Insults and Monkey-Gate

Australians are the past masters in the art of sledging; if you can call it art.

They provoke the opposition player and wait for retaliation and naturally the retaliation results in punitive punishments and the original incident is forgotten. Witness the recent one game ban for in-form Gautham Gambhir for retaliation. The actions of the bowler, Shane Watson, mouthing insults (available I am sure in high definition video) that precipitated this incident were almost completely ignored by the match umpire. Many Indian players have recounted episodes where the Australian fielders in slip cordon would refer to wonderful night spent with the batsman's relative. This is not considered an insult, it is not considered a harassment; it is considered a form of badinage and supposed to be taken in that spirit.

Harbhajan Singh was accused of using a racial epithet against Australian player. He was accused of calling Symonds a monkey.

First, it is normal to be called a monkey or other animals in India. My mom frequently compared me to various four-legged creatures, not necessarily affectionately, so did a majority of my elementary school teachers. Half the boys in my class have been called a monkey one time or other when they were mischievous. Almost all of us have been referred to as either a donkey or son of a donkey when we were slow with our responses in class. I remember a teacher whom we used to harass a lot during class addressing us as "thick skinned buffaloes".

Second, Harbhajan should have defended himself since it was not meant as an insult. Monkeys are revered and have temples built in their honor. In fact he should have pointed out that it was as a compliment to be compared to Hanuman!!

Third, assuming that Harbhajan called him a monkey, why cannot the Australians take it in the right spirit and laugh at at. After all, it is not as if Symonds looks have launched a thousand ships; in fact I have heard from unreliable sources that his looks have caused mirrors to crack when he looks at himself.

Assuming that an Australian player insulted an Indian player's mother, there are no rules of etiquette on how to insult that restrict Indians to talking only about sleeping with the Australian player's female relatives. I am afraid reader will blanch at my using the words insult and etiquette in the same sentence, but the rules are simple; you identify a raw nerve and keep hitting on that nerve. If you find that a player hates being teased about his looks; then talk about it more!!

A player who thrives on being aggressive on the field and loves dishing out to others has no right to expect politeness from his opponents when it is their turn. This is typical Australians being babies when they lose. It seems like when Australians sledge they call it an art whereas when the others pick up that art and apply it so well that it now hurts, it is racial epithet. Talk about double standards!!

Taking a step back; referring to a player's relative being great in bed is an insult if that player perceives it be so. Calling someone a monkey is an insult if that person perceives it be so. Perception is after all reality.

There is a solution for this - do not sledge; play cricket, but if you sledge, do not come complaining to mommy when your opponent does it better!!

PS: When the teacher called us "thick skinned buffaloes" one of my classmates quipped "Madam, but we do not give milk!!". She put her head on the teachers table and cried. No kidding.

How I wish That The Grinch Had Stolen Christmas!!

The title was inspired by this article in CNN and at about the same time my wife's colleague posted this.

Venus Williams - My Hero

I have always been vary of charlatans who claim that they made a certain prediction years ago

1. Mark my words, this stock will go up 10000% or
2. Get out of that stock, it is going to crash.

I think when people make prediction they should make it in a public fora with suitable controls so that we can verify such claims of omniscience.

Over the past decade, I realize that I personally have failed in this; I knew when I saw Venus Williams in 1995 or so that she would one day be a world champion. I also knew that Serena had a better all round game. How I wish I had stated it publicly!!

That does not prevent me from at least expressing admiration for Venus. Are there many athletes who are personally or professionally as graceful as she is? It seems to me that watching her play is akin to watching a ballet. She makes it seem effortless. She has a monster serve; amazing span; great defense. Along with Navratilova and Graf, she would be considered one of the best grass court player. She has won five Wimbledon titles in all.

Her serve in fact is out of the league. One could write an entire article on just that topic. She frequently averages first serve speeds that are comparable if not higher than similarly ranked men!! No woman comes (except maybe Serena) within 5 miles of her average speeds consistently. In fact Venus holds the record for the fastest serves in all grand slam venues and the fastest serve overall!!

Most people think her father is arrogant, opinionated, and many other unprintable adjectives. No one sees him for what he is; he has raised two world champions in really trying circumstances. He did not have the benefit of a nice suburban setting to raise them. He at least has gone on record to say how his daughters would one day rule women's tennis. This was years before they had even played a single professional game. He along with his wife deserve kudos for raising two really good children. In the age of self-aggrandizement amongst professional players, these two are quiet but self confident without the need to push themselves constantly in the limelight. They have a good balance between tennis and life. Tennis is not for them the be all and end all. They have interest outside tennis that provides them an outlet to express themselves.

What else is there to say?

Who reads my blogs?

