Not a requiem yet
India’s consistency and success has allowed us to mature as an audience, and not tear down our heroes at the first sign of defeat. The calendar and the BCCI have received their due in terms of flak and criticism instead of Dhoni’s house being stoned. But besides keeping faith in proven class, picking for cricketing intelligence as much as ability and spacing out the calendar with enough space for recuperation and preparation, there’s one more thing that needs to be addressed and that is the role of the coach.
The other Gandhi
In an issue celebrating unsung heroes, I was a little confused about the hero I wanted to talk about. We were celebrating the accomplishments of little known men and women whose work has reached and touched more lives than their names have. Perhaps their time is yet to come.
The Chase
I don’t remember the place. Maybe it was a highway running through the forests of the Western Ghats, a grey ribbon hopping and twirling around cones of mossy green spires that peer into the clouds. But it could just as well have been the Shivaliks. Actually it doesn’t matter where it was because… Ah well, let’s save the because for later….
Yet another walk in the woods
I crossed the stream that separated the camp grounds from the woods and headed east, camera in hand, towards the darkening gloom
A forgotten fairy tale
Alex tossed one way and turned the other in his sleep. Entangled between his restless legs, the blanket slid off his torso and fell to the floor to reveal rippling muscles that reached out from his waist, lean and sinuous, and then fanned out along the wide breadth of his back and shoulders...
In the master's wake
If, for some masochistic reason, you happen to have read more than one of these weekly columns I drag and wrench out of my reluctant laptop, you’d know that I’m an absolute sucker for miracle-tales. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years in dusty libraries pouring over crumbly sepia-tinged, dog-eared pages and websites that promise to reveal ‘the secrets of energy and ecstasy’, looKing for tangible evidence of a claimed miracle. And I’ve seen glimpses… a shadow here, a silhouette there, but nothing more that I could touch, tell and know. I’ve trudged through the proverbial deserts and valleys, and desolate forts, and waited by the banks of unnamed rivers in forgotten forests in search of a promised sign or a whispered legend, and heard a lot, but saw very little.
Fast bowling for dummies
Dummy, in this context, would mean you, fair maiden, and you, pretty one, though you be neither fair nor a maiden, and those countless other women, and not a few happy men, whose hearts skip a few beats and then gallop away into a rising crescendo when they sit in front of the TV and see the sculpted contours of a Shane Bond or a Brett Lee tearing away like a wild Camargue stallion until it reaches the wicket.
The beauty of the beast II
The thick vein pulsed and strained against the muscled neck as it glistened with summer’s sweat. Heat and dust and expectation hung around the arena like flies around a meat shop. It was a pregnant pause in the drama of this evening.
(Do I Care) For a few inches more
No, no whatever it is you are thinking, this is not about what you’re thinking. This is an unashamed elitist rant about me, and you fine people who happen to be like me, at least as far as inches go.
Parable of the pig
This story is not really about him, and yet, call me indulgent but I can’t help but tell you a little bit about Socrates before we start.
The nature of evil
The young man seemed to be in a hurry. It was late afternoon on Valentine’s Day, and looking at the young man hurrying away from the bus stand, one would have thought he was just another college kid late for a date.
The Fig Leaf
The world is falling apart, one designer fly at a time. So terrorists be damned and babies be burped while they wait their turn, for how could we talk of anything else this week. Everywhere you look, there’s someone hobbling around with his trousers around his ankles, with the world playing judge and jeery jury.
And Justice For All?
I was very young, perhaps no more than 10-years-old. It was a dark moonless night but the house was lit up like a new bride. I was running down the stairs with my younger cousin to see the fireworks that we heard crackle near by when we saw my uncle rush in through the gate.
Ready, Mate?
You know, reining in vanity while holding up modesty etc. But these days it’s nearly impossible for me to get through a conversation – any conversation – without everyone, and I mean everyone, asking me “Why haven’t you had a kid by now?â€
Between god and goodness
“I am happy… Without question, I am happy about his death!â€, he said with a calm confidence that belied his years. I was surprised. I wondered if he was saying that because he was worried about how I might judge him if he said he wasn’t.
Issue Dated: Feb 5, 2017
