Denial

by Anuranjan Roy

There was the slouch and there was the swagger. The open top button of his cricket playing uniform be it Tests or ODIs, the amulet around his neck he let hang out to watch his 'supple wrists' come into play. The TV commentators' repeated use of the words 'soft hands' when he was batting and 'sharp catch' when he was on the field. The unique all-white helmet he wore and the routine "The boys played really well today..." nature of his post-match presentation talk irrespective of the match's outcome. My first clear memories of watching Indian cricket sometime back in the early 90s didn't feature victory too much. Yet they have staying power as if bound to my psyche with strings of silk.

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Then came that dreadful night of 1996. Why? Why would anyone choose to chase under lights at the Eden Gardens, notorious for being the wrong place to chase runs under the lights? Why in the World Cup semi-final? The whispers grew louder. Psssttt... do you know what happens in the Sharjah matches? Psssttt... did you not wonder why so-and-so played in such-and-such manner? The accusations were horrifying, the crimes were unspeakable. Whether that particular match had any undue influences exerted in its sad result will remain a debate quite irresolveable, rearing its head up even recently but the fact was our way of looking at and investing real emotions in Indian cricket would change forever in the next few years to follow.  

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I refused to believe. No, no. Not him. I thought of the reluctant ease with which the bat was held, almost unwillingly and the casual flash it took to reach the ball. The unlikely angles created when a fullish delivery outside off stump was dispatched to any of the leg-side boundary boards. I remembered the time when, on his favourite ground of the Eden Gardens, Lance Klusener, taken for five consecutive Hyderabadi fours in the first over after lunch, looked flabbergasted. How he walked up to the youngster  immediately after the over to tousle his hair, smiling and offering his commiserations to the beleagured debutant. Once when he didn't catch Curtly Ambrose cleanly in the slips, even though the batsman had walked, he called him back to the batting crease. He the ever cheerful sportsman, a gentleman cricketer, supremely and dominantly competitive in the arcs traced by his bat but never a trace of ugliness in his on-field behaviour.

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Children are creatures of instinct. Swinging conditions or sharp bounce or footwork were fancy terms too much for an immature brain to process. The appreciation of those handling such conditions via technique would come as I grew older. All I understood and appreciated in the beginning was the flair. And that, he had plenty of. Our heroes, sporting and otherwise tend to be put up on high pedestals, especially the ones that drew us in our formative years, aiding the belief that they were not subject to other worldly human flaws. To the unbiased logical mind, the facts of the enquiry were clear-cut and so was the decision. But in a place where there should be searing anger, there is only a dull pain and a lasting refusal to accept reality. No, no. Not him.

Anuranjan Roy blogs at http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com

Spider Sense

Bertie Wooster spent his life sidestepping devious plans of his aunts to tie him up into nuptial knots.
However, the modern generation is not completely free from such perils of partnership.

by

Anuranjan Roy

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"Don't hang around with your buddies after work today. Try to come home early."

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A reasonably innocuous statement at breakfast time on a workday but I don't know why spider-sense is tingling, warning me of imminent unseen danger.

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"Why?" I ask Mom "What's the deal?"

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"Mr and Mrs. XYZ are visiting. Our very good friends from our days in Mysore. They've recently moved back to Kolkata."

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My parents' 1 year in Mysore was just before I was born so at least I'll be spared the regular "Oooh! The last time I saw you was when you were wearing nappies. Look at you now!" routine... I think. "No, you did not see me in my nappies. I wasn't born the last time you met my parents."

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"Will try to." I say and grab my motorcycle keys heading out to fulfil my quota of work owed to the world, a debt I shall have to keep paying up on till I reach retirement age.

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It's a routine day at work by most definitions - chit-chatting, work, lunch at the canteen while simultaneously cursing the food as we eat it, deadly post-lunch drowsiness, attempts at work, "EOD is here and I haven't got half as far as I was supposed to..." tensions etc but I still have to get to the bottom of the spider-sense warning. So I decide to dilly-dally a little bit more at office than head back home.

