Life is....

.....actually a game !

Sometimes, it is cards.  You are dealt some cards, and you must do your best, depending on what rules are specified to you. Sometimes it is all about being rich, sometimes, about pretending to be so despite having a poor hand.  So often, we get fooled into connecting it with money, based on the 1/52 probability of something unique happening.  And if poker is all that you know,  you must put something in, to get something out.

Sometimes, it is langdi.  You are out on a single limb, trying to change the situation.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes, you keep on hopping, falling, getting up, stretching, only to find yourself inches away from your goal, and unable to reach it.

Sometimes it is a game of Hide and Seek .  You permanently seek things. Like knowledge, money, power, a house, a spouse, food and so on. Some of these elude you and go into hiding, and some appear momentarily to give you false hopes.  The problem is, you are always, the Den.

Sometimes, it is like tennis. Depends on whether you are a ball or a racquet.  So many are mostly balls. Whacked  relentlessly by forehands and backhands, as they fly around doing someone else's bidding in life. Sometimes they are even smashed. At times, they are fooled into thinking the racquets have a soft touch , when suddenly faced with close mesh barriers. But they are wrong. Sometimes these racquets fly off the handle, when the hitters  celebrate their actions. And so many hangers-on simply blindly applaud.

If you are the delicate brilliant  type, your life is like a game of badminton. You may be delicate, fair and light as a feather, but life is all about sharp and quick smashes, caressing tosses, sometimes, as you shuttle across, it's a drop across a wired precipice, as the watchers just senselessly applaud. Of course, you often get thrown aside in favour of someone else more beautifully fit and fair, but then that's life.

Of course, sometimes, you end up being the racquet, in both tennis and badminton. And you are never allowed to forget , that you are still under some one's two-fisted control, in crunch situations.  What you think is a celebration, may actually have you thrown out into the world, and replaced. Either way, a tennis/badminton  life is so misleading. It makes you think you can fly, when actually , you are hurtling .

And so what if you are a game of basketball ? As you quietly mind your own business , they crowd around, and pump you up, walk around holding you by their side, and just when you start feeling good, you find out that it is all about improving their own score in life by making you run and fall through rings. A lot of surreptitious pushing, pulling, and others getting in their way. Sometimes even shameful whistles by some kind of boss types.

In some countries, life is actually a game of cricket. 22 folks in your environment, and you could be a ball or bat.  Being a bat is slightly better,  because you get well taken care of.  You have excellent covered homes, they worry about your complexion and provide excellent  moisturizations and linseed facials. Many times you carry the name of who you belong to, though at times, like Draupadi, you may carry names of more than one.  This happens when money obsessed Kaurav types, hold auctions.   It's not so bad being a bat.

But being a ball is bad.  First of all ,unlike bats which have a relatively monogamous life, you are badly handled by many.  Some spit on you, some ensure the extra oil in their hair is slathered on you, and some fearlessly rub you wrong. Some think they are being clever and clean and shine only half your face. And to hell with your looks.  You are whipped, cut, swept, flicked and the whole world and its friend explodes when you fall into some one's grubby hands. Some of these grubby hands even cause you planned injuries by scratching, and periodically, after they have messed you up enough, they shamelessly replace you with some one else.  The worst part is, all your travails are broadcast to the world.  Your life's ambition is supposed to be reaching some 3 pointy sticks and knocking their heads off, and  then too, once is never enough.

Of course if your life is a football life, you only have your previous karma to blame.  It is never nice being constantly kicked and head butted. But you have to look on the good side. Thankfully in our country, life is not about heavily packaged helmeted fellows crushing you as they fall on top of each other , as they do in the US.

Some people have, what might be called an elite genteel golfy life. It is all about travelling across hills, gardens, lake sides, and parks, at a civilized pace. Great attention is paid to you, and although the thwack on the back really hurts, sometimes you get to fly across water bodies, roll down hills, and the whole world watches, as you do your indecisive dance near a hole in the ground.  But you get to stand your ground, till someone walks up to you and helps you go in. It is more or less a monastic life, as you travel in special bags amidst the rich and famous and mostly those coming up in the world.

The most interesting time is  when your life is like a game of chess.  You could be just about anything; a king, queen, camel(bishop), horse (knight), elephant (rook), or the ordinary pawn, Depending on that , life will take you on various paths. Some straight, some crooked.  Your alter ego always shows up in an opposite color in front of you.

Unlike plays and movies, where they show alter egos discussing moves with your real self , the alter ego here simply plots to kill and defeat you.   And so, unlike  many other physically overpowering games, this one is about outwitting someone troubling you, not by bashing them up personally, but by cleverly using the capabilities of your subjects. The queen, king, elephants(rooks), horses(knights),  camels(bishops), even the lowly pawns,  all work at it, supporting each other, and some do get sacrificed.  Some survive and some don't, and it is not for the want of trying.  Sometimes people call this democracy, and sometimes people call this parliament.

