In memoriam

Orkut is shutting down today. Does that mean anything to you?

Maybe it does, if your early twenties were spent fraternizing on the only social network around – the facebook, twitter, Instagram, linkedin, pinterest and more - rolled into one.  For me, it had humble beginnings during my Germanic internship in the summer of 2004 as the only communication medium allowed during office hours. It was only later that I realized the fun in discovering school friends after years, and later one solid way to keep in touch with college folks, and much later, the established way to continue communication with ITC and ITC-era folks. (On a side note, the more time passes, the more it seems difficult to keep ITC out of any of my reminiscences – it sure is punching above its 2-year weight in my 30-year existence). It is hard to believe that there was an era when not insignificant daily concerns were surrounding how cool and non-wannabe your profile looked, whether the allowed 12 pics are the best you could showcase of your existence, whether the testimonials showed you in good light, and whether the ‘scrap’book needed clean up.

It became a part of life through the connectivity it established with long lost peers, conversations it elicited through scraps, gossips it started through following simultaneous scraps across multiple people, the hopes it gave wings to, through the crush/love meter, was it?, the show-off you could be through your profile – the possibilities were endless!

But then, in the meantime, we grew up. Some changed geographies, many changed relationship, marital and then parental statuses, most changed jobs, a few went on to found successful companies, some disappeared with no return addresses, and almost everyone advanced in life, and moved on.

The scrap wars weren’t as much fun, gossip-mongering was time taking, crush-meters never transpired into a meaningful fling, and communicating with folks through offline scraps and reverts… let’s just say it began to become a chore. It lost novelty gradually, but relevance with an unrelenting ferocity. The supreme reign on 4-5 years paled into insignificance in a matter of months, upended by younger upstarts.

I wish I could shed a tear in the memory of its passing, but the inconsequential nature of its existence means that with time, it might pass out of living memory as well, to be remembered as a small blur during young adulthood.

While Google could never go on to develop the BMW of social network, Orkut was, and will always be, the Model T of the personal Web. 

The Memory Remains

The end was nigh. Musings were in the air, with God’s own country beginning to develop a hitherto unknown skepticism of his abilities, even if spoken only in hushed whispers. ‘He is finished’, they said. ‘He is denying someone an opportunity’, they said. But deep in their hearts, all of them knew that if there was one thing in a battle that they would hinge their life to, it would be their undying faith in you.

I have always thought how I would react to the moment, hoping deep in my heart like a billion others that it should never arrive. But now that it has, all I am left with is an emptiness, like the passing of a dear one, like a part of me died inside. The memory reel plays Perth 1992, Sharjah 1998, Chennai 1999, Rawalpindi 2004, Hyderabad 2009, Cape Town 1997 and 2011, and everything in between, over and over again. Clutching to the vain hope of gladly living through it once again.

Thank you, SRT. You were a delightful habit. Through the Hindu rate of growth to an emerging superpower to down in the dumps again, through half a dozen different prime ministers and presidents, through 80% of my life, through living in a dozen different places, through disappointments, heartbreaks and successes, you were the one true and constant streak of happiness, the one straw to clutch at with blind trust, the one ray of sunshine when all was dark and foreboding. Life is emptier and my theism is dead today, and thank you for keeping it alive all these years. It has been a privilege, an honour to grow up in your realm.

PS – With the last of the greats now gone, I am reminded of this beautifully written piece from five years ago and this one from last year. In my opinion, nothing could possibly reflect the ethos of an entire generation better.

Mystic of the Orient

I figured I hadn't been writing for quite a while now, and wanted to get back to it. There is a lot that has happened in the interim, and I would want to think through and pen down my thoughts about it sometime. But for now, to get back in the groove, here is a travelogue that I wrote for one of my office newsletters. Admittedly it is not my proudest work, but I had to make it more factual rather than emotional - which meant I ended up writing what I saw, and not so much of what I felt. Excuse me if it reads more like what you would get on tripadvisor, but this will have to do for now!

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Any trip to China is incomplete without a stop by at Beijing. Steeped in history and with its rich cultural heritage, Beijing’s presence as one of the world’s leading tourist destinations is further enhanced by stunning architectural marvels created for the 2008 Olympics. As a consequence it has the perfect blend for a tourist city – modern world class wonders for the architecturally inclined, well preserved ancient structures, monuments and gardens for those who like their history, and cheap and world class transport system for the ones who prefer a city on the move.

