Cricket is Not Just a Game

I cheered at the top of my voice for the past five days, I called out Sachin's name for more than a thousand times, I lost my voice screeching for India, my face looks unrecognizable because of the sun, I can hardly move my legs because of the strain of jumping and screaming, but my heart is as happy as any heart could be, as joyous as any human being could possibly feel, as wondrous as any girl of nineteen can imagine.

This was today morning. Right now there is this emptiness, there is this hollow feeling inside of me. I have nothing to go back to tomorrow, no more Sachin to cheer for, no more cursing the players when they don't do well, no more spending hundreds of rupees to get to the stadium, no more guys to tease us and make fun of our voices, no more jumping up and down the chair, no more getting scorched in the sun, no more any of these things.

It is over and we have nothing to look forward to. In the last five days, Chepauk became  home, the players became family, the canteen became our kitchen and it I can not believe the fact that I won't be going back there tomorrow. It is over and we are back to reality. And to be honest, reality sucks. The feeling of totally letting ourselves go, dance and jump in joy, scream at the top of our voices, was all for a short while and now it feels like everything is back to how it was before: Monotonous and boring.

I have never told my mom why I took up Journalism in the first place, but I think she deserves to know. It was only because I could be associated more with cricket. I knew I couldn't play, I knew I couldn't become an umpire, so I decided that becoming a journalist is the perfect way to get through to my idols, my God.

I can't believe that I met Shane Watson, spoke to him, asked him for a picture. I can't believe that I actually stood next to the batting maestro Sunil Gavaskar and asked for a picture. It was my first time and I was lucky enough to meet few of Cricket's top players. The mission is still incomplete. And it will always be till I meet the two people because of whom I am actually where I am: Sachin Tendulkar and Harsha Bhogle.

I will one day meet them, talk to them, sit next to them, for that is my ultimate goal. And the last five days have made me realize that that goal is not impossible, difficult, but not impractical.

Five wonderfully unbelievable days, five days which I would never ever forget in  my life, no matter how many test matches I watch, no matter where life takes me, no matter what I become in the end, these five days have made me grow as a person, have made me feel like I have never felt before, have made me radiate with energy, have given me hope, have made me realize that we are all headed somewhere, we just have to wait for the right time to understand that.

Who in the world said test cricket was boring? It is the most amazing, most blissful thing in the whole wide world and if I could, I would be there for every test match India ever plays.

P.S: I never thought I would be saying this but I have totally fallen for the Australian team, for their sportsman spirit, their humility, their sweetness and particularly their dance moves. I salute you for the wonderful team play.

Aishwarya Kumar.

Sexy Beggar and a Cigarette Incident!

So, as usual, I go to the parking lot, start my bike, dump my bag in the baggage area and drive it away from college. I go all the way around Gemini circle to get to the other side of the road, to my grandma's place. As I drive past Landmark, I see this miraculous looking shirtless (actually he was barely wearing any clothes), super sexy ( to all the lady beggars) guy on the pavement. I slow down my bike, which was making this really annoying whirring noise for some weird reason. I was welcomed by a puff of smoke as I drove closer to him.

Where from?

Cigarette of course.

This is not what I found interesting. This sexy looking guy did not have fingers. He had stubs for fingers.

Wondering how he managed to hold a freaking death-roll in those?

He held the cigarette in between the stubs and he was smoking away to glory. In fact he was so engrossed in the very act that he had forgotten to notice the 100 rupee note that a passer-by had placed on his plate.

My mind somehow went on a thinking spree and I realized something.

The cigarette he was holding in his hands were bigger than that of his fingers.
The cigarette has a larger role in his life than his hands.
The cigarette has more control over his life than his own self.

Somehow, this symbolism made sense to me.

"You do not have hands to work, you do not have fingers to eat, you do not have a freaking job, you do not have three meals a day, and neither do you have the brains to realize that that roll of tobacco will do the job of taking the life out of you, squeezing the breath out of your lungs, turning your lungs to tar."

