Words

“Joint damage accounts for a considerable part of the disability caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Accordingly, preventing and diminishing joint damage is an important treatment gooal in early rheumatoid arthritis. Hence, reliable predictors of joint damage are required.” and other blah-blah-blah!!!

why don’t clients check the copy themselves. why do we, copywriters have to clean the shit left over by them???

why-o-why, this world is so cruel. why does the sun rises in the east and why do i split my hair so much over trivial details.

why-o-why, dear God…

Engraving of a Schoolmaster Spanking a Child; Image: © Bettmann/CORBIS

so, i continue

this is what cloudy said in her reply to my post

“Adi, glad that I brought back childhood memories… that’s what this blog is for! Do write about the innovations you made as you played cricket – either out of necessity (no bat available, so just use hand) or just for fun! I have to reach 101 ways, you see – and I can do that only with a little help from friends 🙂 “

and this is what i posted back…

i don’t know much about innovations, all we did was to play cricket in every possible or impossible place and with anything that we might lay our hands upon. it was a time when playing was much more important than winning, losing or scoring runs or taking wickets. the pleasure we got from taking that bat in our hands and playing outside in the scorching may sun was really undefinable.

it was mandatory for the ball to be round though. leather balls (expensive & hard hitting), tennis balls (cosco-inexpensive, soft & favourites), plastic balls (anda-very noisy & unpredictable), rubber balls (kirmich-for kids only) and if nothing else worked, me n my brother would crumple up a few newspapers, squeeze them very tightly with the help of rubber bands and voila an indigenious work of art was ready. it tend to come in shape after a few beatings.
point to be noted, meant for only verandah-play but the least expensive & noiseless option of all. what’s more, it could be made water-proof by wrapping a sheet of polyethene over the squeezed newspapers. that increased the longevity from few matches to a complete tournament.

as for the bat, i’ve played with the usual proper cricket bats. both inexpensive and very expensive kashmir-willow bats. but the real fun was when it had rained outside or nobody was available to play with.
any heavy long-notebook (a register) or table tennis racquet or badminton racquet or a flat n wide enough stick or bare hands if nothing else was available donned up the hat to be the bat. but the best one was the maid’s cloth-beating wooden ‘thapi’. it had the perfect shape, size n necessary solidity to make all of us realize the dreams of becoming another ‘tendulkar’.

there were perfectly logical rules too, like ‘one-tip’ out. which means if the fielder catches? the ball after a single bounce the batsmen will be deemed out. when you dont have the space to bamboozle or bounce the batsmen, this was the most important rule ever devised. just keep it straight, a little short-of-length, and u became the highest wicket taker ever in domestic cricket tourneys 😉

apart from that, there were numerous rules and guidelines taking form as per the situation deemed. for example, you can’t play on leg side or you can’t play on the off; you can’t play too straight or you can’t play back; that neighbour’s house is out-of-bounds for any kind of aerial shot; and you r not supposed to bang the ball at that uncle ji’s door in the afternoon because he works in the night shift and… *sigh* the elder brother is suppossed to go asking for the ball at that particular aunty’s place because the door will be opened by her beautiful daughter 😉

if nothing else, book-cricket was always there.

and so-on…

Children Play Cricket Along a Ghat; Image: © Jeremy Horner/CORBIS; Photographer: Jeremy Horner ; Date Photographed: April 15, 1996 ; Location Information: Varanasi, India

played cricket with somu in the office hallway, last night at 2.

we managed to find a squeezed out table tennis ball sort of thing and a regular measuring scale doubled up as the bat. it was another thing that the bat was more flexible than required and the so called ball was born deformed to turn precariously like shane warne deliveries on a dusty wankhede track.

enjoyed every minute of it. the match wouldn’t have ended if the ball had not decided to play hide n seek with us. we found it later on the road below while going home.

i got the idea to write this while reading ‘101 Ways To Play Cricket’ on dear Cloudy’s blog. The url is http://theinventorofgames.blogspot.com/ and do visit this one if you want to live up your childhood once again.

She’s Veena, collecting the simple games we played as children. Simply brings back the childhood memories.

Here’s the introduction, “Love kids, love the way they think. If you think like one, go back to the time when you were one and write about the games you played. Would love to read it, and feature it here.”

and this is what i commented on the post,

aaaah cricket…

between playing beautiful cover drives that got me tagged as the ‘rahul dravid’ of mohalla cricket team and playing alone in the house with a table tennis ball trying very hard not to wake up my mother and playing book cricket in ‘free’ classes in the school… i somehow grew up along.

thanks a lot for bringing back those really wonderful memories of mine, was missing them a lot…

I absolutely ‘like’ this blog.
And of course I absolutely ‘live’ cricket.


19th Century English Illustration of a Cricket Match
Image: © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS
Photographer:
Philip de Bay
Date Created:
ca. 1800-1899

just wondering,
whether this will bring me out of hibernation…

1. Were you named after anyone?
no, nyet, nope, nah, nahi…

2. Do you wish on stars?
yes, but only for me or for special people.

3. When did you last cry?
officially, several weeks back. unofficially, hmmm…

4. Do you like your handwriting?
oh, i absolutely adore my writing. it is the most worthless scribble i’ve ever come across.

