Thursday, October 20, 2011

Autobiography of an Appatucker!

Woh!!

I spend so much time on the title usually, and this time was a zapper!... If you were to ask how much time it took for me to come up with this title, I would probably say "one soppi second"... Cos my collection of books rests just above my monitor. And if you do not find Paramhamsa Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi", hit me on my head! Plagiarism is so beneficial to mankind I tell you...

That's enough crapping Sri.. Now.. Who is this "Appatucker"? Most people would look baffled on this question... Thanks to my friend Arun, for discovering the meaning of this word, as diligently as Vijay discovered Jo's hip in Kushi. My professional institute carries the honour of selecting biological specimens with numerical sense and putting them into a little bit of non sense in what it calls GMCS (never mind the acronym, folks)! If you felt I was trying to become the English TR, apologize right away! My inspiration for anything I do is, more often than not, a biological specimen equivalently cranky as I'm, one Mr. Murali in this case. I may not be too good in "past reading" though I'm sure on this one... This guy inspired the likes of Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, I bet! English flows so fluently off his tongue, like it just wants to die than to live as he speaks. Not to put down his charisma as an elite member and the 45 minute introduction he gets, let alone whether he is humbled by the reading. I would yield to agree he is a great professional at least in sympathy for the guy who read it - throat dry and eyes wet.

65 of my equivalents underwent this course with me and walked out the gates after 15 days with loads of information, as every student does. How well he put it to use is a question of behaviour, which is, by no means my intent this time. The characters we saw and experienced over these 15 days were so much peculiar and vivid that I thought about them all thro' today. Worth a record, I felt, and here I'm, scribbling this out in the middle of the night.

Among all the teachers who walked into the Brahmayya hall, Mr. Srikanth was the first to impress me... Not for his open appreciation of our brilliance, not for calling us intellectual aristocrats, not for his hilarious comparisons between his wife and Ram's wife, Sita... The guy carried an ingenuity in his word, great respect for his profession and a sincere heart for mutual well being. And then came in Mr. Pratap - with a very effortless smile on his face and a loving intention to interact with us. The ease with which our guys spoke to him, in spite of his age, makes me reconsider my views on generation gap. His extremist views on my faith and strong words against it did hurt me, but I consider it the Red litmus test on my roots - I'm proud I did not take it personally and instead respected his opinions, as they were. My faiths don't need his support and his opinions have nothing to do with my experiences. All this was given up - just by looking at the humility he carried and the twinkle in his eyes!

Not to forget PG! While I may, with all my rational mind, call him an extremely emotional person; opine that he spoke nothing that was relevant to the course; confess that I did not like he insisting on his physical illness all thro' the day, I am bound to respect the man for the sincere efforts he is taking to fight the odd. More than all, I was touched when he made it to our valedictory on a rick.... and humbly retired in a few minutes.

The Motta Boss!! I hated him for his Peter English and the Australian accent. Trivial they are, in front of the reasons why I would look up to him with high regard - a marketing guy, a taxi driver, a security officer, a soft skills trainer, an incorrigible orator and above all, a patient who recovered from coma, by sheer will. Best of all, he never shared his sorrows to the class... nor did he look like one who faced all that. If he could worsen his drinking skills a little more, he is all fit to be a youth icon, at least a million times more than Rahul Gandhi.

If I hadn't seen these characters and a few others like Mr. Kumar and Mr. Vijaygopal, I would have considered the course a complete waste of my efforts and time... Not that I did not learn anything at all, but I felt we deserved a lot more learning for the 15 whole days we traded it for.

And hey, that isn't all! The bunch of friends I got from the classes - For god's sake, no one spoke of Accounting Standards and Amendments to Sch VI to me. My guys made the 15 days sail easier for me, not that they oared it for me... They stood along in the wait for the tides!

The practice sessions, the medleys, the lunch pays, the "Nithya" pressures, random drives to the beach, the silly quarrels, "small girl" dialogues, and a lot more I can't put in here.... Will never forget them all. The course might not have ended in a happy "La la la... la la... la la la" due to the slight rifts that cropped up, but personally, I think nothing else could have built the bonds I now have, and the introspection I now rejoice.


Not to regret, not to miss, I am now done with GMCS. More importantly, to much of your relief, also done with the post!!!

Love,
Sri...

Sunday, April 3, 2011

It just doesn't matter!!

What am I doing at 11pm in the night without already awaiting good dreams?! What the hell am I trying to do logging into my laptop at this odd hour in the night??! Why have I behaved so barbarian like and yelled at home all thro today? Why did I refuse to move an inch from where I was sitting over the past seven hours? I don't know.. And the conclusion is simple.. I"VE GONE CRAZY!!

I have always wondered and criticized people who follow cricket so crazily.

"Are these guys out of their mind?"
"Got nothing else to be bothered about?"
"Jobless people treating a game as anything but a game"

I apologize guys... If the game can make someone as indifferent as me to do all the things I listed above, it deserves to be treated more than "JUST A GAME"... The spirit that the last two weeks has induced in me is beyond my fathoming. What cricket has done to me is something I'm indebted to forever! I, never in my wildest dreams, imagined I will shout at the top of my voice for every ball, every stroke... Wept when the moment came up... "INDIAAAAA.. INDIA" is what I have messaged the most this day... Can I myself believe I chanted Chamakam for India to win this day?

It doesn't matter who you are; whether you like cricket or not; whether you know the rules or not... IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER.. For the indomitable spirit of this crazy nation, for the love my people have for the game and the title, for the million prayers across the nation, for the "God of Cricket", JAI HO!! This moment captured in my amateur words will stay with me all life just as the other one I wrote on 13 Aug'09.

I swear... on this great occasion, not to use the words, "JUST A GAME" ever again in my life... for any sport.

Sri...