There are a lot of activities for someone looking to tour Beijing over a weekend – and it would be advisable to take more time out to see the city. Tourist attractions are delightfully sprinkled across the city, silent guardians of a history worth thousands of years. Besides, not only is Beijing a large city by itself, it also has great places to visit within an hour’s distance, that one should include in the itinerary when visiting.

One could start from the heart of the city itself, which boasts of arguably the largest city square in the world, a venue seeped in history, not all of it entirely pleasant. Do stop by at sunrise or sunset for the flag raising (or lowering) ceremony – sharp, methodical, and precise in a fashion that has now become a Chinese hallmark. All around the Tiananmen Square are famous building worth a dekko – Gate of Heavenly Palace to the north, Great Hall of the People on the west (national people’s congress meets here) and National Museum of China to the east. Across the road from Tiananmen Square lies the Forbidden City, a large palace complex first built over 600 years ago, and presided over by many a dynasty. For people who love their history, it is an absolute treasure trove with many well-preserved artifacts.

Head north to visit another of Beijing’s great historical sites – the Summer Palace. This used to be the imperial retreat for emperors, spread over 10 square miles, and currently the largest preserved royal garden in China. Summer Palace mainly consists of two broad areas - Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake. Spend some time walking around ancient pavilions, mansions, temples and bridges, admiring the beauty of Chinese architecture and garden arts, or just relax along the lake. The Palace closes by 6pm, so take time out to visit the nearby Olympic sites – the absolute architectural wonder that is the Bird’s Nest, which was the main venue for the 2008 Olympic Games, and the ‘Water Cube’ right across which hosted the aquatic events. All the Olympic venues are within the proximity, and are open till late, which can make for a languid evening outing.

No visit to Beijing can ever be complete without vising the Great Wall. Constructed over hundreds of  years across dynasties, and spanning a total length of upwards of 8000 kms, the Wall has many segments that can be reached from different parts of North China. From Beijing, there are about 8 sections that are within an hour’s drive, of which Badaling is the most popular. For those seeking the not-so-well-trodden path, Mutianyu is another section that can be reached easily from Beijing, and gets relatively fewer tourists. Either choice is a great opportunity for a morning hike – and the views from higher ramparts along the Wall are absolutely spectacular. The climbing can be steep in sections, and with little shade, so be prepared with strong footwear, sunblock, water and sunglasses. Climb to as many ramparts as you want, and there would be uncharted bulwarks as far as eyes can see. And very disappointingly, contrary to popular myth, the Wall is not visible from space!

Among other places, another good outstation site to visit is the Ming Tombs – the burial sites of the Ming dynasty emperors.  Two of these have been excavated and are open to public – Dingling and Changling. Once back in the city, do visit Temple of Heaven, one of Beijing’s largest royal altars, surrounded by gardens with centuries old cypresses and junipers. Spend an evening walking around the famed ‘Hutongs’ – neighbourhoods preserving the old ways of life in Beijing, with old city lanes connecting to courtyards of traditional compact homes. For the gastronomically inclined, the famous ‘Beijing Roast Duck’ is absolutely un-missable.

The heart of the world’s most populous nation bustles with charm, culture and flirtations with modernity compared to its neighbor Shanghai – a city much more modern, picture perfect and arguably more soulless. Beijing is a city unwilling to let go of its rich heritage along its relentless march to prosperity – not an easy thing to do – and for that, we must be grateful. For it is an excursion like this that leaves one feeling richer in their experiences, and thankful for the world we live in.

Oh, Calcutta!

ITC. 9 days in Sonar Bangla, 3 at Raichak. First friends outside of school and college. And what a long standing association that turned out to be.

Saturday evening flights from Mumbai during the World Cup. Sunday morning flights to Dhaka. And in between, conversations. At 10 PM, 2 AM and 5 AM. And what a life changer that turned out to be.

Seven years to the day when the city first greeted me with sights of unending palm trees. Through rain and flood and wading through knee-deep water, summer heat and monsoon wedding, from Tribeni house to late night walk through the old city lanes on drizzly evenings, watching the great metropolis slowly drift to sleep.

In this period, I have lived in godforsaken innards of the country, in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. But the one constant in my life in this period hasn’t been any of these, but Kolkata.

I have a confession to make. For all my grumbling, mumbling and cursing, I think I am in love with Kolkata. I think I have always been in love with Kolkata. Ours has been a long distance relationship which has survived the test of time precisely by virtue of being that. And as long as I am just a passerby, and never a denizen, I think I will always be in love. And I will always want to be a passerby.