5. What is your favourite meat?
sweet-meat.

6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?
no shelf, no CD.

7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
absolutely. who wouldn’t like to be freinds with a dear dumbfunk like him. and would like to kick his butt more often than my friends kick mine.

8. Are you a daredevil?
sometimes, just living, and living with a hope in your heart and a dream in your eyes becomes the biggest dare you’ll ever do.

9. How do you release anger?
me? don’t know what anger is…

10. Where is your second home?
home is a distant place buried somewhere within memories, no first, no second.

11. Do you trust others easily?
trying really hard to get over this character flaw of mine.

12. What was your favourite toy as a child?
cars of every kind, specially mattel ones, cricket and table tennis balls, recycled items from the house junk and a little bit of imagination.

13. What class in school/college do you think is totally useless?
school/college as of now are totally useless.

14. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
and you thought life was easy as a forwarded ‘tag’ ?

15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit?
what’s that?

16. What do you look for in a guy/girl?
why shud i look for anything. m sick n tired of all this stuff.

17. Would you bungee jump?
wud love to.

18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
always.

19. What’s your favourite ice cream?
butter scotch. anyday.

20. What are your favourite colours?
my colors depend on their usage. for clothing, i like white, blue & black. for other’s attire i like white, yellow, blue, black and any color that might look good on them. for interiors, i like mustard yellow, burnt orange & rust red the most. in nature i like the golden colors of sunrise, the green after a drizzle, the gray of bursting-at-seams clouds, the old deep brown of a banyan tree…. and phew!

21. What are your least favourite things?
money. unintelligence. ugliness.

22. How many people do you have a crush on right now?
i was always in love with the idea of being in love. have not been loving enough to discover what love is.

23. Who do you miss most right now?
somebody who sent me this. somebody who had an exam today. somebody whose sitting in australia thinking whether or not to reply to mail today. somebody who just went out of the office door.
but the most i miss a person with whom i can talk my heart out without saying a word.

24. What are you listening to right now?
‘tum pukar lo’ by dear hemant da from the motion picture ‘khamoshi’.
one of the songs i hear when m utmost blue. it contains the keys to my complete pshyco profile.

25. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
multicolor. and that too a perfumed one.

26. What is the weather like right now?
beginning to get dehydratingly hot.

27. Last person you talked to on the phone?
hagrid (personal) & abhijit (official)

28. The “first” thing you notice about the opposite sex?
that, the person is of opposite sex 😉

29. Do you like the person who sent you this?
bilkul bhi nahi. not at all.
a few kilos here n there, i wud have been completely smitten by her, that’s why.

30. How are you today?
blue. but a very happy kind of blue.

31. Favourite non alcoholic drink?
water.

32. Favourite alcoholic drink?
anything that gets me drunk.

33. Natural hair colour?
black with a tinge of red in sunshine and some grey strands croppin up in between now-a-days.

34. Eye colour?
somewhere between black n brown, i suppose.

35. Wear contacts?
see answer no. 1.

36. Siblings?
again see answer no. 1. or for a change, see answer no. 35.

37. Favourite month?
mid jan. to mid feb.

38. Favourite food?
rajma chawal, prepared by ‘ma’.

39. Favourite day of the year?
24th of jan.

40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?
to ask someone out, fisrt she’ll have to be my friend. and if she already is a friend then shyness doesn’t appear on the scene. right?

41. Scary movies or happy endings?
scary endings & happy movies.

42. Summer or winter?
yeah hagrid, winter for sure. ah, the magic of sunshine on a dewy morning… its eternal

43. Holi or Diwali?
Diwali. till eternity.

44. Do you like your name?
very much.

45. What book/magazine are you reading?
how to introduce a hypnotic trance in 3 minutes or less & never.

46. What’s on your mouse pad?
mouse.

47. What did you watch on TV last night?
after a long time, nothing.

48. Favourite Smell?
citrus.

49. Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone?
no.

50. Most tiresome thing you’ve ever experienced/done?
trying to continue doing a task for a considerable amount of time. say, a few minutes 😉
repetition is boring and tiresome. u ignite something, pass on the job to some other capable guy and then go on to further, wonderful explorations…

“Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they’ll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer.

I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”

yeah. everybody loves a hero. i too have my heroes. and i’m a hero for some. and, many more will call me a villian;) there’s a thrill in people expecting you to crack up something. an unexplained joy in a job well done. the perfect cover drive, the swinging from the buildings, the concepts well thought of. & i’m blessed to be in a job which i love from the core of my heart. only if, i was not this underpaid… seems, i was born for this thing. and strange is the time i kept myself away from it. what the heck was i doing all my life?

its been an exciting week so far. sunday was good. ‘sach’ alone is enough to make my life brighter, any given day. god doesn’t make people like him anymore. and monday was good too. went over to hagrid’s place in the evening. she had a wish, i’d to fulfill that. yes, my hagrid is a she. rest, all is same. to the beard 😉

anyways, its good to hear what she heard after such a long time. and i’m also happy for the dear anonymous in canada. and lord behold, do you know who visited my blog today. the great ‘afj’. and poor ‘obi’, keep the faith. u’ll need it to heal those bruises afj’s gonna give you. oh, am back to the question…

do u have a hero in your life? ever gave up something for soemone else? have u been a hero to someone?