Actually a lot of people with fingers also don't realize this.

I pity them.

Aishwarya Kumar.

I Will Remember the Hold, I Always Will

Prostrate cancer.

Yes, it is a pain in the ass.

Like, literally.

My family has a history of cancer. My grandmom even calls it "Our Family Property." 

This time it decided to seep into the most gentle, most caring and most selfless person I have ever known.

He is ninety-seven, and till last year, why, even before a few months, he roamed around the city, vising his relatives, his family. He was active beyond words, his enthusiasm contagious. I remember falling on his feet a year and a half ago, just as he left Grandma's house, asking for his blessings.

I don't talk about him much but today, I just have to.

I entered his house, imagining him as he was when I last met him. I wanted to see him smile that big, broad smile of his, wanted to hear his loud barking laugh, wanted to feel his soft hands on mine, wanted to hear his soothing voice as he recalled his past experiences, but all I got to see was a limp looking man, lying on his bed, his eyes closed, breaths coming out in slow, short gasps.

His wife, a very chirpy woman herself, held his hands, trying to wake him. He woke up gently, his eyes still half closed, teeth clenched. He slowly moved to a sitting position, holding his lower back and winced, as pain  shot through his whole body. I could hardly hear him as he mumbled his welcome. After a couple of minutes, he made himself comfortable on a chair, still flinching in pain. 

My stomach coiled and recoiled involuntarily. I looked away as a silent tear dropped down my eyes into my cheek. To hear about his pain is one thing, to experience it first hand is something else totally. I did not want him to see me cry, so I wiped my face clean with the back of my hand and looked back at him, smiling.

He queried a lot about my studies, and about Pooja, which I answered diligently, but my mind was elsewhere. I was agitated, I was angry. At who? I don't really know. 

My mother said," Pray to God, pray for him."

Amma, if there was God, he wouldn't have given him the disease. And if he had, why would I go pray to him when he had the heartlessness to give the gentlest of man, such a terrible disease?

My grandma made conversation with him and his wife, trying to cheer him up.

"The pain is unbearable. I would rather die," he said, looking from me to grandma.

I cried then, I am not ashamed to admit. Cried because I could not understand how such a caring and selfless person could end up suffering so much. Every breath that he took caused him pain, every movement was unbearable.

"Study well. Give your best, become independent," he said, "And don't get married if you don't want to. I am there for you. I will support you."

I did not know how long he would survive before the deadly disease devoured him, but at that moment, I loved him the most, for saying those words, for understanding some part of me that even the closest of people did not. 

As I was telling him about my course, he fell asleep, fatigue taking the better of him. I waited till he woke up, watching him as he slept. His wife had to prod him awake. He woke with a start, looking surprised at having fallen asleep. 

He is withering away in front of my eyes and it is a painful as anything I have ever felt. I did not expect him to live forever, I do not still. But all I wanted was for him to not have to go through so much pain in the last stages of his life. He deserved that much. Actually, he deserved much more.

"Thank you," he whispered, when I stood up to leave.

I shook my head and made him promise not to thank me ever again for anything.

"Hang in there thatha, you will make it. You will devour the disease." I said and without turning back, left the house, not wanting him to see the huge drops of tear that was falling down my face.

I had wanted to take a picture with him. After seeing him sitting that way, clicking a picture seemed like the most trivial thing in the world.

Before I left, he held my hands strong, his grip strong, despite the pain he was going through.

I will remember you touch Thatha, I will remember your words. Always.

Aishwary Kumar. 

Look me straight in the eyes if you dare..

Okay, this is a rant. I have to pour it out because otherwise I will lose it.

One of the worst things to happen is for your bike to stop on the middle of the road, what with the bunch of bikes and cars honking all around you and the drivers giving you death glares for stopping, like I just wanted to turn off my engine and sit on the road and enjoy the traffic and pollution all around me. Hell no. I very much wanted to reach my destination as much as you wanted to, there was no damn petrol in the freaking bike! Why would anybody stop their bike mid-road for any other reason?