You may have noticed that whenever you state an opinion there are people who have nothing useful to add, but chime - In your opinion. Inexplicably they feel that they have somehow clinched the argument" since they manage to say that with such an air of confidence as if to say "Take that". This leaves you rather nettled and you start wondering whose opinion have you been voicing all along if not your own. Did someone else possess you and state his opinion?

So for the record; everything I write in this post is my opinion; or at least I believe it is my opinion. So if you have a rebuttal, make it. Just do not repeat the cliche "it is your opinion" and yes I know what a cliche is. Check the title of this blog.

So here it goes.

I am jealous of all those people who have a popular blog. Not all of them write well. Not all of the post are well written. Most of the posts fall under the category inconsequential, as does mine. Not all of them write something worthwhile reading. Observe clearly the use of slightly milder qualifiers such as "Not all" and "Most" rather than the definitive "All".

Some of the posts are quite everyday-ish;

-- I woke up, drank coffee, read the newspaper, shaved, showered, breakfasted and went to work.

Others are quite inane

-- I went to see the Taj and it was sooooo beautiful.

Really, we did not know that!!

In my opinion, my posts are neither inane not boring. I have an opinion to offer. An anecdote to recount. Some quite funny. Even my mom, from whom getting praise is like pulling teeth, admits that some of them pass her sniff test. So why is no one reading my post?

I am wrong. I know some people do although the list is quite small

My wife; I must admit she has so far been faithful!! My sister and my niece; only after I took the extraordinary step of making it their home page!! These three also provide me useful feedback on grammar and typo so I can fix them before no one else reads it!!

Oh and I forgot the fourth person, I read my own blog. Yes I am a ego blogger (on the lines of egosurfing)

Then there are the stumblers, those who are searching for Cantonese teacher and Google serves them this. The only others who read it are people who I pester into submission by sending them spam messages "Did you read it, Did you, Could you, Would you, Please, Pretty please". After the tenth time of IMing them, they either read the post or they remember to block me.

Boo hoo

The Nanny and the Hare - A Story of First Impressions

When my second one was born, we knew we would need help with the baby. We were both 10 years older than we were the first time around. So we interviewed and hired this lady to take care of Maalini. The idea was for her to take care of M from about 8AM to 7PM and live with us during the week and go back home during weekends. We wanted a live in nanny since we did not want her, and by proxy us, to be at the mercy of Maryland area traffic.

On the second night after she came, I was in my drawing room watching late night TV and I felt something move near the periphery of my vision. Typically when the heat turns on and air blows it causes the blinds to move. So I ignored it, but I could not get over the feeling that someone was watching me. Five minutes of concentrated Law & Order watching later, I saw the shadow again move behind the TV. This time I was ready and investigated and found that it was a hare.

Those of you that know the difference between the two, rabbit and hare, please do not enlighten me. The title of this post sounds nice only if it were a hare.

Back to my drawing room, the hare had taken shelter under my immense TV. This is one of the first generation rear projection HD TV, weighing almost 300lbs. Although it had wheels, and the floor had Berber carpet, it was hard to move. After trying futilely for 5 minutes to escort it outside through the door leading to the deck, I made the biggest mistake.

I woke my wife up!!

Jannavi normally is a very intrepid person where humans are concerned, but the moment she is confronted by non-biped creatures, she loses her cool. There is no moderation to her fear. It does not matter whether it is a small bug, an earthworm, a cat, a dog, a friendly calf or a fearful lion. She will throw a fit. The rest of us, my daughters and I love dogs, but there is absolutely no chance we will have a pet!! It is me or a pet, is her slogan.

When she came down, I was bombarded by a series of questions. What are we going to do? How will we get rid of it? What if it goes upstairs? What if it has invited its family? How does it affect the resale value of the house? How does this affect the economy? I am kidding, she did not ask the last one.

You would think from her questions that it was an invasion of our house by a machete wielding monster thirsting for our blood, rather than an accidental ingress of a hare.

I barricaded the family room using the futon and its mattress in such a manner that it could not leave that room and left the door to the deck open. No matter what we did the hare did not take the bait. We tried for a while and finally gave up and went to sleep. I mean I went to sleep and Jannavi worried about the hare in our drawing room till dawn.

Morning came and we described the events to our nanny. We then asked her where she was when all this was happening? You know what she said?

She had come down and had seen that my wife was crying. The house was in total disarray with furniture strewn all over the ground floor.

So she assumed that after drinking like a fish I had been beating my wife.

I know that I do not necessarily make the best first impression on people, or for that matter second impression. But this takes the cake. You try to get a hare to leave the house and people think you are a drunkard and a wife beater!!

After what she said, everything else was an anti-climax. Our nanny coaxed the hare to leave its hiding place and leave. It just was as scared as my wife and wanted to leave our house as much as we wanted it gone.

I have weird dreams. You have probably read this post on the same topic sometime earlier.

