It's my Sad Birthday !!!

Its exactly 12:00 am. Its the 1st day of April, 2008. My birthday has begun. I have completed 26 years on Planet Earth. Well, not really.

I was born at 01:13 pm on 1st April, 1982, so I have about 12 hours to go.

What have I done in this past year ? Have I donated to charity ? Have I supported the education of a poor child ? Given up eating meat ? Joined any welfare organization and done any free dental treatment ? Given even a minimum of 10 rs a week to beggars ?

No, I haven't done any of the above.

I have though , done other things. Ive seen a movie at a multiplex almost every weekend. Had lots of extravagant dinners at restaurants, ending up wasting food. Ive bought a cologne, Dunhil Red for Rs. 1400. Ive looked the other way when beggars have tapped on my car window. Hurriedly flipped through the advertisement urging people to donate to charity. Slept all through Sunday morning all year.

With all this bearing down heavily on my mind, I somehow just cant manage to celebrate my birthday. Celebration needs a reason. You pass an exam, or maybe come 1st, win a sports event, get a job, get promoted, get married, have children... etc etc.

All sound like valid reasons to me. But celebrate just because you spent an utterly selfish (another set of ) 365 days ??? Nope.. thats doesn't ring any bell anywhere for me.

I see my friends spending their fathers money like he has an unending supply of it. Their cigarette and booze bill every month easily runs up to more than Rs. 5000. They shop every 3-4 months, my entire wardrobe would fit into a tiny shelf in theirs.

Yet, every year, on that fateful(?) day they were born, they celebrate as if they have just accomplished something the should be proud of. Cakes, gifts, more cigarettes and even more booze.

I , on the other hand, feel sad that I have one year less to do something meaningful here. To summon up some courage for the year to come. Not just occupy a 1" by 6 " place on this planet.

Its a day of depression for me, and I cant wait for it to get over.When 2nd April 2008 will come, 24 hours from now Ill really be heaving a sigh of relief.

P.S.: In case you didn't know its my birthday and you are thinking of wishing me by sending me an email or something, I guess you now know what to do. (or not do !)

Look at it this way...

How often has this happened to you? I am a fresh victim.

Just about a week ago, I was discussing electronics with a close friend of mine. We were talking about 16 GB pen drives and 500 GB and 1000 GB hard discs. About how the time has come for me to order one from abroad now.

How data storage is the need of the hour and how 1000 GB would also not be enough a couple of years down the line.About how we would stock up on hundreds off movies..We were talking animatedly, our careers nicely on track. It almost seemed like it was the only unfulfilled wish in our lives at that point.

There are many times when I get carried away likewise , about my subject -Oral Medicine and Radiology. About how i need to top an exam, give a good..no... great presentation...Where I feel that it is the only focus of my life.

The day after my friend and me had that conversation, his wife fell sick and had to operated. He left town for a few days and came back today.
I spoke to him on the phone and the conversation was so different from that day that it got me thinking.

Sometimes, we need to look at ourselves from outside, to somehow get outside our bodies and our personalities.We need to look at ourselves with the big picture as the background. It helps to get a huge reality check on our goals, ambitions and priorities. How much do they really matter ?
Health always always comes first. Its when we respect the fact that our body is almost a miracle and our luck is in, on each day that we don't fall sick , that we have really made it.

Im an asthmatic. I have all the pre-clinical sign and symptoms of diabetes. I get very painful periodic acute cramps. I have a very painful oral condition called Recurrent Apthous Stomatitis Minor. And Im losing my hair.

I know what it feels like to go a year without an acute attack of asthma.....one day without any cramps... a week without any ulcers in my mouth...

A lot better than topping an exam or giving an excellent presentation. Trust me.

Scene-by-Scene

A couple of fays ago, I saw Reservoir Dogs, just for the heck of it. I had seen Kaante the day it released , so i knew the plot. I knew that the wounded guy is the cop. But I thought, Kaante was a brilliant movie, the original will be even better.