So I make the long walk of one kilometer to the nearby petrol station. I am huffing and puffing as I make my way down the road, pushing the hundred kilo monster along with me. With sweat dripping down my face, I look around, wanting to take my mind off the whole "outside-the-gym" gymming that I was indulging myself in. My leg muscles were already screaming in pain from the little stint in the gym the last few days and this was just fuel being added to the blazing fire.

So as I was looking around, I see a guy, looking me up and down, creeping me out instantly. Only guys have the immense talent of making a girl feel uncomfortable. Here I was pushing the damn bike in search of a gas station and there he was, looking at me like I was a toy or an item girl dancing for chikni chameli.

I walk past him, swearing under my breath and make my way further down the road. And for those innocent guys who do not indulge in such lame acts, here is a piece of information. Guys, at least most of them, make this disgusting kissy noise when they check a girl out. It pisses me off to such an extent that one day I am sure I am going to stop my bike and ask him if he wants me to kiss him. I mean, I seriously don't understand the point behind that noise. What do they want? Are they asking us for a kiss or do they think we will get all impressed and go and hook up with them?

At this point, I remember a statement made by Ms.Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, vetaran actor and director in Today's outlook seminar in college. She said,"the only problem with men, at least most of them in India is the fact that they don't look women in the eye." I was just awe struck when she said that because it was ridiculously true.

If you have the gall to make kissie noises next to me or say crap about how I look or what I am wearing, look me in the eye and do it. I bet my ass you wouldn't be able to look past my nose because you know the wrath and fire that will be burning in those pair of eyes.

Anyway coming back to the point, I was not dancing for chikni chameli, nor was I gymming in front of you. I was dragging a freaking bike which I am pretty sure got heavier by the minute past you. You need not come and carry it for me. But the least you could do is not look me up like I am some kind of a stripper.

This is for all those guys out there. Next time you look at a girl, I dare you to look her in the eye and not anywhere else. I dare you..

Aishwarya Kumar.

The Comfort of Familiarity

It was white, it was rectangular, it was calling for me at the corner of the washroom. There was nothing special about it, nothing posh and definitely nothing extravagant. It was a washbasin but it spoke a lot, at least for me.

The first day I walked into the loo, brush in hand, I looked at the dozens of washbasins arranged on the walls, one after the other. One was round, one was a weird shape that I couldn't quite place, one was so huge that I thought I could sit on it. And then I noticed the one basin at the extreme end of the restroom. It was strangely familiar. There was a touch of familiarity so profound in it that I immediately walked towards it, still looking intently at it. Anybody watching me would have definitely thought I was weird, which I am.

I brushed my teeth right in front of the washbasin on my first day. It's been a year and a half. Every day morning, my legs automatically take me to the same washbasin. If I find anybody else using it, I would wait till they were done and take their place even though there were a dozen other basins to use.

The washbasin resembled the one at home. It was the exact same shape, size and color. The comfort of familiarity is so small, yet it is so comforting that we look for it in these small things in our everyday life. It is okay to not be able to brush amidst your mother screaming at your sister and your sister yelling back at the top of your voice because when you stand in front of the washbasin, brushing, that is everything you see and that is everything you hear.

Aishwarya Kumar.

P.S: I had to write. It is Doomsday!

The Road Not Taken

The sun was making its descent into the crimson horizon. A pair of deep blue eyes followed the sun as it made its way down. The deep blue eyes wore an expression so morose, so poignant that an onlooker might wonder what was so wrong with is life. The startling blue of his eyes was in stark contrast to the crimson red of the sky. The boy kept looking at the sky, clutching his faded brown bad which was slung over his shoulder. There was a small buckle protruding from the front of the bag and his feeble hands nervously played with it unconsciously.