And yes, this seems to be the only game where the woman, the Queen , is the real power.

Figures.

That is life !

Games of a different type वेगळी माणसें वेगळा खेळ ......

One of my most abiding memories from my childhood, is coming home from school, flinging the school bag, having a cup of milk with some simple snack, and then rushing out to play with my friends. I still remember some of the hiding places we had when we played a very involved game of hide and seek. Twice a week, our school had compulsory evening games for everyone. We thrived on netball, badminton, volleyball, and no one was a whiz or champion.

Parents then, frowned on bookish types rushing off to attend , say algebra classes, when they should be going to playgrounds, or similar exciting places. By and by, some of us took up some kind of formal coaching, like in badminton and table tennis. The emphasis was never on outfits and smart looks; just some decent no-nonsense practicing.

Weekends meant you got up even earlier, and went hill climbing. The icing on the whole thing was carrying fresh mom-made sabudana khichadi in a dabba and having it with your friends after you reached there.Once we even carried paper, paints, and brushes , (in addition to idlis and limbu sherbet), climbed the hill at sunrise, and sat and painted , what I still think, were amazing masterpieces, featuring the sun, the rise, and a minute spot of sabudana khichadi, in the corner. Regulars on the hill stopped by to admire our output, patted our backs and went on.

I never imagined the day would come when someone would come home from school and/or work, and sit down to play tennis on a PC Yes, there is this game called Tennis Elbow, where you can tell how many people are playing (singles/doubles), are they warming up, playing a match, what the strong strokes of each player will be, who is going to be the guy with big volleys and so on and so forth, all this followed by statistics at the end of the game telling you who made how many unforced errors, who served aces etc etc.

There is also Cricket, Billiards and Snooker. All on a machine. And so many people play Chess against machines, and possibly get angry with winning machines.

Today, thanks to television, sponsorships have become more important than a game. The more you watch, the more they sponsor the telecast, and vice versa. Cricket is being viewed by scores of parents , as time well spent, in terms of lifetime monetary returns; whether a child has a specific aptitude or not, cricket is King. Badminton, table tennis , and squash come a distant second. Squash occasionally rises a bit higher, because US universities value sports proficiencies while deciding on admissions.

Amazingly , however, Dahi handi , is now being treated as a special event sport. Folks wear t-shirts with team logos, their practice is documented and publicized in great detail, insurance companies rush to insure the climbing youth, who might just possibly involuntarily descend later. Opportunistic politicians offer 5 figure cash prizes to those taking maximum physical risk. (Thanks to the IPL extravaganza, reports indicate that , somewhere in North Mumbai, some politicians had recently organized a dahi handi with cheerleaders from east european countries doing their cheerleader acrobatics and "display" on a special stage, in minimal outfits, watched by goggle-eyed types, while somewhere nearby, the young and nimble footed Govindaas, tried to complete their pyramids and break the handi ). The publicity value , traffic disturbance , and chaos is tremendous.

While Dahi handi is NOT in danger of becoming an Olympic sport, it has occurred to folks that whenever there has been a political interference in sport, that sport has suffered, and the politicians have prospered. (With the sole exception of cricket, where everyone has prospered, or possibly the politicians have stopped being political. Maybe).

Whether its hockey, struggling like a fish with non functional and faulty Gills; track and field, boxing,wrestling, where parents move mountains to provide their children with nutrition, time and education; shooting, where the powers that be cannot find funds and proper lead times for ordering ammunition for practice, and even swimming, where this year there seems to be no Arjuna award for the sport, despite two guys swimming their hearts out in the face of zero encouragement to their sport; the politicians have appropriated it all

In the old days, one never saw so many young people "hanging around" on the periphery of "politics". Till it became a game.

Actually, in India , the biggest sport is politics.

Observe the rush of people vying to be a part of it. It needs hardly any physical expertise, other than the ability to bend ,blend, and appropriately exercise the wrist flexors, extensors, pronators and supinators muscles , in an effort to blindlessly applaud. Never mind who.You need an ability to walk vague distances, shouting something or the other. Occasionally exercise your unpuffed triceps to fling stuff at some one's house or police.

As you advance further in the sport, you learn to distribute much more than plagiarized speeches, and blatant lies. You actually start dealing in what really matters. The medal of a good politician : money . Ability to flaunt this gets you power. Make roads where some actually exist. Buy machines you don't need. Including buses and cars. An ability to bring religion into everything is an added plus. Appropriate public "exercises" help. And never mind that someone you helped won something. The picture on the hoarding , MUST be yours. The aspiring winner.

Cut to Olympics 2028 .

Doordarshan types , droning on, India having just won 5 gold medals in Synchronised Bending and Flitting,Laryngeal Calisthenics, Hide,Hide and Seek, Parade Wandering and the like....