Bawra mann on the radio as I pass by the desolate structures of Rajarhat, across a rain swept street. Bliss.

Losing (and rediscovering) my religion

It was love at first sight.

I was still not of a legally marriageable age, barely halfway through my college education, but the first time I heard them on reasonably good speakers in IITK, I was swept away in an overwhelming wave of awesomeness. All through college, they were a preferred companion, from cold nights through simmering days, from inebriated highs to sobering lows, from boisterous Wing parties to lonely broodings. And then within a couple of years of discovering them, I had a dream come true, a high which lasted for months, with my first brush with them in flesh and blood, 7.5 years ago, which I had tried to capture in words, rather breathless and inelegant, here.

In the interim, I graduated, started working, got back to academics again for a while before getting back to work, even as a few white strands made themselves comfortably conspicuous on my scalp. I experimented with listening to other types of music, both hard and soft, and decided that I had begun to develop a liking for the latter, especially the instrumental kind. I lived in four different places during this time, attended other rock concerts when I could, fell in and out of love and back again and learned a few lessons in life, as the noughties whizzed by. The memory of a midsummer evening in Munich had begun to fade away – but rather disconcertingly, it didn’t worry me that in a few years’ time it might just recede to a footnote status in an otherwise unforgettable summer of 2004. I was becoming a Kafir, an infidel.   

They released another album while I was a student for the second time – I liked it, listening to it on and off, and briefly thought that I had reignited that spark again within me – that rush of adrenaline, but somehow the awesomeness of yore had disappeared – the halo all but dissolved into thin air. I couldn’t explain it rationally – so I ascribed it to age – drifting away from the original Legends of heavy metal, one which had been my single most important reason to swear by the genre itself.

 And then, just when I was beginning to think that my lasting memory of them would be the midsummer evening of 13^th June in the year the Greeks got away with an unthinkable daylight robbery of the Euro Cup, my faith was reawakened. On a dripping late October evening at Palace Grounds in a typically chilly Bangalore, they rocked my world again. The ‘Ecstasy of Gold’ opening, complete with ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ video, sent me right back to that evening in Munich, jolting that memory back into prominence. The goosebumps with 25,000 people singing an entire song together was back. As was the high of chanting ‘Obey your master ..... master …..’ in unison, almost like a cult.

The Gods of heavy metal ruled again. And my faith was restored.

Artists come and go. Playlists change. Tastes in music evolve. Tracks vie for being preferred songs and then fall by the wayside, forgotten after the next favourite comes along. But that is how mortals are defined. Not them.

Metallica. Forever.

Of homecoming

A melancholy tarmac greets me as the aircraft touches down at the lonely airport of my home town (A home town that will cease to be that in another month, but that’s another story). A fine mist of unceasing sorrowful rain has already enveloped the place as I make my way out of the airport. Homecomings, even after a 13 year gap, could be made a little less depressing, I think as I head out to the place that will host me for the next 3 days.

A sea of bobbing heads greets me as I get in, each one a little more freshly tonsured than the other. People in all shapes and sizes, from the 3-footer playing in the mud to the venerable octogenarian, look at me as if I am from another planet. The thick stock of hair is not helping the cause. Neither is my pretentiously polished appearance. Despite that, recognition and happiness dawn on some of these ancient faces, but not on mine. I try to fake it, but fail miserably at it. I don’t try again.  

Signs of decrepitude are everywhere. It is almost like nothing has changed from 13 years ago, except for a general southward heading. Plaster is peeling off, generations of moths have lived and died in what was a bulb socket in a previous life, and a glum pallor hangs about. It is not helped by the occasion, the death of the oldest inhabitant. I happen to be four generations distant, so my dim mind didn’t make the obvious connection when I first heard about it, but it is only when I reach here that I see it – the place lived with her, and after she’s gone, it has died a bit too. I vaguely recall it as a living, breathing organism from 13 years ago, but that flawed vitality is gone. It is almost fiercely decadent, standing in sharp contrast to the frenzied levels of activity all around, perhaps desirous of being frozen in time, just like its oldest denizen. Perhaps I will write about her some day, but not today. She deserves better than a melancholic ramble.

I flit around from room to room, from the terrace to the courtyard, from one conversation to another. The conversations are guilty, the tone is subdued, the eyes always downcast, and the tendency almost always to pull myself away from a setting which has too many people in it. I don’t know if I am running away from a shared past, or from a concern of the shared past creeping into my future.