The fourteen year old Pierre then looked down, away from the almost disappearing sun, towards the fork in the road, still frantically holding onto his bag for support. There was not a soul to be seen and the eerie silence was piercing. Pierre's legs gave in and he fell to the floor, shivering violently as he looked ahead into the darkness. His breathing came out in gasps and his face was covered in sweat. He slowly brought his hands to his face, wiping out the beads of sweat. He looked to his left and then to his right, hoping to find somebody, anybody to appear and help him, calm him down, but there was nobody.

His breathing slowly came back to normal and his legs stopped shivering. Having placed his face between his knees, he tried to think straight. One thing was clear and that was he was alone in the dead of nowhere, with no place to go to and nobody to hold onto for support. His father had left him for a woman a few days ago. He, at the age of fourteen had to fend for himself with nothing but an old bag containing an extremely tattered copy of Bible inside it. It was his mother's. He had left everything behind at his father's but he could not imagine leaving the book behind. The Bible had once been touched by her tender hands. It had the story of his mother etched in its pages. It was his mother's, the most beautiful lady in the world. She was, she still is and will always be the most wonderful and inspiring person in his life. She was not there with him then but he knew with all his heart that she was looking down at him from the heavens.

He opened his bag and took out the Bible in his hands, slowly turning over the pages. He was never a believer and the Bible meant little to him but the pages bore the life story of his mother and he held each and every one of the pages as tenderly as possible, imagining his mother's hands in the place of the pages.

As he sat there with tears in his eyes, he barely noticed the dancing lights cast by the then rising moon. He looked up suddenly to find the place eerily dark. He turned to his left and saw a small lane leading into wilderness. It was dark but looked well maintained and neat. He realized that this road was tread upon often. He then looked to his right and found a smaller lane, covered with wild trees and weeds. Every minute detail of the lane was visible. He looked up into the sky and smiled to himself. He knew exactly which road to take. Rising to his feet, the bible still in his hands, he looked at the road not taken with a glint in his eyes and a small smile on his lips.

After all his mother, the moon was shining down at him at the end of the road, smiling at him and bathing him in the light of her innocence, her knowledge, ready to embrace him and wrap him in her arms when he finally made it across the road- the road not taken.

Aishwarya Kumar. 

MasterChef With a Spicy Punch

MasterChef Australia is on and I am drooling again (Well, Partly at the food but mostly at the contestants!). It is one of the best cooking shows in the history of shows and it was back with a new and exhilarating idea- bringing back the top contestants from all the three previous years and making them fight it out. The money raised through their wins would go to their chosen charity. It was perfect. There was Gary and his charming smile, there was George and his childish hands-flailing while talking, there was the burly Mat Preston, most of all, there were the most amazing contestants from 2009, 2010 and 2011 fighting it out in "MasterChef Australia All stars."

 

2010 is a personal favourite and Callum is the ultimate cook. To see Callum back again in the MasterChef set was heaven! He was everything that a cook would dream to be- Calm, composed, childish, cute, mesmerizing, methodical, witty.

 

There was Jonathan, the Eliminator, my next favourite. The thing I loved about Jono was the fact that he was chilled out but at the same time very cautious. He plays it cool till the end but when it was time to step up, he always pushed himself and gave his best. Marion was another lethal contestant from the same year and watching her back in the kitchen was a pleasure. She was funny, she loved what she was doing, she was a master when it came to the mystery box and nailed it almost all the time. She gave this positive vibe in the sets and was loved by the whole lot. Aaron, the Pasta specialist was a part of All stars as well and cooked some brilliant dishes in this series.

