"Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word." -- Laurence Olivier
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Living
Monday, January 21, 2008
Of Cricket and Movies
I was waiting for the Perth test result to write this. "YES!"
Indian Cricket Team hasn't let me or so many others down this time. This has made me believe stronger in them which has the side effect of becoming more vulnerable to a defeat. I guess I like it this way. It enables me to say at least this time ... "Didn't I say so?"
It was actually a commendable and understandable behavior by the Australians on the field this time round. And off the field too. I guess they gained some humility.
I would have written more about it but the cricket mood has died down due to my laziness and business in starting this. Well I have been very busy for last one month or so. Doing what? Working and watching movies.
I have watched around a hundred movies in the last month or so. It is quite a task even for me. It would not be wrong to say that I have lived a sizable fraction of my recent life in someone else's world. It is quite an experience. I have learned to appreciate movies more. I have become more patient. I have started to look deeper into things (don't know whether i really needed that, I am a victim of overthought already.)
I have come to decide that no movie is totally bad. One has to look for the subtle "things" in every scene. The people responsible for making the movie would have made quite an effort to put that little thing there in the background to "say" something to us. Of course there would be movies and moviemakers which don't inspire, don't enlighten and really test you. They also teach us something.. about the moviemaker :)
I am posting names of some of the movies, I saw in the past month, which moved, taught, inspired and changed me the most..
One should watch them... not for me... for themselves.
Indian Cricket Team hasn't let me or so many others down this time. This has made me believe stronger in them which has the side effect of becoming more vulnerable to a defeat. I guess I like it this way. It enables me to say at least this time ... "Didn't I say so?"
It was actually a commendable and understandable behavior by the Australians on the field this time round. And off the field too. I guess they gained some humility.
I would have written more about it but the cricket mood has died down due to my laziness and business in starting this. Well I have been very busy for last one month or so. Doing what? Working and watching movies.
I have watched around a hundred movies in the last month or so. It is quite a task even for me. It would not be wrong to say that I have lived a sizable fraction of my recent life in someone else's world. It is quite an experience. I have learned to appreciate movies more. I have become more patient. I have started to look deeper into things (don't know whether i really needed that, I am a victim of overthought already.)
I have come to decide that no movie is totally bad. One has to look for the subtle "things" in every scene. The people responsible for making the movie would have made quite an effort to put that little thing there in the background to "say" something to us. Of course there would be movies and moviemakers which don't inspire, don't enlighten and really test you. They also teach us something.. about the moviemaker :)
I am posting names of some of the movies, I saw in the past month, which moved, taught, inspired and changed me the most..
- Idi i smotri (Come and see)
- La vita è bella (Life is beautiful)
- 10 items or less
- The truman show
- The ultimate gift
- Cashback
- 12 angry men
- Léon
- Manorama 6 feet under
- Malena
- No country for old men
- One point 0
One should watch them... not for me... for themselves.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Stumped!
I love cricket... I love it, when India plays cricket... I love it, when India wins a cricket match. Indian cricket team being as erratic as it is, I've been through lot of heartbreaks in the course of my conscious life... Somehow I haven't got immunity from the sizable amount of defeats the team faced. So today I was in a bad mood for most part of the day when India lost the 2nd Test match of the ongoing Border Gavaskar trophy with 7 balls remaining in the final day.
Somehow I never felt worse (and finally better) at a loss as this one.. India losing by chance this time. Considering umpiring decisions too be unbiased and wrong only by minimal chance (I am giving a lot of benefit of doubt(?) to Bucknor and his mate Benson here which they didn't care to give in the middle.), it was left to the honesty and integrity of the players in the middle to take care that the umpires weren't deceived into wrong decision making on "on the line" cases and other not so "on the line" ones.