And I was badly disappointed.

I can confidently say, that Kaante is a much better movie than Reservoir Dogs. The scene where Sanjay Dutt, all classy suit and french beard says in his own characteristic drawl to Amitabh Bacchan, " Major, tu saara din sirf bhonkega, ya kabhi katega bhi ?" had me whistling in the aisles.

When Micheal Madsen says to Harvey Keitel ," So are you gonna just bark all day, little doggie, or are you ever gonna bite ? " I just let out a sigh.

One scene from Kaante, where a hysterical Mahesh Manjrekar breaks down ( haan, hu main phattu) had more punch, more verve, more intensity than half the English original.

Why do we keep slamming our directors for lifting Hollywood scripts again and again. If there is a good story that needs to told, it should ! The rightful copyright owner should be acknowledged in the credits.

I think Koi Mil gaya, Hum tum and Baazigar were excellent remakes. But thats a sad percentage of good remakes out of the many that have been churned out so far.

I my lifetime, id like to see the following movies remade.

My wishlist, if you can call it that..

1. The Pursuit of Happyness - Shah Rukh Khan as Will Smith

2. The Departed- Saif as Di Caprio, Abhishek as Matt Damon. Amitabh Bacchan as Jack Nicholson.

3. If Only... - Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor

4. A Few Good Men : Hrithik as Tom Cruise, Amitabh Bacchan as Jack Nicholson.

5. Shah Rukh Khan as Jim Carrey in The Majestic and The Truman Show.

6. Scent of a Woman : Amitabh Bacchan as Al Pacino, Ranbir Kapoor as Chris O' Donnell

7. The entire Die Hard series with Sanjay Dutt.

This list is wide open for comments.

P.S.: Munnabhai MBBS was remade as Gangsta MD . Take a bow, Rajkumar Hirani.

I used to , now I don't....

Every year, during Holi, Diwali, Ganapati or Navaratri, I end up saying this to someone.

I used to play with colour, now I dont.
I used to burst crackers, now I dont.
I used to do the ganapati pooja, now i dont.
I used to play dandiya, now I dont.

Why did I stop? When did i stop ? My earliest memories of playing with colours are near my house in Prabhat road lane #2 . After a big breakfast, at about 11 or so I would go down to my friends building where the whole gang would assemble one by one.
I remember the frenzied filling of water balloons and filling up your own bucket. Then when you had enough, or thought you had enough, you launched an attack on someone else.
I remember that weird indescribable feeling , when the sun bore down on you and no one poured water on you for a good ten minutes,you felt dirty and you could suddenly smell the colour on your body. Then you would end up pouring a bucketful on yourself just to stay in the race.
I never put any oil on my body or my hair before I went out to play, I had no older brother to tell me these tips. Now I think all my hair problems are because of the damage the colour did to my hair... !! I remember coming home and just tossing the dirty clothes in a bucket. Mostly, they were discarded, but if they ever came back to my cupboard, I never wondered who had taken the pains to clean them.

Bursting crackers was a major event for me. Every year, my dad sued to increase the cracker budget by Rs.200. I ended up reaching Rs. 1600. He used to take me to this huge ground, where stalls would be set up. I would have a complete dictatorial say over what i wanted that year. After reaching home, I would make 4 neat lists, dividing the crackers for the 4 main Diwali events. The Laxmipoojan list would be the longest. Blowing holes in the cement walls , blasting rockets horizontally along the road... Ive seen and done it all.

The Ganapati festival used to be a very organized event . We would have all sorts of games.. chess, carrom, TT, badminton, gully cricket. We used to have a massive Ganapati Idol in one of the houses( by rotation) in our lane and the pooja was a be-there-or-get-left-out deal every day at 9 pm sharp. I even knew the words till a point in time !
The the skits and the dances. Our whole gang would practice for days to put up some really good performances. The visarjan was another huge affair. We would all wear white shirts and put the big vertical red tikka on our foreheads. If you were older, you got to burst the firecrackers on the way.



