these instances the hardwork met with honesty. When hours of perseverance, practice and patience meets with the random, uncertain and pure form of game, the resultant actions are such that leave all with their mouth wide open in awe and wonder.

Cricket is not great only because it provides lot of money and entertainment. What makes it great is that in that ground, most of the times, level playing field is ensured for all. On that ground, hard work meets with honesty and you see the results.

I wish everyone was a cricketer or a sportsman at least. But alas…….

LossoLogy…. Learning from losses……

The premise on which we live our life is fundamentally optimistic. We almost take it for granted that our life tomorrow will certainly be better than it is today. While this may be true for most of the economic and professional aspects but it is not entirely true for the many other personal aspects of life. Scary as it may sound, but at times life gives us jolts that break our entire intellectual, professional and ability related prowess and arrogance.

Fickle is the power that we draw from our advantageous background, schooling, upbringing and qualification when it comes to stand up to some of the unavoidable circumstances that life has to offer. Loss – of any type - is one such instance. Be is as basic as that of a child who just lost his ball, or of that mother who lost her newly born boy, loss always shakes us from within. It always leaves us brooding over questions starting from, why? How? What?

What comes to our rescue at this time is not the networking we did for climbing the career ladder, but the bonds we made through genuine care, love and kindness for others. Not the skills we developed like slaves but the strengths we developed as independent individuals. In no way the importance of skills and networking can be undermined, however we must remember the weapons in the real war called life are different. These things may be of little use when we confront life in its worst form.

Conscious effort to imbibe and inculcate, the ability to not only withstand the loss but also coming from it as a stronger individual, may help.

Once a senior mentor of mine had told me, “the strength emanates from moral values, knowing yourself, and sense of “NON Negotiable values in life.” This holds true in all times.

Ghare-Baire (The home and the world)

Ghare Baire – Rabindranath Tagore

Translator: Nivedita Sen

This is novel is a story of subtle transformation. It captures two way changes that emanate from an individual’s interaction with the society around oneself.

In the backdrop of Pre-independence era, this novel not only illustrates the story of its characters but also is a sound account of evolution that was in process during that time. Moreover, careful attention of the author to ever relevant issues of feminism, caste politics, lust for power and wealth, religious bigotry and societal pressures make this novel a wholesome reading experience.

Story begins with Bimala who is a simple lady in the starting. Like all, she too craves for beauty, envied and annoyed by sister in laws, worships her husband and idolizes her mother. However when her life comes out of the “Andarmahal” of the house to the drawing room, in garb of discussions with Sandip, it takes a U turn. Sandip is another significant character in the novel. His character perhaps reflects an extremist ideology initially and is later exposed as someone who channels the enthusiasm in the young and gullible to use it for personal goals. He inspires Bimala that she is the torch bearer of freedom for India. He constantly exalts her, adulates her as Queen. This constant adulation sways Bimala’s mind, she starts comparing Sandip with her husband. Her husband, Nikhilesh, is a complete contrast to Sandip, in manners and in thoughts. Sandip is expressive, whereas Nikhilesh reticent, sandip believes in Machiavellian means in service of nation’s good, Nikhilesh does not approve of application of unfair means, even for the national purpose. Sandip snatches whatever he wants, Nikhilesh believes in the power of will and wait.

There are times in novel when one sees Bimala tilted towards Sandip and completely neglecting Nikhilesh. However with the progress in story Sandip’s other colors are exposed; he takes lot of money from Bimala in the name of national struggle. Bimala comes out of his spell and realizes his weak side, dark side and loathes him for that. She also feels tremendous guilt for the misdeeds she undertook from his inspiration and instigation.

All this while, through Nikhilesh author conveys the difficulty of being good. He is always cheated, towards the end he realizes and expresses that “it is well and good if people are compatible with men of self-willed ideas like me, but those who are not, cheat us. We make even innocent people deceitful.” This expression, though submissive, shows the strength of his character and clarity of his thought. His character also seems to be conveying, indirectly the frailty of women’s character in some parts of he novel. Expressions like, “women were not created for sophisticated men who indulge themselves in ideas” are extreme, derogatory and shows that in mental tumult even men like Nikhilesh give in to the anger and cross the line of propriety. Even in such situations, he is very controlled and composed in outwardly behaviour. This leads to the deterioration of his health.