 

 

I did not personally watch the 2011 season of MasterChef but I have heard a lot about that season from my sister, a major MasterChef fan. She used to keep updating me about the top performers and making me watch Youtube videos of interesting episodes. I have heard so much about the best friend combo of Hayden and Michael that I very much wanted to see them again during this season. I was in for some luck as Hayden, the blond and totally hot looking chef came out of that MasterChef door. There was also Dani, a bubbly and inspiring person who loved cooking and created so much joy in the MasterChef arena. Kumar holds a special spot in my heart as he is from Sri Lanka. He cooked delightful Indian food and was loved and respected by millions of people for his designing skills. He is currently designing his own cook book. Kate, the Winner of that season, is an amazing cook. Dessert cooking was her strong point and she used it greatly to her advantage.
 

 

2009, the original MasterChef contestants were a fantastic bunch. Chris kind of grew on me as I watched the season and he is now easily my most favourite cook after Callum. Poh and her 32 teeth smile was beautiful to watch as she cooked away to glory. Justine grew a lot as the season progressed and was a valuable asset to the All Stars season. Julie, though the winner of the 2009 edition, always came across as somebody who takes too much pressure and puts strain before cooking. She never comes across as a person who enjoyed what she did though she has cooked some really marvelous dishes.

 

All stars is a baby that the MasterChef brains came up with this year. It is one of the most innovative and awe-inspiring season I have ever watched. Seeing the top chefs of Australia cooking away and loving their dishes is something I had always wanted to watch. The episode of Curtis Stone was my personal favourite. The pace at which they were cooking was extraordinary and it was brilliant to see that most of them came out pretty successful. The Adriano Zumbo Chrquembouche challenge was one of the toughest and I loved the way the All stars handled the pressure. The concept of the participants taking their revenge on the Mystery box by breaking it apart and making a fire out of it and cooking was also a very innovative and delightful episode to watch. They had such a thrill in breaking apart the box with the hatchel and making a fire out of it.

 

 

When they brought their dishes for the judges to taste, all I wanted to do was get my hands on those dishes. It looked superb, sophisticated and above all classy.

 

One person who stood out in the whole competition was Chris. His helping nature and his honest cooking was inspiring and this was what took him to a totally different level. He looked very calm, sipped his beer and made sure that the judges loved what he presented. He always plated well before time and helped his fellow contestants at crucial stages. I remember this one time when he helped Justine plate up her dish, early on in the season. She had burnt her hand during the last few minutes of the challenge and he came up and helped her plate all her stuff. This act was beautiful and went down well among a lot of people.

 

Callum picked up pace in the later stages of the season and proved that he was the youngest and most amazing cook. His beer dessert in the lead up to the finale swash buckled the judges and all the three tapped the table thrice, depicting that the dish was the best ever.

“This is the best dessert I have tasted this year,” said Mat Preston. The three judges cleared the entire dish and looked like they could eat it every day of their lives. This was the turning point in Callum’s innings (Sorry about the cricketing term, but it just keeps cropping up!). He was propelled into the Finals by that dish and he would have been mighty proud.

I am yet to watch the finals but my nerves just got the better of me. I checked out the winner in Wikipedia and-BOOM, it was Callum. I was so happy and I am waiting to watch the finale and watch Callum’s eyebrows go up and down in worry/happiness, one last time.

The MasterChef All Stars is an amazing concept and I loved watching every single episode of the season. Some contestants grew on, some contestants irritated me, some contestants put me off. But above all this show is one brilliant effort by the makers.

I have to talk about the three most inspiring people in the MasterChef Kitchen- George, Gary and Mat. Their inputs, their timely comments, their dead stares and above all their knowledge of cooking and their years of experience in this field has definitely made them the people to look out for in the competition.

 

 

George has and will always be the most brilliant cook, friend and host I have ever seen.

 

One other thing I really loved about MasterChef is the family feel that it has to it. The contestants are always there to support and help each other out. The judges also have to be mentioned here. Their "Can we have hugs too" is a joyous scene to watch. There is always this connect that they establish and carry forth as the series progresses. There are tears, of both happiness and sorrow when participants leave the competition or when they win a challenge.

I have and will always continue to love this show, thanks to my sister, Pooja, who pushed me into it.

Aishwarya Kumar.