During navratri, we used to rent dandiya sticks and have a ball with some totally inappropriate music. No one knew how to play and some the entire playing field somehow leveled out.

I guess every average Indian has had similar memories. May be some have had it even better. Im just glad I didn't miss out on mine.

Somewhere down the line, I just stopped doing all of this. When I ask myself, why , I come up with unconvincing answers.

Did I stop playing with colours and water cause I was getting too messy ? Rubbish.
Did I stop bursting crackers because I was against child labour ? Nonsense.
Did I stop doing the Ganapati pooja because I suddenly felt less religious ? Hogwash.
Did I stop playing Dandiya because it was only a Gujarathi thing ? No !

Maybe I stopped looking hard enough for answers after a point. You know, you don't have to find the answers for every question.
You can always pass.

Our past matters...

Gosh, Im finally out of the worst writer's block I've had in years.Only a blog-block though. I did manage to reel out a short story in the meantime.

And how did my block finally end? A sms ! Yes... the same person who sent me the sms that morning, ( refer to my second or third post in February).

This sms read " There comes a point in your life, when you realize who matters, who doesn't, who never did and who always will. So don't worry about the people from your past. There is a reason they didn't make it to your future ."

Dont worry about the people from your past ? Does that mean that only the people in your present count ? What about your first love, your first "best friend", your first teachers, your first coach, your first team captain ?????

Is it, that just still being in touch with these people, makes them significant ? I think not.

There have been so many people, who have molded you knowingly or unknowingly in the past. People whose second names you might not remember now. People who, if you cross them in the street, you probably wouldn't want to say hello to.But they have mattered.

One of the best compliments I have ever received was when i was 13, the vice captain of the Pune under-14 basketball team. I had the ex India captain in my team, 4-5 players who had played for Mahrashtra the year before, Our coach at that time said, " If I would have been the selector, I would have made Rohit captain. He might not be the best player, but he has a hold over other players that no one else has."

That comment has stuck with me till now, someone had told me for the very first time that I was special. Coach didn't make to my future. I don't even know where he is. But he sure as hell made a difference in my life.

My physiology teacher wrote in my slam book after I graduated, " Very few teachers get an opportunity to teach a student like you. I am lucky that God gave me this opportunity."
I was at a loss of words when I read this. I plan to frame this page and put it up in my clinic. 10 years from now, I might not even know where this person (my physiology teacher) is. He hasn't made it to my future.
But can I ever forget him ?

We learn so much from our first crush that never works out. Our first real fight with someone.The first time someone breaks our trust. The first time we break someone's trust.

And the day we change. For the better or for the worse.

Our past. It matters.

The exuberance of youth...( And why India doesn't need Dravid and Ganguly any more)

The first time i heard this phrase was during the telecast of the Champions Trophy in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2000 when a young Yuvraj Singh ran out Micheal Bevan with a direct hit. . .

Since then it has been used many times by commentators.. Most notably during the famous Natwest triumph series in 2004 in England and in the epic Twenty-20 win in South Africa in 2007.

You can look at the Twenty-20 World Cup win in two ways.

One, that it lead to the resurgence of a long haired wicketkeeper from Ranchi to almost an iconic status in Indian Cricket, it was our first win on an international stage with all teams competing since 1983 and it redefined the way cricket was seen and telecast.

The other way of looking at it is fraught with danger. It resulted in a big chasm in the team, the juniors and seniors separated by the Big Divide, the final was a fluke win ( thanks to that unexplainable shot by Misbah) and that the same long haired wicketkeeper from Ranchi whose test place was in doubt, now had a dictator like grip on team selection.

I subscribed to this second view until today.

