The finer aspect

These are fast times. As i like to call it, its the era of instant gratification. Everyone wants to achieve something. we look for shorter routes everywhere. I saw a piece of news recently which told me not everyone is the same, and there's still hope for someone as conservative as me.

This is the one i'm talking about.

In this day and age, its refreshing to see someone honest and who has his head on his shoulders, instead of being stuck on the clouds (or worse, up someone's ass). Here's a man who is ready to give up his lucrative career, loads of money and fame for something as noble as saving his father's life. In fact, there's no guarantee that he will be of help, but the fact that he is ready to give up so many things for his career just makes me speechless. Can we do something like this? Are we ready to do that? Most of us will ask 'Why should i?'. I do not have an answer.

There's also the case of Kim Clijsters, that awesome tennis player, but without the good looks of Maria or the killer backhand of Justine. She was on top of her game when she retired. She retired because she thought she had enough. She wanted a quite life. She wanted to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

Its very easy to call a person a quitter. But are we having more quitters these days? My awareness of sports is restricted to only cricket, so i'll talk only of that. We have so many cricketers saying they have had a lot of stress and they need to think about their game and their life. The stress seems to be getting to them. Marcus Trescothick, Shaun Tait, Lou Vincent being cases in point. Have we had so many players taking a 'break' from the game before? Mocking a person already down is very easy. Stepping into their shoes isn't.

We so often forget to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. They have a purpose. They slow down your life. Rather bring some normalcy into your life. I'm old school all over. I enjoy the imperfection of a black and white movie, i adore the corniness of a simple PJ, struggling to wake up only to find you have a full hour more before you need to start to work, realising that your best friend is also your soul mate..

Things have changed in my life, and this is one of my most random post. But the most stable among them too. Oh, the times they are a-changing!

Oh My Word!

There is way too much cricket happening these days. And obviously there are way too many people talking about it. Commentary has become a long forgotten art, simply because of the fact that the wrong people are talking. People who could still be playing are talking and people who should be talking are playing. Sigh.

But one of the worst commentators of recent times has to be Wasim Akram. He wins with an overwhelming majority. Yes, even Ranjit Fernando doesn’t stand a chance. Wasim Akram stands apart in the over-crowded group of mediocre yappers.

What makes Wasim bhai unique in this is the fact he remains, to this day, the greatest bowler ever to have adorned the game of cricket. He wove magic with the ball, make no mistakes. My memory of Wasim is that of him, screaming down the pitch at a dropped catch, screaming down the pitch after cleaning up the batsman, screaming down the pitch after the batsman gets beaten off a peach of a delivery. But, alas, this was to change. And how!

The first instance where my image of a screaming Wasim was to change was with the Shaz and Waz show. Here was the greatest bowler discussing girls in the crowd. And trying to flirt with them. Overkill, Wasim bhai.

Mention must be made of his prowess with the words. His vocabulary would make a third grader go “Mom, I can be a commentator too!!”. He gives you numbers – “This is the third over for XXX. He has seven overs left. The score is 125 for 2. The man on your screen is yyyy. He is great batsman. One of greatest. My favourite. He plays awesome straight drive. Required rate is 3.45. Current rate is 2.34.” And then some commentator will save us from further misery by cutting in. Notice the complete absence of articles. Fair enough, he was playing cricket from the age of 5, so he missed all the classes.

But these days its not just Wasim bhai. The whole standard of commentary is going down a lot. There’s Arun Lal ( he says “I have never seen anything quite like this” in every match), there’s Laxman Sivaramakrishnan (would jump out of his chair with excitement everytime someone hits a boundary), there’s Navjot Singh Sidhu ( I won’t say anything here ). And then of course, there’s the legendary Ranjit Fernando ( this crikat is being played on a good wikaat ). Goeffrey boycott, please come back!

Commentary as an art should be minimal. Words should serve a purpose. They should create an image. Richie benaud managed that. No one to my memory has been able to quite do that these days. My experiences are obviously only restricted to TV and i haven’t really touched upon radio commentators because i simply don’t know. But still i feel there is a huge scope for improvement among the present lot.

And finally i’ll leave you with an amazing piece of commentary by Wasim bhai in today’s CB final. Have a good laugh.

Rohit Sharma plays an expansive drive and gets beaten. Wasim goes – “Now, Sachin should use his experience. He should go to rohit and say “ok guy (sic), you played well so far. Now don’t play anything. Just make runs.”

Long live wasim bhai!