Announcement

Just figured out that I have a saner side too ( Yay!). Now the problem is that the saner side wants to write sane stuff and it would be sacrilege to do anything like that here. So after much deliberation I have decided to allow my alter ego to publish here. Just so that any of the readers dont feel cheated, all the posts by my alterego would be signed - The Wah Man

Sincerely,

The Blah Man

It's a GOAL!

It is around 10 in the night. I don’t have a very clear idea of the time but my super human sense of time indicates that it is close to 10 pm. I can feel the heat of the situation; my calf muscles are pulled up and are begging for rest, my heart is racing and the adrenalin is rushing as if it’s chasing the last local train out of CST. Yet, I ignore all of this. All I need now is to keep my focus going for a few more minutes and then the glory shall be mine.

Standing underneath the bright floodlights on a green carpet of soft grass, I look around at the cheering crowd in the stadium. The chants of my name by thousands of fans, banners reading - “We love you No.10!”, and security persons lined up on the upper stands’ parapet to keep my female fans from jumping off in excitement; all these elements urge me to carry on. All 11 of us are dressed in blue, the official color of the Indian cricket team. But this isn’t cricket. This is football, a game that was never a forte of Indians.

I am not probably the best person to comment on how things changed for India and me. I have a feeling that I have the entire story intact in my subconscious mind but somehow after that fateful incident when I was hit on the head by a load of bird shit I forgot all about my past life (I will share the details of the unfortunate incident some other time). Anyway, let me just sum it up in one breath before I start sounding unbelievable - “India is playing the finals of the world cup. The venue is probably Eden gardens, the rivals are some random team dressed in yellow. Our team is in blue and although I cant recognize all of them, I can definitely identify Ronaldo, Rooney, Ballack , Beckham and Bhutia.

At the moment, we are into the last 50 seconds of the game. The scores are tied at 2-2. I know that if we don’t score another goal, our chances of winning are as good as zero. Our goalkeeper ‘D’ was once a wicket keeper for the Indian cricket team but could never do much to keep the small cricket ball from escaping him. He thought he had a better chance at collecting bigger balls and landed into the national football team.
Beckham is taking a shot after a player from the opponent’s team grabbed Ronaldo inappropriately while trying to tackle the ball. As Beckham takes the shot, I can already see the opportunity slipping out of our hands. The shot clearly doesn’t match up to the international levels of professional football. I make a mental note of kicking him out of the team after this match since he has lost his sheen after being dumped by Posh. However, I need to make up for the bad shot and give my best to the moment. I keep a close eye on the ball as it flies almost opposite to the opponents’ goal post, hitting Ronaldo on the face (I suppose it’s just not a good day for him). Bhutia , who is standing just behind the centre line hits it back using his chest in a movement resembling the way our Tennis icons Paes and Bhupati used to celebrate a point by hitting their chests against each others’ . The ball flies almost half the length of the field and sensing an opportunity, I make a dash for it. The ball lands in the opponents’ D and I slide a good 10 feet to make a contact with it and push it through one of the rival players (who I believe is Andrew Symonds). With no time to waste as we move into the last 10 seconds of the game, I get back on my feet and run with the ball towards the goal.

The goalkeeper along with 4 other players, charges at me forming a human wall between me and the goal. I weigh my options quickly and decide to get in my super acrobatic skills into play (I acquired these skills while I was a super hero in Cambodia). I hold the ball in between my feet and perform a semi somersault. As a result, I am on both my hands and my legs are up with the ball caught between my feet. The next moment I toss the ball above the human wall using the momentum of my legs.

Everybody watches with bated breath as the ball clears the wall and soars into the goal post. A blanket of silence covers the stadium for a few seconds. The world has just witnessed an act of unprecedented athleticism. The crowd erupts into a victory roar and all my team mates rush to hug me. I acknowledge the crowd, I toss the ball and with all my might hit it to the stands…..

…… There is an unbearable pain in my right foot. The right big toe is throbbing and I am trying hard to stop a scream from escaping my mouth. As I slowly get back to my senses I realize that I had hit the wall next to my bed in full strength.

I missed the Gym and limped all day. The pain subsided but somehow the memory has refused to get diluted. I take it as my moral responsibility to apprise my readers with this because I have chosen to believe that this incident is only a harbinger of bigger things to come.

Also, please do not be appalled by the mention of international stars in the Indian football team. My extensive research of the dream tells me that this was probably because these are the only names I know from the world of football. My apologies to all football fans if I have hurt their sentiments in any way.

Sincerely,
The Blah Man

The Three Kinds of Learners

Life is a learning experience; it teaches us of its vagaries in numerous ways and prepares us to face ups and downs as they come. There are essentially 3 types of learners*:

1.The Fishukawas: These are the front row students of the course; they are smart, seldom make mistakes and are quick learners. They believe in the adage: Prevention is better than cure and hence always ensure quality control. (Source: Total Quality Management )

2.The Bishukawas: As the name suggests (I don't know how though) these are the back benchers. They don't care about anything; they are there to have fun and give the life and its lessons all the shit they are worth. They make all the mistakes but refuse to learn. They take everything in their stride.