Nikhilesh’s character also relates to three other characters in brilliant ways and portrays significant aspects of our lives. Chandranath babu, his teacher, is someone who is just like his father. The old man shows great strength in countering the popular opinions. He is the only support of Nikhilesh when almost all around him, mock him, criticise him and hates him. Such support is necessary to nurture the truth and strength perhaps.

Ponchu is a miserable man who seeks help from Nikhilesh in several instances. His misery causes lot of discomfort to Nikhilesh. The best part unfolds in the last chapter wherein the reader sees the bond between Mejorani and Nikhilesh, as that of a mother and child. This revelation comes as a solace in overall chaotic situation, and is full of poignancy.

There is another bond that deserves mention, between Amulya and Bimala. Bimala considers him as his younger brother. Amulya too is initially follower of Sandip but in the end seeing his wickedness draws himself away from him. He symbolises both, deceived and disillusioned youth, who in the end meets poignant death.

All other characters, Mejorani, Barorani, Harish Kundu etc. reflect the societal characteristics vividly. Perhaps all Bengalis and Indians would identify and relate with them easily.

Just like all great creations, Ghare Baire, does not end, it simply blends into our minds and stirs it up with lot of questions. In the end Sandip returns all the money he had taken from Bimala, Bimala confesses her theft to Nikhilesh like a brave lady, Nikhilesh and Mejorani, Nikhilesh takes on to a violent religious mob in order to stop it spreading further violence and is severely injured in that course; Amulya is shot in his chest. Reader is left pondering over these instances and several others.

The answers may be found not outside not inside, only in the intersection of the two perhaps!!

Teaching- learning and the purpose of participation

Couple of years back when I was in the final year of my graduation, I got a call from the principal of the support school where I used to teach to the economically underprivileged kids, saying that there was a debate competition and he was thinking if the students can participate in it.

I told him instantly that of course students should participate, and also told him names of couple of students who were more articulate and talkative in class.

He paused a bit, and then continued, “The language allowed for debate is English.”

I went blank when I heard this. Since I was their English teacher, I knew that their comfort level with language was nowhere close to that of taking part in debate in English. However, I asked him what the topic was. “Corruption is for the rich, it does not affect the poor much” was the topic. “Students are supposed to participate in a team of two, one for the topic and another against it.

Without worrying of how students would react to it, I thought to take a chance. That evening when I went for my class I put forward this topic to them in Gujarati, asked them to think if they could take any side. Fortunately, they thought, not only did they think but they could also put the arguments in a decent manner. Next, I helped them with some words in English and asked them to speak in English. This was way too much to expect though!!

Since I also had my CAT exam that year, I used to meet them only once a week, so we hardly got a chance to practice twice before the final event, and in both the times they could speak in Gujarati but did poorly in English.

However, it was very clear to me and to them also that our purpose was not to win, we just wanted to see something new, calibrate ourselves, and experience something we never did before.

Some days later, I heard that out of two students who had participated in the event, both could put their point across – in half English half Gujarati- speech in front of a crowd of more than hundred people.

There was a temptation in my mind to prepare a whole speech for the students, and just asking them to mug it up and vomit it out at the competition; however it was only good not to surrender to that. That was the happiest day of my short teaching career as students had learned to think, and express on their own, their opinions were truly their own!!

Today when I look back at this event, I reconfirm the fact upon my mind that the sole purpose of participating in any event or competition is not to win it or see it as an opportunity to add a feather to your successes, but it is an opportunity to do, think, see, feel, something newer which one would have never had if one had not participated.

At times in this race, one tends to put away these important learnings, and focus more on immediate outcomes, however being reminded of the true purpose is always a great thing.

The Teacher - An Excerpt from a Book

A remarkable school teacher

Some times of an evening you might chance to see a frail-looking man, short and short sighted, in a black coat and with a prodigious head, walking along the oval pathway. He is a nation builder,- he has helped to educate two generations. He must still be coming back into the memories of thousands who have forgotten all that they set out to learn at school.