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I don't have to wait for too long after my regular departure time before my cell phone starts ringing. It's Mom.

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"When are you going to get home? These folks are eager to see you."

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"I'll be heading out soon." I reply while waiting for more obvious clues to their enthusiasm.

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"Their daughter is here too. She's getting bored"

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Aha! Spider-sense gets stronger.

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"We wanted to give her something since this is the first time we are seeing her. Ummm... let's see. Why don't you get some chocolate for her ***on our behalf*** on the way back?" she continues.

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"What?!! Chocolate? How old is she?" I enquire.

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"About 23-24, I guess..."

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Smooth.

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"[Cough! Cough!] Oh no! Something came up at work. Probably won't be able to take off right now. Will call you later. Bye!" I say before hanging up and dedicating the next 2 hours to reading random articles on Google News via my office desktop.

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Its 10:30 at night by the time I feel safe again to get set for the return journey. Any 'eager' parties should have taken the hint by now.

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For all the traps and set-ups in the world, I've only got one message. Spider-sense never fails.

Friend Feed Overload

by 

Anuranjan Roy

I almost quit Facebook yesterday. I really did seriously consider it. No, not because I am among the unfortunate few whose mom is on FB and have to deal with questions like "Who is that?" or worser still "What is that?" on every picture or comment posted. That's a pain I have learnt to live with in this, the information age. I like getting on to Facebook and Orkut too much to really quit it whole-sale. Commenting and album surfing are too much of a fun activity to give up completely. The only reason the thought ran across my head was that I came online on Yahoo Messenger after many years and ran into a very rare kind of friend.

Rare because this buddy of mine is not on any of the social networks be it Orkut or Facebook or any of the others (Are there any left alive?). Back in the day, he mistakenly signed up for Yahoo and that's where he remains. One of my closest friends, we had spent the majority of our school life as part of our regular crew of pals hanging out, playing terrace cricket, early morning cycle races, pre-tuition post-tuition video gaming and all those wonderful things that only kids can get away with. Growing up sucks (Boo hoo) but that's a different issue and here I will get back to the topic. It was so awesome to get in touch with him again. Where are you, what are you up to, how's the old hometown, remember how we used to sneak past the stadium security guards to religiously play our game of evening cricket, you went to the US?, you bought a Pulsar - hey me too, mine's red! - all questions and answers put forward with an intention of actually listening and filling in the gaps. Waves of nostalgia and a uber cool buddy-buddy feeling swamped us both.

As opposed to if he were on FB. Every week or so, his face would pop on my news-feed or if he were as hyperactive as me, he would pop up daily! I would know where he was, how he was and all those details without ever having to talk to him as in virtual terms he'd be shouting about it from the rooftops. When I'd talk to him, there wasn't much to talk about now because "Hey, I went to the US!" would be met with "I know... (those pictures you uploaded stayed on my home page forever)", "Hey! I bought a red Pulsar" would be replied by "Yeah, I saw your status message...(and the 10000 comments that followed below it)" So boring, so meaningless would be our conversation since there wasn't anything to really learn and laugh about. 

Facebook, Orkut and their brothers have driven a real thrill out of our lives. To bump into somebody from our past in a foreign city, to jump up in joy and to negotiate the stream of questions from both ends - all that is unfortunately something that happened to people in the past. Now that someone is a friend, he/she stays on your life's home page and within easy contact forever. Forever in this case is boring because it is just too much information. Almost everything you wanted to know or did not want to know is on public display. Sometimes a long separation is necessary to make the old connections even stronger. In an ironical twist, this post is going onto my FB status, but I was tempted, really tempted yesterday to get the mystery and adventure of not knowing back into my life.

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Anuranjan Roy is a regular contributor to Scroll. He blogs at http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com