GIFT OF NATURAL TALENT

Continuing on with the sports page -
Sport is mostly about effort. More often than not it is about perseverance, hard work, hours of practice in search of elusive perfection, about stretching the limits of physical and mental possibilities to achieve set goals.
A Rahul Dravid, his face reflecting levels of concentration only Zen masters are capable of achieving, dodging bullets and standing tall amidts ruins. An Iranian weightlifter straining every sinew to hoist above his head the sort of weight six or seven of us will struggle to lift together. A Lleyton Hewitt digging deeper and deeper to fight his way past a more gifted opponent.
But thankfully there are times when you take effort away and sport becomes a thing of sheer beauty - outrageous, gorgeous, timeless beauty. And it is precisely on such occasions that the reason for playing sport and the reason for watching it seem to have been gloriously realised.
Each genius-propelled burst of inspiration has a stamp all its own. Like the glorious hour when Pete Sampras 'walked on water' in the 1999 Wimbledon final against Andre Agassi. Diego Maradona's impossible second goal against England in the 1986 World Cup.
At the end of the day, a Boycott might have a better batting average than a Richards and a Prost more titles than a Senna but this is not all about numbers.

SPORTS PAGE

I am a great fan of Nirmal Shekar (sports reporter the hindu). Here I would like to present a few of her great works -

A HERO GOES OUT IN HIS PATENTED STYLE
On Steve Waugh's retirement (just to remind you, his last test was against India and in his innings he played his trademark saviour innings)
...in walked the man. It was time to get into the trenches and do battle...one more time, one last time.
Waugh fights; therefore he is. Nothing better describes the Australian captain than what he does in the cauldron in an hour of crisis. The great man needed to come up with his signature tune at the death one more time.
Not another jaw-dropping work of genius, not another fantastic fairytale farewell innings of unmatchable beauty but merely a workmanlike 80 crafted with blood and sweat in the trenches by a working class boy from the Sydney suburb of Bankstown.
Man is not defined so much by success as he is by failure, by how he faces up to the possibility of failure, by how he deals with crisis, how he stretches his resources, both physical and mental, to turn failure, near-failure, into a glorious triumph.
This not only something that is character-revealing but-also, more significantly, a defining process that separates not merely boys from men but the men themselves from gladiators. And Steve Waugh is the greatest gladiator of his era in the world of cricket. No single cricketer in modern times could have faced up to failure and turned it into a triumph with quite the same gladiatorial intensity and single-mindedness, as has Steve Waugh time after time after time.
Sports is at once a fascinating laboratory for observations as well as a cruel business because the situations it creates strip a man to his essentials. There is nowhere to hide, nothing to cover yourself with.
The tighter the rope, the deeper the abyss, the colder the air, the greater the overall threat, the better it is for Waugh. Average challenges are for average people. Only the big ones inspire him.
Great warriors like nothing more than to fight equals and here, atlast, the most successful captain in Test history found a visiting team that had the skills and the determination to stand shoulder to shoulder with the champion and trade punches.

KING OF CLAY REIGNS

Nadal defeats Federer again for a hat-trick of French Open titles. The match lasted more than three hours. Federer played good initially but lost steam in the third set. Nadal was good and he never let the tempo off. Federer committed more than twice the number of unforced errors than Nadal, he had to pay the price. The Musketeers trophy was handed to Rafa by Gustavo Kuerten(97, 00, 01 French Open winner).

Some of the interesting comments made by(who else) the commentators. During the fourth set, Rafa was leading two sets to one, he was all charged up. They said 'Its interesting to see how much physical strength a scoreboard can give you'. Another one - 'Nadal turned 21 this June. He celebrated his birthday with a win'. Well in a few months from now I am going to be 21 and I have nothing to show. Nadal has won more than 10 millions. He is known worldwide. He is in the history books with 81 consecutive victories on clay, hat-trick of French Open titles. Name, fame, money. Not to forget the physique. Its surprising how much one can achieve in the same amount of time. Yes, I have cracked JEE, but presently it can hardly compare with what he has done. Its not that I have not slogged. For that matter its not that all the losers of today have not. Its just that they have done it more. Talent and mind too plays a part. What I am trying to say is that any amount of slogging you do, you can always do more. Then you become strong mentally.

ULTIMATE FINAL

The day has finally arrived. Its Nadal vs Roger. They could as well just let them play a match and decide the winner of a French Open. As for cricket, we need to decide the other finalist who plays Australia(though the winner is known beforehand). Roger is the best player in the world, still I feel he should atleast let others win French Open. Its like Roger wins the other three and pushes Nadal to put in his best to keep French. But Roger can never match Pete Sampras on grass. He wins Wimbledon from the base line. I have always felt that serve and volley is the way to play tennis(I am no player, its just that I like it) and anyone who wins Wimbledon without it, is cheating the game. French Open, not my favorite but will watch the final.

MUSIC

This May's edition of Reader's Digest contains a nice article of how a doctor in New York uses his i-pod. As an alarm clock, for patient information, some audios related to heart sounds and yes for mp3 files. It's a good read. But as you read it you need to remember that the reason one has all these benefits is that some music lover racked his brains hard and brought this device out(I am not sure though!).
Lately I have been listening to many songs, and I have found that I can spend hours together. Its a kind of pain reliever, makes me forget everything. The pace of the music I like to hear depends on my state of mind. If I am sleepy, I dive in mellow songs, sweet voice. Alka Yagnik and Shreya Ghoshal have bewitching voices. And it works both ways. If I listen I feel kinda sleepy. When I want to be charged up I hear a racy track, rock. Linkin Park. Oldies like Rafi and Co., remind me of my own past, the saturday night movies. For ghazals, I have not found anyone better than Jagjit Singh. On the most debated remix songs, well as long as the song turns out good I have no problems. Also the Indian community abroad has done a great job. Rap, R&B, bhangra. Rishi Rich with Jay Sean delivers the goods. Movie songs are good too. AR Rahman is the ultimate composer. Listening to all this I find no time to write.

A NEW BEGINNING

There is always an excitement whenever one does something new. I have been thinking of starting a blog for a month now, just waiting for a day and a topic to suit the 'big' occasion but here i am doing it on an 'ordinary' day. This will serve as a window to my thoughts and actions (no not the naughty ones). As I write this I have one eye on the clock (for the people who do not know about iit madras - internet stops working from 1 am). To move to a thought that is bothering me for some time, I do not know why but I cannot sit and read my course books. As Lincoln once said - "If I had 8 hours to cut a tree, I would spend 6 of them to sharpen the axe." I faithfully follow that but the problem is that instead of sharpening, I watch movies and sitcoms. If that was not enough those remaining 2 hours never come... This is not just a bother for me, but for more than half of the people here. The rest either don't care or they don't know that pleasures such as these do exist in life. I have not reached at a concrete solution for this but have a gut feeling that I will be able to crack the code by next semester. Meanwhile let me enjoy these days as I have learnt to.