The gentlemen's game

Win-win situation, originally uploaded by halwis.

Life is pretty good at Mid-Wicket… it’s not as boring as long-off, more respectable than third-man, not as depressing as gully (deep gully is usually worse) and a lot more comfortable than the square leg region. Some people assume that fine-leg must be a pretty sexy place to be, but batsmen tend to glance down fine leg quite often and it gets extremely wired down there. Mid-on and mid-off don’t offer a grand wide view of the whole pitch as midwicket does, and life in the cover region is just too tiring. Hard work put in by the sweeper cover and wicket keeper goes ignored and thankless on the best of days. How about the bowlers you ask? Well the bowlers get banged out of the park – and that’s not nearly as fun as it sounds. Forward short-leg gets bullied a lot and nothing really lasts at the slips.
Cricket terminology can be very subtle and therefore pretty difficult to catch, but the pressure usually never goes away because no one likes to be given out caught. The worst dismissal by far however, has to be getting out trapped with your “leg before the wicket”. So all else being equal, Midwicket is a nice place to be, even though it hardly offers too many chances to change the course of the game because only idiots get out caught at midwicket and every self-respecting batsman knows that a jab towards mid-wicket never really offers the chance to steal a quick one!
So when “the captain’s hand on your shoulder smote", you are left with little choice but to “play up, play up and play the game” or take up water polo… a game far less susceptible to seditious metaphors and euphemisms.

Ordinary heroes

Bridged, originally uploaded by halwis.

Mother's day came and went last week and I barely took notice. It seemed almost vulgar that I should do something special on this day alone, for a person who has given me so much of her life; and I don't mean that lightly.

It's not the fact that I wake up to a rude bed-side alarm now, that I miss the days when I awoke to my mother's gentle voice and her fingers combing my hair. I mean, I would be so embarrassed if she did that now, but it's something else about those years and about a mother's touch that is missing in this big bright world that I have stepped into.

When I was still a small person, my father laboured even after coming home from a hard days work just to make sure that the little white shirt and blue shorts I wore to school many years ago didn't have a single wrinkle on them. I came home from school to little treats almost every day and whether it was in the afternoon or at dusk after cricket practice, my mother was always there to ask me about my day and listen to every detail in my stories. I suppose I just didn't want them to feel as if I was waiting for corporate events like Mothers' or Fathers' Day to tell them how much I appreciate what they have done for me.

As a teenager, I never saw in my mother the woman who gave up a promising career to devote every minute of the best years of her life for me and my siblings. I may never know the courage or logic of that decision which was taken at a time when a woman is expected to be nothing short of an astronaut or head of state for society to take notice and consider her successful.

It took me over two years to teach my mother how to send an email through a series of training sessions that I am sure were as traumatic for her as they were for me. When she finally learned how to send me an SMS, I celebrated and shared the good news with my friends – the same way my parents would have celebrated the day I paddled my first infant steps across the floor.

She gets frustrated sometimes when I joke about it, because she feels that all the knowledge she gained in her youth had gone to waste and sometimes there are regrets that she could have made a good career if she decided to balance that with her commitment to the family. I have often felt that she paid too heavy a price for us, because life should be about making use of all the faculties and senses that enable us to appreciate our existence. How can it be a good thing to sacrifice all that – whatever the cause may be?
Yet I realise something now; a thought that seeps through the sacrifices and social stigmas that my mother would have had to battle two and a half decades ago. I am sure she wouldn't have made that choice out of any qualms about being able to balance a career with family commitments. It is visible now when I notice her slightly greying hair, or hear her voice over the phone across the oceans every week and when I try to picture the bright young woman who had returned from her studies oversees before she got married.

As I look across the empty miles, from a world where everyone is expected to work hard and make countless sacrifices to earn what they need, I see that my parents never demanded anything in return for their unconditional love. Everything I did or made drew out their smiles, and words of encouragement and appreciation flowed out evenly at my success as well as failure.

I suppose it is up to us to try and remind our parents in as many ways and as often as we can, that their labours have not been in vain.

Maybe we owe it to them, to seek not only 'success' in life – but also integrity and honour. My parents showed me by their life's example that I don't have to be rich and famous to be considered successful. They are themselves a testament to the fact that most of the real heroes in our lives are ordinary people who have shown extraordinary commitment and love.

(published in The Sunday Times - Mirror Magazine (20/05/2007)

The Chinese just know these things...

I read sometime back that the Chinese term for “universe” was in fact made up of two words “Yu” (space) and “Zhou” (time). When Aristotle was building a primitive model of the universe with the stars hanging down from a crystal sphere, the Chinese had already known for hundreds of years that the universe was the unification of space and time. It was only a couple of thousand years later that Albert Einstein managed to demonstrate this in the west (albeit in clear mathematical terms).