I never really could comprehend the concept of a permanent address. We moved often, and so did my so-called permanent address. Arguably, if there could been a permanent address for me, it has to be this – and yet I don’t feel a connection worthy of it. The generational and physical chasm has become too distant to be bridged. I can see people around me trying to make a connection, trying to identify the part of me which potentially is a part of them as well, trying to appeal to a sense of commonality. But like a stone I stay unmoved. The cynical me justifies it with an explanation derived out of social status, but a little part of me knows that this is an appeal to a shared lineage, and the most ancient of bonds – that of a family.  

But I find myself incapable of appreciating that, just as I continue to fail miserably to appreciate the value of the good things that I have, even if I don’t deserve them. I have been a recipient of incredible luck that I don’t merit, and I continue to be an utter failure at preserving it like a treasure, which is the way it ought to be done.

That sense of failing might also explain the muddle my mind is in, which is probably why this post turned out to be such a ramble.

Perhaps I will be more lucid another day, once I learn to exercise a little more control over myself.  

The Cup of Joy

It was written.

This was destiny. It had to be.

For the little man playing in front of his hometown crowd. The purveyor of magic. The balm for all ills of a nation. The answer to a billion prayers. The bearer of loads Atlas would have found tough to endure. In what was in all probability his last world cup game. The Gods, even in their most punishing avatars, couldn’t possibly conjure a punishment which is direr, than to deny him his last title shot ending with glory. 

Even fairly tales couldn’t possibly be scripted to finish with a more extravagant flourish. Reality is, indeed, stranger, and much more awesome, than fiction.

No one could begrudge us this victory. No one could possibly complain of being at the wrong end of lady luck. Even in hushed tones, no one could grumble about being a better team than we were, and denied the opportunity to prove so. No one deserved it more than we did. We clinically dismissed, even if not as much as steamrolled, whatever was thrown at us. We were the best, better than anyone else in the world.

This matters, and don’t believe anyone who says it doesn’t. A nation exhaled a collective sigh of happiness when soothing balm was applied on a 28-year itch. A generation of single-minded fandom which grew up on near misses and the ‘oh-we-were-this-close’ heartbreaks got its long due shot at pure, unbridled joy. For that fleeting moment when the captain lifted the last ball of the world cup into the glittering Mumbai skies, none of our ills mattered. We were the kings of the world, and no one could deny us this happiness.

But the greatest joy the Cup brought, and indeed, each of the last three matches, was to see M happy. Almost for that alone, the victories were worth it.  

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P.S: Boston.com has captured the emotions and the ebb and flow of the Cup very well here. Pictures any day tell a better story than written text, and if ever a collective expression of joy was enshrined for posterity, it has to be this motley collection of photographs.

P.P.S: Four years ago (wow, that long, huh :)), I had written this piece. It was written in a state of extreme dejectedness, I am not proud of it, and in hindsight, cannot believe that I had lost my faith back then. If there ever was a way for the Gods to reclaim their pantheon, this has to be it.

Birthday blogging

And just like that, with a speed of passage of time that I scarcely believed possible, I turned 27 today. And I was perfectly content spending it in the most ordinary fashion. I did the standard temple trip for my birthday, asked for forgiveness for my transgressions, decided to treat myself at Birdy’s, and had a rather pleasantly surprising conf call last night with a bunch of IIT wingmates even as my phone battery ran out :(

 

I have never been a fan of the idea of putting up birthdays on social networking websites. Part of it is to do with the fact that I will be too lazy to reply, and that too to most of the people who, in all probability, will not be bothered if I didn’t reply back. I absolutely, firmly, unabashedly detest the idea of proclaiming my acceptance of all the wishes in one sweeping, vainglorious statement. I would rather believe that people who care will call in, they are the ones I would want to talk to, and they are the ones who matter :) - a handful suffices, put in more and it becomes an uncomfortable crowd. 

The rumble from home becomes louder with passing time, and as I was warned today, my birthdays as a bachelor might be close to an end. I will probably be able to stall for one more birthday, but not sure if I could do so more one more after that. Not that I am against the institution of holy matrimony, I am just a little skeptical of my capabilities to handle the associated responsibilities. Plus, given that I have almost invariably found myself at the wrong end of the so-called work-life balance, I am guessing what was anonymously passable until now may not be so acceptable in future.    

This time, and really this time in all its seriousness, more so after being publicly derided for it, I have decided to try and be less of a smartass and a pretentious know-it-all. I am beginning to guess that a little more nicety and little less trivia will take me farther in life than the other way around. Not that I have done much in life to stake claims to being a nice person – but at least I can try and be less of a pain.

