Whatever the Title may be

These things will go away -

the photographs,

the sunsets,

the greeting cards,

the hair bands,

butter chicken

naans, rotis

dal fry, jeera rice

rajma chawal

jackets, overcoats,

coffee mugs -

they will all go away,

all someday. 

The Tallest Man

The clock ticks, regardless of anything else. And with its hands, so easily, changes everything. People come and go, live and die, play cricket and retire from it. There isn't much one could do to stop all this from happening, not even if it's the love of his life that is going away; it's his best friend who is dying; or it's Sachin Tendulkar who is retiring from cricket. We could really not do anything about this. These are moments when you feel helpless. You begin to think of all your limitations as a human being. You tend to question any power you ever thought you had to change things and make a difference. These are tough times, really really tough times.

However, the trick is that we are enough smart and delusional to find a remedy for everything. At least, a mental remedy. Optimism is a funny thing. And it leads me to think that I have been exceptionally lucky to have been born in the era when Sachin played. I am luckier that I could develop a keen interest in cricket at an early age and a fairly decent understanding of it as I grew up. Just as it must be special to have spoken to Aristotle, it must be special to have shared a joke with Oscar Wilde, it must be special to have seen Beethoven performing live, it is special, incredibly special, to have seen Sachin Tendulkar bat.

The fact that he is the best is an aphorism. Only the unfortunate or the ignorant would doubt that. I pity them. Their life must be dull. The idea of there being a better player than Sachin in the future reads like a flimsy tale of popular fiction. Sachin's technique, hundreds, stroke-play have dominated a tremendous amount of both verbal and written communication that I have ever been part of. Conversations about him have been the background music of my life.

The sheer amount and quality of joy that Sachin has given me, given us is unparalleled. He could take someone out of depression with a straight drive. A paddle sweep might encourage you to always look for a smarter way out of trouble. A backfoot punch might be enough to revive the optimism of a generation. And a cover drive, in a moment, could win more hearts than the most gorgeous woman you know can. Sachin Tendulkar's batting is the closest the human race has come to perfection of any kind. There is abundant art in everything that he has ever done with a cricket bat. He is the only piece of poetry that is not written. He has, after all, been Sachin Tendulkar.

The first thing I ever wrote by choice was a letter to Sachin Tendulkar. He has lit up my childhood better than  most of my friends. Personally, the memories of his various knocks, strokes, cricket battles are some of my best ones. I haven't read and discussed more about anyone else. I don't believe in idols, but if I did there would be no two ways about him being the one for me. I don't believe in god either, but if I did I would be convinced that it is Sachin. I do believe in admiration though. And I have admired Sachin more than anyone else. He has influenced my life, constantly given me a reason to smile and rejoice. It's surprising that someone you have never met or interacted with could play such a huge role in your life. I have not done anything for him in return. Yes, I have NEVER doubted him during the worst of the phases of his career and have occasionally been stupid enough to hope that he would never retire. But all that came to me naturally. It was more of natural admiration than something that sounds as grand as standing up for someone. What use has he been to me? Well, no use at all. As Oscar Wilde said, all art is useless.

Sachin is now gone, from a game he defined as much as the game defined him. I don't want to make this sound like an elegy. It's not one. In the language of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar is the longest and the most brilliant  sentence ever written. Cricket has punctuated it today by adding a full-stop. Cricket is a great sport. The show must go on and it will. The sun will rise on a cricket field again tomorrow. It will find thousands of fans once again cheering for players who walk out in colourful clothes to battle it out for a hundred overs. It will find the sport being played in different formats. It will find cricket more evolved as time progresses. And it will find the game played as frequently as it would love. What the sun will not find, however, is a tiny man who raised a bat towards it each time he scored a hundred and gave it its best reason to rise again.

Two Sunsets

All that you owe me
is a couple of sunsets.
Not a ray more, not a ray less
all that you owe me
is a couple of sunsets.