I thought I knew what love is. Perhaps I did… perhaps I didn’t… At least I knew what it was like to be infatuated about someone to the point that it consumed every other care and reason for existence. Years have past since. I can no longer remember or imagine such an uncontrollable fire of passion. My senses have been numbed even to the desire of an incomplete soul yearning to be made whole or the desperation of a shrivelled space in an isolated corner of the universe. So I instinctively turned to the all knowing Chinese (and of course - Google) to find the meaning of love…
I wasn’t disappointed! :-D

Residues

Retirement, originally uploaded by halwis.

This was one of the enduring images that I found detained in my camera after the drive down Great Ocean Road a couple of weeks back...

A land like no other

With a civil war raging within its jungles and isolated by International and local travel bans to the region, the northern region of Sri Lanka offer great views and adventure to those who dare cross the Forward Defence Lines (FDLs). This week, our special correspondent Sonnet goes behind enemy lines to discover the stories of those who have been caught in the crossfire for many years.


To say that 'Sri Lanka is a land of contrasts' would be an understatement that could get you thrashed in a night-club or run over by a three-wheeler. From the shacks of tea estate workers in its cool hills, to the luxury condominiums in the capital Colombo, it is a country that shouts out myriad life stories, but perhaps none as forcefully as the stories of those who live in or near the war zone in the North and East of the country. Their stories are more elusive, so I went searching for them.

Starting off on my trail, I met Kandasami (36) a local winemaker and his family of five who welcomed me to their 'earthy' villa. The terracotta path through their courtyard is flanked by a tastefully designed rock garden on the furthest edge of their one hundred acre vineyard, which coincidentally is also a minefield.
Only last night, they were trapped in the middle of an exchange of heavy artillery fire, followed by Ariel bombardment. Despite the sleepless night, Kandasami and his family woke up early morning to start another peaceful day in Kodikulluppu, a small town just 236 kilometres north of the capital Colombo. The family had spent the night underground, tasting the latest batch of Sauvignon Blanc in their cellar, which doubles up as a safe refuge during heavy fighting.

Despite the smoky morning sky and smell of gunpowder in the air, Kandasami – one of the handful of winemakers in the country – is optimistic about the future, even though he sometimes worries about the minor possibility that a 'bunker-buster' might damage his collection of precious wines. "Sauvignon Blanc has done exceptionally well in this land. The soil and weather is just ideal" he says with a 'Champaign' smile that is iconic of the people of this tiny island off the southern tip of India. The hundreds of anti-personal mines buried centimetres below the ground has been a blessing in (mighty) disguise for Kandasami. "I think the mines on my fields are what make my wines special. Apart from making life (and the possibility of death) a touch more exciting during the harvest season, they add an 'explosive' undertone to the taste, which compliment the melon taste of Sauvignon Blanc," grins the brave entrepreneur.

His family, like any other in this paradise isle, has the same concerns and anxieties; what will happen in the next episode of "Batti"? Will Surendra get fed up with Batti's family? Who will be the next Super Star? They; like everybody else who voted last time, are thrilled that Pradeep won, but are a bit upset that the SMS cost more than what they thought it would.

As I bid goodbye to Kandasami and his family and make my way on a cratered landscape, I am greeted by Periadorai who has just opened a coffee shop near the esplanade. Its large French windows offer stunning views across the large man-made lake and what remains of the main highway. Periadorai's coffee shop is a popular hang-out for the social elite of Kodikulluppu, including the teenage boys and girls of the International Weapons and Suicide Training School in the area, who invade the place soon after school hours for their favourite Hot Chocolate served with a marshmallow in a tall glass. Periadorai, who received his barista training while living in exile in South India, offers me his speciality – a sublime Macchiato and a delightful bacon and egg sandwich, toasted, with Swiss cheese on freshly baked Italian Herb bread. It leaves me wondering how good his lemon cheesecake or cinnamon doughnut would have been under a sky lit up by anti-aircraft fire, if I could be back in time for afternoon tea.

If business is the lifeblood of Kodikulluppu, then art would surely be its heart. My next stop is at the house of a young and promising painter. Sivagi, a child prodigy who began drawing on the dusty floor when she could barely crawl, had already sold her first crayon painting at the age of 6. Even though the first buyer was her uncle who bought his uncanny portrait for a mere Rs. 5, she (was) literally 'shot' to fame when she lost her arms to an unexploded shell. She miraculously escaped death and so did her love of art. Now she draws with a paint brush held between her toes and has since inspired hundreds, if not thousands of children like her, who has also lost their limbs in similar circumstances.

Despite the rare claymore mine explosion, slightly more frequent kidnappings and just above average murder-rate, the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka are a tourist paradise waiting to be discovered. It is a must-see destination for everyone who lives in the south of the country and pretends to care. As anyone who visits this part of the world would soon find out, the flat arid space and wide cloudless horizons that cradle the stars at night, the white sandy beaches that stretch for miles and the tall palms are only a fraction as delightful or fascinating as the people who live there and their warm embracing smiles.

(published in The Sunday Times - Mirror Magazine (25/11/2007)