Some decisions will need to be taken in the next few weeks, some professional, some personal. I am still in two minds about those, and maybe it is a little early, but I do hope I will make the right ones.

M and M, this blog will not be complete without a mention of you. I don’t know if you will ever get around to reading this, but if you do, thank you for an awesome evening yesterday, and thanks for taking the trouble of coming down from afar and staying up late despite having early morning workdays. It meant a lot to me – more than I could ever communicate. I couldn’t possibly have asked for better people for company on my birthday eve.

Of movies upcoming ... Part II

I realized that some people do stop by this blog from time to time, and a significant number of them (meaning a number greater than the largest non-prime, non-composite natural number) seemed to have expressed interest in a blog I wrote last year in a bit of a juvenile fit (here). In due deference to this blogging trend started last year, here’s my list of movies to watch out for this year. The usual inabilities regarding non-Hollywood movies apply.

1. On the Road – Based on a legendary book of the same name which became THE defining feature of the post-War America generation. The book has the power to provide wings to one’s spirits, and heighten the desire to take the nearest highway out of the city, to anywhere. Arguably the movie is half a century late in coming, but what the hell.
2. Kung Fu Panda 2 – Kung Fu Panda is back. No other description needed.
3. Cars 2 – Pixar is back for its obligatory movie event of the year, quietly flicking off other animation movies out of contention for awesomeness. (Except for maybe…. that’s right, #2) earlier, to which we owe the lexicon of awesomeness)
4. Hangover 2 – In a year littered with sequels (more on this later), this should be a cracker, if the predecessor was anything to go by. Todd Phillips is back with the same team.
5. God of Carnage – Roman Polanski’s next venture, littered with an awesome star cast. The storyline doesn’t sound out-of-the-world, but magic has been independently delivered before by the director and his cast.
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – I daresay that this could be the most awaited movie of the year. David Fincher is handling the remake of a trilogy (or at any rate, the first book of the trilogy) which has already captured the attention of the reading audience.
7. Rango – The director-actor pair of Gore Verbinski-Johnny Depp is back, but not with another Pirate of the Caribbean movie! This is another of those cutesy animated flicks, but I m hoping that the same witty dialogues and inventive direction should be on display.
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – And while we are at it, the long discussed POTC4 is on, later this year. Only, everyone’s different, except Jack Sparrow and his crew. Given that they pretty much pulled the first three movies on their own, maybe we won’t miss anyone.
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Didn’t really need to put this in here. With the series at its end, let’s hope the search for the final horcruxes and beyond is shown true to the books.
10. The Black Hole – This is a bit of dark horse. The only reason I put it here is because I thought Tron:Legacy was visually awesome, and the same director is handling this one. With some extra money available, who knows – this might be another visual marvel.

There is also the customary bunch of superhero and/or sequel/prequel movies (Captain America, Thor, X-men: First Class, Green Lantern, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and so on). Most of them would turn out to be crappy and make pots of money. I will shell out some myself, even though I won’t like a bit of them. Oh well, so much for making these lists!

P.S. - Just came back from seeing 'No One Killed Jessica'. While admittedly a little dramatized, it is one of the better Hindi movies I've seen in a long time. The acting is superb, direction decent, flow of events surprisingly close to reality, story fairly intense, and music absolutely riveting. Recommended watch.

That noughties show

I have rather vivid memories of the New Year’s Eve at the end of the previous decade. There was a party that evening in the RKPuram hostel, to celebrate the end of an international UNESCO-driven student conclave at our school. Luv Sharma was very clearly smitten by that Egyptian girl and was out all guns blazing to woo her, while I was rather uncomfortably coy in wishing the two Bulgarian girls dancing next to our group a happy new year. The guy from DPS Nepal was being a very enthusiastic jumping jack, but mostly good-naturedly.

The Australian cricket team was about to arrive at Indian shores, fully intending to continue their marauding ways, before being stopped at Eden Gardens. Apple was yet to establish its tech hegemony, France had just become the only team to simultaneously hold the World Cup and the Euro Cup, a mention of terrorism elicited fuzzy images of distant scuffles in third world countries, Web 2.0 was an unheard of concept, and Alta-vista and Yahoo were the default choices if you wanted to do a search on the internet.