Things reached a boiling point in my head when Dravid and Ganguly were dropped for the ODI series in Australia. I could not understand, how we were planning for the 2011 World Cup now, a good 3 years away. In the process you were dismissing Dravid and Ganguly, who between them have won more ODI matches for India than the peerless Sachin Tendulkar himself. They had been in Australia for 2 months and they simply deserved to stay.

Most difficult decisions look correct only in retrospect.

Even if Dravid and Ganguly would have been in the team, the result would have probably been the same, but I think what has happened here is best for Indian Cricket. This entire team of 11 that won today, is the future Indian team. We have nobody even remotely close to retiring except the great man himself. And with this team thats good for another 5 years, we have beaten the World Champions at home. Thrice in the series and twice in a row.

Sounds good. Very very good.

Whs the flip side ? More advertisements, more millions being thrown at the players,the media hailing Ishant Sharma as the next Mcgrath and Rohit Sharma as the next Sachin Tendulkar.

Dhoni becoming more and more powerful. Almost dangerously so.

But the guard must change. The time is right and the time is now.

P.S. Sachin Tendulkar scored three crucial innings, to take India into the finals and then to help India win the Finals. Can you even quickly spot him in the photo ?

All good things come to an end...

I feel a cruel , almost barbaric streak run through me when I read that some people have blackened and stoned the houses of our cricketers after a loss .If I could, I would hang every one of those miscreants in the worst possible way.

I have been a passionate supporter of our team for a long time.I cried when Harbhajan Singh smacked the ball from McGrath past point to win the Chennai test and the series 2-1.I cried when Saurav Ganguly twirled his shirt in anger and triumph at Lords.

The commentators on TV took the words out of my mouth once when they said that our team really needs our support when it’s losing rather than when it’s winning.

Still our country has an abundance of hypocrites, who after a bad performance, go to town cursing our team and baying for their blood.
These same people, after a victory, sing praises and proclaim themselves to be the most ardent supporters of India.

I wish there was a law against such people and I would be happy to be the executioner.

Today Sachin Tendulkar scored his 42nd hundred while batting second, to help India win the first of the three finals of the Commonwealth Bank tri-series in Australia.He scored 117 not out in 120 balls, carrying his bat.

Before this , he had NEVER scored a hundred in Australia.

Before this , his run in the series had been just about fair.

Before this , his first second innings average in the last 3 years was just in the mid 20s.

Before this, it was said that he hasn't won enough matches for India.

Does todays match change any of this ? Are you the kind of person who reads into statistics? I have been lucky to witness the almost the entire career of this great man.

He has given millions of Indians, including me, such immense moments of joy in these 18 years.
For free.

He might have made trillions in the process.. But did he ever ask you, the average Indian, watching the match at home on the sofa for even one rupee?And still, we try to wrap him up in statistics.

Let him be. He has done his job.

This tour to Australia was the biggest test for him, and with three centuries on this tour he has come out on top.

For me, whatever he does from now on is a bonus.

All good things come to end.

Accept the fact that there is going to be a day when Sachin Tendulkar will take the guard of honour. It would be great if it was from an Australian team at the Wankhede stadium , Mumbai.

An afterthought:

In the late 2020’s as Arjun Tendulkar takes strike on debut, a 50 year old man with a baby voice might be doing commentary.

That will a magical moment and I look forward to it.

Is there a slight tremble in my fingers as I type ?

I think there is.

Short Movie Review # 4 : Vantage Point

Thousands of people witness the assassination of the President of the United States of America. Out of them, 8 people are special.

We see the assassination, the events leading up to it and the events that follow immediately after, through their eyes, one by one.

Which of them is guilty ? Is the whole thing a hoax? Or an elaborate plan? Or an accident ?

Vantage Point, a real edge of the seat movie, offers a fresh storyline and screenplay with outstanding editing. You are left wondering almost till the end of the movie, as to what the actual sequence of events is.

See this just for the seamless editing and camera work.

Rating : 4 stars

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled. Every action, dialogue and scene is important. Dont even blink.