Life has not given Nusserwanji P. Pavri his meed of reward, but that has not dulled the edge of his cheerful debonair spirit. He evidently believes that Dante was right in condemning to Stygian marsh those who had been sad under the blessed sunlight. With all his sure and enormous erudition, he is Modesty in person. He has not produced any book. The result of his labour is not so many hundred pages but himself. The issue of his sustained mental effort is not a volume but a man; it could not be embodied in print, it consists in the living word.

Nusserwanji is a quiet man, not to be easily ruffled or rattled. Patience is an instinct with him. He has the simplicity of the man in Dostoevsky’s Brother’s Karamazov who used to ask the birds to forgive him.

He brought the human touch in the lessons; - it was always a lesson never a lecture. When Nusserwanji taught history facts were brought to life, the dry bones of history stirred, the ages began to masquerade. He conjured up before you the fog at Lutzen and the snow at Towton, the shower of rain that led to the American revolution, and the severe winter of 1788 that produced the famine of 1789 and thereby the French upheaval. You saw Brutus, the norm of republican virtue, extorting 48% interest from a wretched Cypriote community; you saw the lights burning low in the skies and the stage darkens in the middle ages; you heard the din of toppling thrones and the crashing of empires during the first world conflagration.

And never did his vision dim, his grasp weaken or his memory fail.

His learning does not consist merely in the stock of facts – the merit of a dictionary – but the discerning spirit, the power of appreciation and that of comparative criticism. Knowledge is to Nusserwanji the bread of life. He reads as if he were to live forever, even as if he were to die the next day. He inoculated his students with his own thirst for knowledge. He was a precision and a martinet in discipline. To him knowledge could no more be aquired without high seriousness than a symphony could be rendered upon the flute.

Punctuality was with him a passion. You could set your watch, correct to half a minute, by the time he came into the class. His private library was at the disposal of all his pupils, and so were his time and learning. There never was a man more generous in encouragement or gentler in reproach. By personal contact with him you not only learnt something, you became something. Contact with him moulded your character and taught you, in the most impressionable years of your life, to beware of ideas half-hatched and convictions reared by accidents. Only thoroughly good man could be so great a teacher as Nusserwanji indubitably was.

He was unerring in his acumen to scent the latent ability in a student. In that great tempest of terror which swept over France in 1973, a certain man who was every hour expecting to be led off to the guillotine, uttered this memorable sentiment:

“Even at this incomprehensible moment, when morality, enlightenment, love of country, all of them only make death at the prison door or on the scaffold more certain, - yes, on the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but my voice, I could still cry Take care to a child that should come too near to the wheel; perhaps I may save his life, perhaps he may one day save his country.” Nusserwanji had this large and inspiring belief in the potentialities of a Kid. He was personally and vitally interested in the progress and career of all his pupils.

Many other things could be related about Nusserwanji from the wide leaved book of memories. The associations of travel fade the incidents of life press so closely one upon another that each in turn is trampled under foot, but one’s associations with a teacher like Nusserwanji remain forever unchanged. He has now retired but the energy of his educational service remains. This soothing thought must have opened a larger meaning and a higher purpose to his daily work. His personal influence has not fallen silent. His pupils will long feel the presence of his character about them, making them ashamed of what is indolent or selfish and encouraging them to all disinterested labour both in trying to do good and in trying to find out what the good is.

Where to Go?

Days end…..

Changes have been so common that now eyes and mind have become too numb to notice them. Each day is very similar to the other day; at times it seems the whole day was just a Xerox copy of some previous day.

There is a discomforting feeling of end approaching, stealthily. However this feeling is also mixed with some sort of fear.

Fear of stagnating, not moving. At times mind thinks that given a chance it would run fast as it can, the only question stopping it from running is.

Where to go?

Two interpretations of a wonderful song.....

Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai....

This post refers to the different interpretations of a song. The song in question is “Thoda hai, Thode ki zaroorat ha” Film Khatta-meetha.

The first line of the song leaves the listener with two possible interpretations.

It says “Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai”

The immediate interpretation is that of all the necessities and requirements some are fulfilled and others are not fulfilled.

After a little while, I thought something different. Does it also not leave room for an interpretation like, “one has modest resources and the requirements are also modest in nature/amount/type.”?

Second line of the poem says “Zindagi phir bhi yahaan, khoobsurat hai”. After listening to this one is sure that the poet indicates the first interpretation, however I believe the second interpretation is also equally likely.

Don’t you think so?