Beautiful Thing

Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me. 

We went back quite a long way, and she had always been the most beautiful thing I ever knew. I was hesitant to tell her that though, as I did not know how she would take it. It was just as well, better to be close to her, around her all the time than mess it all up with a moment of uncalled-for bravado. I was ok with that. It seemed for now, that she was too.

And yet here she was, sitting across from me, smiling radiantly as ever. My eyes were still tracing the upward curve of her lips, leading into those perfect cheekbones, before one splashed into her deep blue eyes. She must have seen me distracted because she was saying something again,

"I asked if you are coming for our girls' night-out. It'll be over at Katy's place, so it's practically a slumber party. It's gonna be..."

I must have been nodding along encouragingly. She kept going on about our night together in pajamas...

He suddenly realized he was still holding the phone, and she was still talking. How long had she been going on? What had he missed? Were they still talking about the same thing? What had they been talking about anyway? He tried to remember where he had lost track of the conversation. He started working backwards, with great difficulty, and arrived at a point where it looked like he had lost the plot. She had said something then, and he did not remember it. Something that had jerked him out of the conversation and into another plane. He even remembered thinking to himself, 

"Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me"

Oh.

Why the Sehwag double hundred feels different

For that very reason actually. That title sounds so natural. The Sehwag Double Hundred. Because there is a need to brand it. Because there's already one before him. That was the one that was only called 'The Double Hundred'. That deserved the definite article. It was something as yet undefined by anyone, so there was no need to brand it. Like how we just call it 'The Sun'. Not the Walmart Sun, you know?

In a way, it's sort of unfair to Sehwag. After all, this IS the highest score on the planet in ODIs. But, it remains just a refinement of an already accomplished effort. The response to the double hundred itself was distinct. From the crowd, from the commentators, everyone. Compare Ravi Shastri's 'First man on the planet to do it, and it's the Superman from India' to Siva's 'Has he got it through the gap? Is it another four? Oh what a good shot... Oh hang on he's got 200 too!'. I'm exaggerating of course, but the focus itself was not on the 200 anymore but how fast he had got there, how everything had gone right for him etc.

And that's the second part that's been unfair to Sehwag. A lot has been written and said about his see-ball-hit-ball philosophy and his blank mind and everything. It's unconventional yes, but also simple. To the point of being too simple in fact, that it's not exhilarating anymore. When Sehwag reduces it to just two actions, everyone thinks 'oh yes of course, now it all makes sense'. And we all rejoice in how easy it is, and how effortlessly he does it. 

But human inclination is to celebrate the skill that it does not yet understand, and watch a master of the skill perspire his way to it. In all of what I consider Sachin's three greatest innings - vs Australia (the qualifier), Sharjah; vs Pakistan, Centurion; vs South Africa, Gwalior - the most enduring images have been of Sachin puffing/cramping/puffing & cramping. Contrast that to Sehwag's effortless coast to the 200, and then some more. One is a master painstaking working his way to an art, the other is doing a 9-5 job. One is a butcher, the other a sculptor. The act is the same, but the art, not so much.

In many ways, the first double hundred just ran to a perfect script. The 200 didn't come till the last over,. There was the incredulity of whether the country's favourite captain would deny the favourite son just because he was dealing only in boundaries. Surely after coming all the way to 199, where he seemed to stay for about an eternity, he wouldn't be denied for lack of strike! Hashim Amla got perhaps the greatest cheer in an away ground for stopping a boundary. It was a perfect symphony of rising notes leading up to the crescendo. Like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Sehwag's innings on the other hand was like Pink Floyd's Echoes. A constant trip where you barely notice the high points, because you just want to keep tripping away...