Oh my ! Sir Abhinav Bindra, Olympic Chairman is walking up to award the medals, and ....who is that guy with white hair and paunch, getting the gold? ....

Beta, pass me my glasses, will you ? Now that I am 80, it gets a bit difficult to get up as well as see..... And i keep forgetting . But didn't I see that guy in Parliament a few years ago ?

Rich men, poor cousins

Koneru Humpy :Chess Gold Pictured below .

All those people who exhibit traumatic reactions watching our guys getting out in cricket matches, have suddenly gone into slow motion action-replay , given whats happening in the first test today. There is an entire population of Sachin-disciples, age-no-bar, who look accusatively at folks, and defend Sachin's getting out in 50's, (in the 1st test vs SA) now that everyone else , in both teams ,is barely getting beyond 10's,20's and some, even single digits.

One doesnt hear a squeak from our esteeemed parliamentarians either; i suppose, throats become sore due to excess shouting, sometimes, about Greg Chapell, and sometimes about Ganguly. I dont remember hearing anything about cricekting ability, in either the election posters, or speeches , and I certainly did NOT elect my representative , so he could waste time on cricket, given that he could spend it more productively, supporting the 33% reservation for women Bill.

Should India win this test, telegrams and calls will go forth from folks in Delhi, planes will be diverted to Delhi, and parliamentarians who straddle sport and legislation with consummate ease will appear benignly smiling in photographs when the team poses with the PM.

And then there is this stunning silence post the Asian Games in Doha.

Our athletes run and jump their hearts out, and get medals. One of our runners, ran with a burn injury (scalding hot soup spilt during the previous day dinner) on her thigh. Koneru Humpy and two others get medals in Chess. The Womens Hockey team gets a medal, showing the Men's team how its done. Anju Bobby George leaps her best for a medal. Our Archers and shooters show that they are among the best medal winners. Even our rowers, all psyched up , are in contention for a medal. And who can forget Tennis ? Sania very much amongst the precious metal medals, and Mahesh and Leander pick up their doubles gold, and never mind that the lustre may appear slightly diminished by the petulant cribbing and fighting amongst the two. Harshavardhan Singh Rathore shows what tough army disciplined practice can produce in terms of medals.

Jaspal Rana shoots for 2 golds, and is nominated and is in contention for the Best Athlete of the Games award.

So what do the powers that be do? Our Parliamentarians have their fingers on their lips. The Sports officials, in a not so surprising display of INATTENTION to detail, inform Jaspal Rana that he IS declared the best athlete of the games; and start getting organised to rush him back to Doha. Only to find out that a Korean swimmer has beaten him to it. And never mind the mental trauma of the shooter.

Aisa hota hai.

(Kya hai, our sports persons are so used to careless handling of equipment, visa delays, arbitrary refusal of permissions, disgusting travel, boarding and lodging arrangements, and they should really be grovellingly grateful that they got to go anywhere at all.)

Our elected representatives discuss Greg Chapell in parliament; the Speaker actively participates. Please. The MP's are elected by us to REPRESENT us. I expect the MP from my region to take cognisance of those athletes that hail from his constituency, and try his best to help them when they are in need. I did not vote for my MP , so he can participate in a totally unqualified manner in deciding about coaches in sports.

What we need is a "sports constituency", just like they have a "graduates constituency". We need eminent senior sportspersons to be nominated/elected to such parliamentary posts. Just like the government has GoM (group of ministers) that work in a group for a specific project, we need to have these sports persons have a group that actively decides on allocation of sports resources.

How come we never hear about Anjali Bhagwat being nominated to Rajya Sabha? Has anyone ever thought that Prakash Padukone could be an asset in sports related decisions at the highest level? What is the rationale behind going ga-ga appointing actors and actresses to the Raya Sabha ?

Until then , be prepared to see a spectacle at the next Games, where the Indian contingent arrives with more officials than athletes; IOU's and quid-pro-quids are the order of the day ; I have often wondered at the proliferance of middle aged pot bellied people marching in, tugging their sports coats with one hand, and waving at the stadium with the other. They let some wellknown athlete function as the flag bearer; shows their benevolence , you know.

And forget about the runners who travel 4 ours everyday through supercrowded trains to train, swimmers who attend meets, get back to their hostels, and find that they need to pretend that the cold hard floor is really a comfortable bed at night; hockey players who end up drinking polluted infected water at their camps in our leading stadiums, as some guy who was supposed to repair the water tank, simply pretended to do so, and was paid for it on a priority basis; and never mind whose priority. Kabaddi players access first aid boxes , grandly labelled, only to realise that its not in their interest to get hurt; medicines are bought, but they never reach the first aid box.

Hmm. And the Indian Cricket team is really upset, because in the recent home series, against , I forget who, they were put up at a hotel with lesser stars than the visiting team hotel.......

Words fail.