Intermission

Call it a lack of inspiration, ennui, inertia, a dearth of ideas or quite simply, just a mental block, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve hit a wall here and it’s impossible to move forward at this point. It’s been this way for a while now and even though I haven’t really expressed this feeling, its presence has been as unmistakable as that of a fly on a television screen. This isn’t your fault any more than it’s mine. Circumstances beyond our control. That’s really all it was.

And so I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should go our separate ways at this point. Maybe for a few days, more likely weeks, perhaps months... To put it a little more succinctly, I only know that now isn’t the time. Now would be a better time to go get some popcorn, perhaps a cold drink or even make a trip to the loo.

Normal programming will resume soon.

The league of the disgusting out in full

The tenth edition of the Cricket World Cup began over a month ago, but it was on Tuesday that the business end of the tournament actually commenced. “Business” in terms of the quality of cricket on show as well as obviously, the increased match ticket prices, ad revenue rates etc. For the record and to quote Graham Swann, I do believe that by removing the Associate nations from the World Cup in subsequent editions, the ICC will be removing the “World” from the World Cup.

But moving on, with said business end in motion, the first quarter final between Pakistan and the West Indies petered out into a foolishly one-sided ho-hum so-not-worth-it squash. Really, there’s nothing more that can be said about that particular match. And then this Wednesday rolled around. India V/s Australia. The Big One. The media, general public and the people that call themselves experts painted it as a “revenge” match. Revenge for what? For a game that took place eight years ago (WC 2003 finals)?. I’m certain commentators and sportscasters have described other Indian wins over Australia as revenge for that drubbing by 125 runs in Johannesburg all those years ago. And yet, they haven’t had their fill.

Ok. Sports rivalries often use the word “revenge” repeatedly (England-Argentina matches where England wins are still referred to as revenge wins), so I’ll let it pass.

While on one hand, the buildup to the game was quite well handled online (more specifically, on Cricinfo), television and newspapers had already started talking about an India-Pakistan semi-final. Talk about jumping the gun. Regardless, match starts. Sways back and forth. The four-time champions get off to a solid start until India hit back. The home team looks like restricting the Aussies to a low score. Ponting has other ideas and hits a gritty 100. India get off to an okayish start but lose Sehwag early. Solid partnerships. Clatter of wickets. Last recognised pair at the crease with 70-odd still required. Sensible batting and cool heads prevail and India earn a well-deserved win. All good so far.

That’s when the bullshit begins. A cable news channel that has over a period of time become my most loathed television channel (nope, it’s not India TV) immediately runs with these screaming banners about how “India thrashed Australia”, “Aussies taught a lesson” and most indescribably, “Ponting plays dirty”. I later discovered that what they were referring to was a moment in the game where the ball was in the air and Ponting attempted to catch it and “did”. He wasn't sure if he had caught it so it went to the third umpire, who ruled that it had bounced before it was caught. So, not out. The system works. Why that equals Ponting playing dirty, I’ll never know.

And then the bile overflowed in cyberspace. I guess this is what Fear Factory referred to in the track Cyberwaste. It's probably not, but the lyrics fit in perfectly in this case. Anyway, before long some of the nastiest and sickest shit was splattered all over the entire gamut of the social networking universe. From pathetically over-exuberant chest-beatings of triumph to atrocious and bitter little rhyming four-liners, schadenfreude spewed in the form of status updates and tweets. After a while, it just got puerile, shrill, crass and disgusting. To think that some idiots actually mocked Brett Lee who ended up with a bleeding head after diving to stop the ball.

Was it a collective outpouring of an anti-Australian sentiment? Perhaps in light of all the violence being doled out to Indians in Australia. If so, that’s bullshit. Far more Indians have been beaten up, killed and raped in the United States of America than in Australia. But the Americans don’t get any such reaction. Was it an overly raucous and boorish display of disbelief that India actually won? Or was it just a widespread display of what bad winners we really are? Bad losers are one thing, but bad winners just stink. With bad losers, you know why they’re acting like shitheads, but with bad winners... What the hell is their excuse?

But, what’s done is done. Bad karma caused by being a bad winner follows you around. It better not screw up India’s chances at the trophy. If it does, it’ll be those TV channels’ and those people’s fault. They can write their moronic four-line poetry then.

(Reprise)

This post was originally going to be titled “Your truth, my truth, teri maa ki-.....”. Catchy ain’t it? Anyway, it’s been over two-and-a-half months since I last posted, as the more astute (or bored enough to check regularly... you decide) among you would have undoubtedly noticed.

This one’s going to be extremely scattered and all over the place. Bear with me.

And that is the sad state of my present blog-rust. In fact it’s so bad that I’m still a fair bit from even starting up on the point of this particular post and yet, I’ve run out of things to type. Let me try and trace my footsteps. Right. Here we go.