While it wasn’t for us to brood over what the next decade could be like, an event earlier in the day, rather unwittingly, had sort of decided that for some of us – the IITJEE screening results had been out earlier in the morning, and while for some of us it was the first starry-eyed step towards what we hoped the following decade would be like, some others were very much in deep thought about what they should be doing next. Such is the nature of the exam, I guess – for all its focus on meritocracy, there were always a few extraordinary but unlucky folks who missed out – also perhaps a first reminder of how even the most honest tests could be so unfair.

Subsequently, the decade was pretty much on auto-pilot – while the paths of that group assembled in the common area of DPS hostel pretty much diverged with few intersections, life for me mostly took a very predictable course – get into an IIT, spend four years training to be an electrical engineer, ditch the training almost entirely in the first job out of college, and by the time you become stable enough to count for someone during your first job, jump ship again for business school. Although arguably it could be said in hindsight that this moving around was kind of necessary to get to a position that the next decade might be more stable than its predecessor. Indeed, it is possible that given the circumstances of this decade, stability might have stood for stagnation.

Australia is now a team in decline while Spain are the current holders of both the Euro and World titles. Google has graduated from being a proper noun to a verb, and Web 2.0 is so omnipresent and all- encompassing that life before it seems kind of fuzzy and unreal.

Almost all the advancements in my own life through the decade, however, have been pretty much limited to academic and professional streams, a sort of very expected progression, hardly anything worth writing about. Almost as a wry reminder of that, 2010 itself was hardly an eventful year. I moved from one project to another professionally, one book to another in my literary pursuits, and pretty much stagnated otherwise. For some folks around me though, this year marked a significant change in their lifestyles, jobs, marital status and what-have-you, much more than in 2009. While I was happy for them, atleast the ones I care about, it did have me thinking for most of this last month.

I discovered some awesome Pakistani music through Coke Studio, restarted badminton after more than a year’s gap, cannot remember what happened after 10 on the first two nights of my company’s annual offsite, became an even bigger slave of my laptop, worked my ass off for most of the year, saw five flatmates come in and move out during the year, and got to know my friends slightly better. Of the above, I m mostly proud of just the first and the last. Books and movies and TV shows filled up whatever was left of waking hours. Yeah, I know, mostly I wouldn’t mind a life at this point of time.

Stability would probably be more a part of lexicon now than before. It has already started to pinch me at different forums, in entirely different contexts. I don’t have too many hopes from 2011. The best that I can say is (as I shamelessly ripped off from somewhere) – May this be the prime year for you just as number 2011 is! :)

Happy new year to anyone who cared to trot by!

Against All Odds

I wrote this piece on Wednesday, 13th. A lot might change since then, but it was this video which inspired me to write this piece –

Women's 4 X 400 Relay Final - CWG



You could watch it n times over, and each time it would give you goosebumps. It is that brilliant.

For a moment, forget the daylight robbery that the CWG organizers are going to get away with, once the Games are over. Forget the shameful pictures of the Games’ village beamed across the globe, the damning reports that accompanied them. Forget the pomp and the glitz at either end of the CWG, conveniently masking the structural deficiencies beneath. Forget the fact that at best this was an average event, nothing spectacular. Forget the cynicism, based on which the so-called middle class elites find it oh-so-easy to draw their opinions – on both the state of affairs and the quality of our athletes to compete on a global arena. Forget the fact that after all the heart and soul these athletes put in, we might yet end up finishing out of the top two – in an event which cannot quite lay claim to representing the sporting powerhouses, however global it may be.

Remember the unheralded men and women – unknown, derided, and generally sneered upon before the games began, who’ve made us proud at a global stage. Remember the unprivileged backgrounds that most of them emerged from. Athletes whose remuneration would struggle to match that of a cricketer idling on the perimeter of the ground, signing autographs, turning up for an Indian city with which he otherwise has absolutely no connection. Athletes whose only reward – and I cannot think of anything else – is that of toiling hard for your country, and hoping for at best an acknowledgement from an otherwise hopelessly apathetic sports administration.

Remember the grapplers and the shooters, the pugilists and the archers, the shuttlers and the (hockey) stick wielders, the runners and the walkers, the swimmers and the slingers – who owned these last two weeks.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for making us proud, despite the cynicism we bestowed on you. It is only because of your achievements, against most odds, that we might even begin to dream of being a small part of the league of sporting pantheons.

But none more so than the ladies who ran their heart out in the 4 X 400 m. In the battle to earn the top spot in come-back-from-the-dead victories, dear Mohali 2010, I think you just met your match.