3.The Mishukawas: Clearly, the middle benchers. Thoroughly confused, life is like a quandary for them. They get hit all the time but never get to know how. Their most frequent question is usually "Why did this have to happen to me?" They try with all their might but never get anywhere and for some strange reason others find their confused demeanor funny and at times cute and their friends are Prof Murphy and his ghost.

*The names have been deliberately chosen from the Japanese language to make it easy for readers to remember and relate to.

This masterpiece of writing here is dedicated to the third kind of learners, The Mishukawas(I will address them with the abbreviation XXX although I understand that it is difficult for the reader to understand how I arrived at that. However, the reader is ensured that a lot of mathematical calculations have gone into that). To understand XXXs, it is imperative that we are acquainted with Prof.Murphy and his law. Murphy's law states that "Things will go wrong if they have to and in a way so as to do maximum damage". XXXs have a strange affinity to this law and its consequences and in this little piece of work here, I will narrate an incident which will make my point clear.

To start with, I must inform you that I myself belong to the XXX category and this is my little story.

I have had this knack missing out on at least one question or a part of it in every other exam I take. It has been happening very frequently with me of late. It has often happened that I miscalculated time or misread it and ended up missing a question or two. It left me dejected and I felt like a loser but I guess when you have had enough of adversities, even Gods are shaken up and they themselves resolve to help you out. I had no idea that Gods had woken up for me today. It started like any other exam day, only that I had this firm determination in my heart to take the question paper by its horns and pin it down in time, and I could feel a strange 'force' hell bent upon helping me out. I wore a winner's smile as I entered the exam room. I wanted to shout –"Get aside morons, the star has arrived!"

The exam paper was a bit lengthy, but I was prepared for the bouncers. I was ready today….! I started writing at a pace which would have turned Mr Schumacker and his companions pink (Let's assume the color of jealousy is pink). Excellence in time management was on my mind, and 'the force' was also there to help. I knew I couldn't go wrong. I cut down long answers short, I wrote in bullets, I used acronyms and abbreviations (as profound as XXX), drew figures without scale and rarely bothered to correct grammatical errors. This was a race and I had to win, people who would care to decorate would find themselves out of it. “Morons!”, I thought again and smiled as I answered each question.

I knew that I wasn't answering well in terms of the content, but then nobody who had to complete the exam in the given time could and so I rode on. However, I did have my anxious moments. Just as I saw my watch show that only two minutes remained, I realized that I had missed out on one question. I could see the walls of my fort crumbling…. I couldn't have given it up then. I looked up to the heavens and asked for some extra 'force' and got back to work. It amazed me to see my pen move with such finesse. I was a master warrior and my pen was my sword (at this moment I formulated an adage –"A pen is mightier than a sword" and I have a feeling that it will get famous someday). So, as the clock ticked towards the end of the allotted time, I started getting up from my seat almost pretending that I was about to submit my answer sheet. I was scribbling rapidly on the sheet to complete my answer before the answer sheet could be taken away by the invigilator. For those who have been in similar situations would agree that it's a weird position you get into under such circumstances. You get 'half' up from your seat and pretend to be ready to hand over the sheet and yet continue to write in a desperate attempt to finish. I was in that situation.

However, my hand ached but I just wrote those final words. Words which read victory for me... I got up (completely this time) and handed over the sheet to the invigilator and dashed out of the room to proclaim my victory. In the corridor though, there was not a Kaswahaza (that's an animal from my nightmares and I have a feeling it's Japanese too) to greet me. And then I remembered the last bit of Murphy's law, the elusive bit... it said-" Nothing in the world is right, so if everything seems right, there is something wrong" it echoed to me from the heavens and I almost turned brown( lets assume it's the color of fear and shock), peeped back into the class and asked a classmate why nobody else was moving out and his words shattered me; he spoke in crisp Spanish ( I understand Spanish well)- "Paper 2 ghante ka hai bhai!" There was lightening and then it rained. Only over me though. Heavens were crying; I had done the impossible only that it wasn't required!

But then I walked out feeling self actualized. I had seen another one of life's vagaries and was a stronger and more learned man though a bit more confused.

I met a few friends and told them my sad story; they sympathized by laughing only for 15 minutes over it and promising to tell my story to only a few more people.

So that's how XXXs are. There is more to them though and as a responsible member of this category, I shall write more on them later.

Regards,

The Blah Man

PS: I got to know of this person who managed to give a new angle to the famous BCG matrix by replacing the category-"Dogs" with "Donkeys". I don't know which category he would belong to, but I guess he feels like a brother to me!