Circa October 2010, I hit upon the idea to try and save up and make a trip to Australia to catch a Big Day Out show in Perth. Why Perth? I haven’t a clue. And when those plans went from musing to actual planning, I got home to check out airfare and just happened to check my mail first. Total coincidence. What I saw on my screen blew me away and scorched my retinae. Could it be? Fuck going to Australia. This is what I’m going to be doing, I told myself. Watching almost every single band I love perform at one place (and that too on the edge of the earth) would have been awesome, no doubt. But the subject matter of that email I saw referred to something that was happening in my own backyard. On my own turf.

The decision wasn’t exactly difficult and my bank account was extremely grateful to me. Every single day leading up to this particular thing was no more than a stepping stone — something to do till the day rolled around. Weekends were immaterial. The holiday season wasn’t important. New Year’s Eve didn’t mean diddly squat. I was waiting for my own personal big day out.

And then it came.

January 13, 2011: THE PRODIGY live at Palace Grounds, Bangalore!

The extent of foolishness that went on before and after the show is something that’s far too much to go into. It’ll require a separate post. And yes, the show was blindingly good. But amid all the mirth-making and coming to life of something for which I’d been waiting so long, were some extremely profound moments, one of which will help this clumsy post lurch a little closer to its point.

I believe it was some time between very late in the night on the 12th and very early in the morning of the 13th, when (for some unGodly reason) we were sat around discussing a particularly prickly topic in the subcontinent. That’s right, kiddies... The K-Word. So one of my cohorts begins detailing a particularly self-righteous, moralistic and over-simplified rant he’d heard in the very recent past. That got me thinking about how a ton of people ardently believe in these supposed universal truths that are based on debatable, inconclusive and flimsy grounds.

An example. “The Indian Army is always bad” is a favourite universal truth among hot topic activists, armchair pundits, media students and so on and so forth. I’m not even going to go into the extraordinary lengths to which these people go to justify the senseless massacre of innocent villagers, policemen etc. at the hands of “disenfranchised parties”. To ensure that I get to my point in the near future, I am going to refrain from indulging in a self-righteous rant of my own about this issue. How lucky you all are!

Moving on... there were two such “universal truths” (albeit nowhere near as conflicted) that I’d been mulling over the last couple of days. The first has to do with cowboys. We’re all familiar with the shouting and yelling that greeted the release of Brokeback Mountain, with all these dissenting voices belly-aching about how it was wrong to portray cowboys as gay. Dig deeper and we found that conservatives in Utah (for instance) thought it went against “traditional families”. Someone as cool and macho as cowboys can’t possibly be portrayed as being homosexual, Cletus, his maw and the entire deep south yee-hawed. And then, Hollywood, as you all well know, has nearly always without exception, propounded the idea of the cool, smooth-talking and the epitome-of-all-things-masculine cowboy. It’s the WILD West, not the Mild West, after all.

But wait, just a damn second.

Who the hell decided that cowboys were so cool? And the next inevitable question is, if cowboys are so cool, why aren’t goatherders considered cool? Why aren’t farmers considered cool? Why don’t kids get plastic combine harvesters for Christmas? Why don’t they dress up as millers for Halloween? The real cowboys are often lazy layabouts who take naps while their cattle graze and then herd them back and that’s the end of their day. Historically, I believe cowboys were cowards too. I mean who the hell goes with a revolver and shoots people armed with nothing but sticks and maybe bows and arrows? And then tries to act like the victim and complains, “Damn Injuns got me” or something like that.

The other “universal truth” is far more newsy and far more fun. For time immemorial, I have seen men, a majority of whom were British, go on and on about this particular institution (I suppose it would be a fair way to describe it). The level of understanding of this instition that you possess defines just how much of a man you are. If you have little to no comprehension of it, you are roundly pilloried and mocked. If you call the institution stupid, you see the scrawniest of folk jump up in its defence with fire in their eyes, all set to defend their institution and its way of life. And honestly, this aforementioned institution is fairly simple to understand. Simple enough for a wee kid to understand.

It is for that reason that I don’t get why a guy who has been a virtual legend in his field would be stupid enough to cling to that particular institute and its supposed exclusivity... So much so that it would cost him his job. Give me a moment while I find a suitable way to dispell this "universal truth". How do I put this? Err... Let’s try this.

To put it very simply:
OFFSIDE IS A FOOLISHLY SIMPLE RULE!! There is no glory in claiming that you understand it and that imply that women don’t. Even LBW is a harder thing to understand than your fucking offside. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about refereeing or umpiring, where you need to watch carefully to see if it is in fact offside or LBW. I’m talking about knowing how it works. So to all of you who still think that offside is the holy grail of masculine understanding, I say this: If you really want to be smarter or show the world that you’re smart and they’re dumb, try and work out how Duckworth-Lewis is calculated.

Spare a thought though for poor Andy Gray. Take a bow, son. What a stupid way to get fired.

A surreal return to VfB for sure, but worry not, normal service will be resumed soon.