This edition takes place in TVS Nagar, Madurai. My maternal grandfather used to live there and now my uncle does with his family. I still go there and it is very nostalgic. It brings back some of the best summer vacations I have had, literally living like an urchin from 8AM to 8PM for 5 weeks. I still remember the fun I had learning to ride a bike. I also remember how I rode my bike and hit this woman on Rajam Road, and had the gall to tell her she was walking on the wrong side of the road!! So it was not surprising that I dreamt of this place.

The dream started very strangely. I was swimming. The strangeness is in part because in real life I cannot take my head above water and breathe. That act of raising my head and gulping for air breaks my rhythm. Then I stop kicking and very soon I start sinking. How I have wished that all pools were no more than 10-15 yards wide, so I could swim without taking my head out!!

In contrast, in my dream I magically realize what I have been doing wrong all along and rectify it and suddenly my stroke was smooth. I was as smooth and fast as a dolphin. What is strange about this? We all wish to do things that end up getting fulfilled in a dream.

Well does anyone swim on a road?

Well that was what found I was doing. I was swimming on a road full of flood water. I was totally oblivious of this and was enjoying the fact that I was swimming so well and with such ease. In case you know TVS Nagar and are curious where I was swimming, it was on Lakshmi Road!! Then you must also know how this road crosses the railway tracks. Since that was high ground and had no water, I had to stop swimming. So when I stepped out of the water I found myself wearing swimming trunks.

I was wet and wearing only swimming trunks in the middle of TVS Nagar!!

Now it gets into the realm of bizarre. I suddenly decide to go to a movie and magically get transported to a building appropriately dressed. It was about 7PM and very soon I find myself inside the theater looking for seats for the 7:30PM show. But there are no seats although there are several long benches on which lots of people had decided to take a nap. So I was in a theater where there were no seats but only benches; where no one was sitting up, but were out flat on the bench. Even more unusually all of them had blankets and pillows and were sleeping soundly. I woke one of them up and asked about the movie timing and if they would get up in time for the show. He laughed at me and told me that there was no 7:30PM show and that they were there for the 10PM show. Since this man knew he was early he like all the others had decided to come prepared with bedding to to make himself comfortable.

I thankfully woke up before this dream progressed any further. I challenge even Freud to make sense of this!!

Serendipity

This word is one of those long 5 syllable words your cram for GRE to get to the US. It means Chance. Well here is my story about chance.

Scene 1: Four months ago I went to Bangalore. There we planned on a hike to a place called Shivagange. The “we” here includes amongst others, Naveen, my brother-in-law and his wife’s colleague’s teenage daughter Mala. This was the same hike Naveen and I had attempted earlier last December. The hike was wonderful and it could make a post of its own. More on that later.

Scene 2: I went to Bangalore last weekend since Naveen and his wife had a baby girl and they had planned a ceremony at the temple. They felt that I should be present at this auspicious moment. But before going to their house I made a detour to my friend’s house in Malleswaram near Sampige Theater after getting off Bangalore Mail. He lives in this new high rise condominium complex called Mantri Apartments. BTW, condominium complexes are called apartments and the individual unit called a flat. Anyway, Swamy was due to leave for the US and I wanted to catch up with him before that since his return to India was after my return back to the US.

Scene 3: I was quite tired and wanted to rest, but Swamy dragged me to his good friend in the same complex. I dragged my feet and complained that I was not in the mood to be polite and make social conversations. He assured me that Raghu, his friend was a nice guy whom he had known from his Austin, Texas days. He was right, Raghu and his wife very hospitable and made me feel right at home. We talked about pretty much nothing of consequence, but time seemed to pass by without effort. When it was time for me to go, they invited me to some party they were having that evening. Swamy also added his emotional blackmail. I regretfully left their house.

Scene 4: I met Siri, my new niece; very cute baby exhibiting no stranger anxiety at all. She even came to me. When I first came to the house she was asleep in this nice old fashioned crib. I asked about it and Naveen mentioned that it was Raji’s colleague’s grandfather’s crib; almost an antique.

Scene 5: Raji, Naveen's wife came back from her parent’s house and after some small talk. BTW could someone tell me how is my wife's brother's wife related to me. Is there a named relationship even in Indian languages? Getting back to the topic, I mentioned that I was with a friend in Malleswaram in this new complex behind this theater. She immediately said that she also knew someone, her friend’s brother, who lived at Mantri Apartments. She added that Raghu was an expat from US. My ears perked up. I immediately gave details I knew of Raghu; engineer, wife, 2 sons; CEO of a startup etc. Yes Raji's answer was yes to all. Turns out, Raghu was her colleague’s younger brother.

So I called Raghu and promptly told him that the child I went to see was actually sleeping in his grandfather’s crib and additionally I had gone hiking with his niece few months ago!!

Now that is a small world.