In the last five days of the game there have been quite a few controversial(?) decisions on the field (a few just because neither of the umpires thought it needful to refer it off the field and I am sure(?) it had nothing to do with the final decision favoring which team). Millions of Indians would have cursed when the opposition batsmen didn't walk when they were obviously(?) out and the same when Indian team's absent edges were caught behind, grassed balls were caught and an over-stepping Lee could bowl you (He is fast enough from 22 yards i bet!). I read an article which says
In spite of all that went on the field it was expected of both the teams to keep cricket a gentleman's game with no racial comments for instance. As I was typing this out.. I got a news alert which said Harbhajan Singh had been banned for 3 matches (!!!!!!!!!) because he had allegedly called Andrew Symonds a "monkey". I say, how easy it is for a minority / suppressed community to gain leverage out of it's downtrodden status? I wasn't there to hear it nor I could lip read what Harbhajan said, but even if I believe Harbhajan said that exact word, isn't it possible by chance (yes the same chance mentioned above) that he said that just to make fun of how Symonds looked? No! Mike Proctor the match referee believed after a long hearing. He thought there is a higher chance of a brown guy racially abusing a brown guy and that too was worth a 3 match ban!
I really believe (I don't know how I do it every time) and hope India can battle out the 12 (I would prefer to count chance as 1 instead of the umpires as 2) opposition players with their 11 with dignity and ethics. This I believe because of how the team and the captain in particular behaved after the defeat. As far as I am concerned India has leveled the series 1-1 with two more matches to go . I am happy.
Somehow I never felt worse (and finally better) at a loss as this one.. India losing by chance this time. Considering umpiring decisions too be unbiased and wrong only by minimal chance (I am giving a lot of benefit of doubt(?) to Bucknor and his mate Benson here which they didn't care to give in the middle.), it was left to the honesty and integrity of the players in the middle to take care that the umpires weren't deceived into wrong decision making on "on the line" cases and other not so "on the line" ones.
In the last five days of the game there have been quite a few controversial(?) decisions on the field (a few just because neither of the umpires thought it needful to refer it off the field and I am sure(?) it had nothing to do with the final decision favoring which team). Millions of Indians would have cursed when the opposition batsmen didn't walk when they were obviously(?) out and the same when Indian team's absent edges were caught behind, grassed balls were caught and an over-stepping Lee could bowl you (He is fast enough from 22 yards i bet!). I read an article which says
"Not walking is not cheating. Claiming a catch you know you have not caught cleanly is; the same goes for claiming a bat-pad catch when you know it was nowhere near the edge. The difference is that in one you are leaving the umpire to make his decision, in the other you are openly trying to deceive him."I think that the author finds "openly trying to deceive" unethical & cheating & what bad thing in the world not! Good! Great! But why is he biased towards the case of deceiving "undercover"? Is that ethical enough? Walking is subject to the batsman realizing comprehensively that he is out. Accepted that a batsman may not not know 100% of the time whether he nicked a delivery (or not in case of an lbw appeal) but for the rest of the cases isn't he consciously trying to deceive the umpire(s)?
In spite of all that went on the field it was expected of both the teams to keep cricket a gentleman's game with no racial comments for instance. As I was typing this out.. I got a news alert which said Harbhajan Singh had been banned for 3 matches (!!!!!!!!!) because he had allegedly called Andrew Symonds a "monkey". I say, how easy it is for a minority / suppressed community to gain leverage out of it's downtrodden status? I wasn't there to hear it nor I could lip read what Harbhajan said, but even if I believe Harbhajan said that exact word, isn't it possible by chance (yes the same chance mentioned above) that he said that just to make fun of how Symonds looked? No! Mike Proctor the match referee believed after a long hearing. He thought there is a higher chance of a brown guy racially abusing a brown guy and that too was worth a 3 match ban!
I really believe (I don't know how I do it every time) and hope India can battle out the 12 (I would prefer to count chance as 1 instead of the umpires as 2) opposition players with their 11 with dignity and ethics. This I believe because of how the team and the captain in particular behaved after the defeat. As far as I am concerned India has leveled the series 1-1 with two more matches to go . I am happy.
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