Speed Racer

He knew he never had the straight-line speed to catch him. If it had to be done, it would have to be done on the braking. And soon, they were on the last lap.
“And Schumacher starts the final lap still in pursuit of Hakkinen. Will he finally be able to make this one count, or will the McLaren’s straight line speed keep him ahead till the chequered flag?”
He felt the sheer adrenalin making him sharper, more focused. He had been called the greatest driver of his times by many, and the greatest driver ever by a few but all of that was immaterial right now. He tightened the grip on the steering wheel and pushed himself deeper into his seat by a fraction of an inch. That’s what this sport was decided on, fractions of inches.
“We turn into Beckett’s now, the series of long, sweeping left-handers that will suit the Ferrari’s balanced chassis. Can Schumacher gain ground here?”
He knew this circuit like the back of his hand. He could drive it single-handed through blinding rain, and had actually done it a few times as well. He went along the same route so many times that he knew exactly where to brake late, where to move that fraction of an inch closer to the edge of the road, where the upward slope was so that he could get on the accelerator early…
“Coming up to the first intermediate marker here, and Schumacher’s first sector time is faster than Hakkinen’s! He’s gaining here surely. Not by a lot, but he’s definitely gaining.”
He hated that his car was not just simply faster, and he had to drive his way out of this if he was to win it. But then again, wasn’t that what great sportsmen were made of. If everything was set for you- the best car, the best team, the best conditions, then what was to differentiate you from anyone else who got those. Thus consoling himself, he screwed his eyes closer and leaned forward ever so slightly, as if egging the car forward. The grip got harder still, the seat was pressing against his back now more than he was pressing against it and the legs had practically become welded to the gas and brake pedals. He was as close to being one with the car as he ever could be. As close to Nirvana.
“We’re past the second intermediate and it’s still anybody’s race. There’s barely half a second in this one now, and we are not making any calls. Hold on to your hats folks, this one’s going all the way to the last corner”
This was it now, he knew it. The last chicane, the sharp left-right before they floored their pedal to the finish line. He braked really late, as if making a move for the inside of the left turn. Predictably, the car in front defended, closing the inside line and leaving him no room to move. But then, he had known that. He hadn’t done 25000kms in a vehicle to forget the basic rule of racing, ‘Always defend your inside line’. He turned sharply right, simultaneously accelerating hard even while turning. A cardinal sin of course, but what the heck. He was now on the outside of the car in front, but more importantly, on the inside for the upcoming right. He practically stood on his brakes for the right turn, perfectly clipped the edge of the kerb to make the racing line and gave a quick glance towards his left. He could see the nose of the McLaren, in line with his seat. This was it!
“And Schumacher’s just pulled off the most amazing move! All the way around the outside on the left turn before diving inside for the final corner and flooring it all the way to the finish line. What. A. Finish!”
* * * *

There she was, in her usual seat next to the CEO’s office. She looked up, flashed him that brilliant smile of hers and asked, “You’re in a bit early today, aren’t you?”

He smiled back and nodded. Then, still smiling, he made his way to his desk, the noise from the grandstands still ringing in his ears.

It had been another record-breaking lap from his house to office.

TwitteRant

Firstly let me clarify that this has been long due. That it has not seen the light of day can be attributed to various reasons, not least of which is paradoxically one of the things this post seeks to address. And thankfully, now that I've got my customary long sentence out of the way, I can get down to business.

Unless you've been living under a rock or, in massive over-preparation for 2012, in an ABC shelter, you cannot have missed the internet phenomenon that is Twitter. I was about to prefix that with 'latest' when I caught myself, realizing that in the digital world, Twitter is about as latest as the chubby Ronaldo is to football and the Pterodactyl is to the earth. Either way, your life has been touched by #twitter at least once. I am among the last of the muggles left in Twitter-warts magic school, simply failing to understand how a medium that needs such constant attention and allows no room for flowing, liberal prose could ever be such a popular medium of expression.

It's not that I don't like the concept itself, it's just that somehow I feel, it's no different from those big ol' public chat-rooms that Yahoo had. For me, twitter is like the Chennai Central station - as soon as I enter it, I just get swamped by this incessant buzz of chatter, each with their own voices and opinions and all talking at once. Similarly, most twitter conversations which go @reply after @reply after @reply seem like the chubby, late-middle-aged bureaucrat or businessman in a Safari next to you talking loudly into his phone forcing one side of the conversation completely upon you.

And what is this about joining the conversation. Most of the times the conversations fly by so thick and fast that I barely get to comprehend what's going on, let alone get a word in. Apparently there's 'clients' and 'apps' which can read your brain, paraphrase it in 140 characters, throw in a few links and hashtags and announce it to the world within 10 seconds. I, on the other hand, lose about 2 minutes just trying to see which @ I should reply to, and then thinking about the line which will best pack a 140-character punch. By then, the topic of discussion would have moved on entirely about thrice, rendering you clever, thoughtful and brilliant insights kinda 'old school'. Damn.

"If you know so much, you must be using it, Aha!" you say. I am, but it's mostly in such a passive state that bears in hibernation will have a longer timeline than mine. Mostly I'm just scared that I will break some unwritten rule in the flurry of all the @ and #s. Is it ok to address a guy you completely don't know as 'mate'? Should I ask for people's permission before @mentioning them? And seriously, what's the deal with celebrities?!! Questions to which deriving the answers from the iterations of my moral compass result in the same lack of alacrity as mentioned above. And on twitter, alacrity is everything.

As far as I see it, it has been most successful as a news dissemination medium, which is quite different from what it allegedly started out being. By the sheer strength of crowd-sourcing, it's been able to pull together stories from all over the world in a way no news agency can, and for that it works. Imagine a current affairs wikipedia, constantly edited and getting filled with some useful information by a modification of the Infinite Monkey theorem. And the power of customization letting you choose which parts of infinity you want to read, right here right now. Well, that's all just fair. I guess some of us would still like to wait for a more informed, thoughtful opinion in the next day's papers.

What do you think? Feel free to drop me a line on twitter @Duckyied and I'll be sure to get back to you. By 2013.

Or you can just leave a comment below.