Two incoherent stories
wrapped around a coffee mug
A kingdom of two rooms
expanded to a hug.

A cake cut into
pieces of time,
savoured over
A private rhyme.

All that you owe me
is a couple of sunsets
Maybe a ray more, maybe a ray less
all that you owe me
is a couple of sunsets

Andheri

You silly suburb
Of eventualities!
Your derelict streets,
Betrayed bars,
Your rotten corners
Of loss and dismay,
Your ephemeral love stories,
The escaping smoke
Layered uncomfortably
Over your malls and markets
Scream for justice -

That died with the death
Of your truest lover.

A Hundred Hundreds and a Million Salutes

When Sachin Tendulkar scored his first international hundred, Nelson Mandela was in jail, liberalization was yet to dawn on India, Croatia was not a country, and the internet was a captive of a few computer labs. 

The world has changed since then. Sachin has journeyed to the age of 39 years. The body is not as swift on the pitch as it used to be. The back foot punches, the pulls, the hooks have reduced in number. What remains unchanged, however, is the hunger that Sachin walked down to the pitch with, his flawless technique, and his Cricketing genius that is rarer than the twenty-ninth of February. And yesterday, as all of us know, Sachin created a record that wasn't even thought of till the last decade. A hundred international hundreds are a record second only to Bradman's average of 99.94. It will survive the test of time. It will last for years and years together, through different ages of Cricket, just like Bradman's has.

Over the most illustrious career in the history of the game, Sachin has climbed several heights, some of which are so high that nobody knew of them before Sachin reached there. He has ruled the game, and ruled it like nobody ever has. Not only has he been the greatest Cricketer of the modern era but he may also be the greatest sportsman of his time, for nobody has dominated a sport for more than two decades. 

Yes, Indians have a habit of glorifying the ordinary. The nation is known to overdo things. We are fanatic about India and Indians. We are never objective, we fail to believe that we could be the best in the world. It took some of us years to accept that Sachin was the best  because they had almost given up all hope on anything Indian being the best in the world. We needed that to be told by the others. We read the Sydney Morning Herald in 1992, we read the Daily Telegraph time and again in the nineties, and then we saw the cover page of the Time magazine. That was when even the most cynical of the Indians accepted that Sachin was the best in the business. 

Now it has been 23 years since he batted for India for the first time. All the discussions about Sachin's greatness are over and done with, the world knows that he is the best. Sachin is someone who has given us, as a nation, a reason to believe that we could be the best in the world. He is an inspiration to me, to my city, and to my entire country. As the youth of India, rather than looking for some virtually non-existent poor sections of his sublime career just for the sake of some specious arguments, let's stand united in admiration for someone who has deservedly been the best in the world in what he does, and remains as one of independent India's priciest possessions. 

Cricket is as lucky to be played by Sachin Tendulkar as Sachin Tendulkar is to play Cricket. He is one in a million or more, and nothing can change that. Take a bow, Sachin, and take more.

Art and Artists

Nothing can define art - nothing. And that's the beauty of it. 

Art is an uncertainty that lingers in all sorts of by-lanes in the walk of life. Art goes beyond all the worldly jazz. Art is free, art is courageous, and art is boundless. Art is divine. 

Art surpasses the barriers of cultures, traditions, and time. Art knows no limits. It could exist in anything from the extravagant to the mundane. Art is omnipresent yet esoteric. 

Art is a friend one could fall back on in abject loneliness. Art doesn't betray its lovers. Art is what remains when all else fades.

Art is an interpretation. Art is an expression. Art is a perception. And again, art is divine.

Art is not skill. Art is not craft. Art is only art.

An artist is he who can create. 

An artist thinks differently from everyone else, and that is what allows him to create. An artist is often insane and eccentric. An artist understands individuality, and always upholds freedom. An artist is often a narcissist for the fact that he is the source of his art, and art is his only pride. 

An artist is a rebel, for he feels the need to create a world of things that does not exist before him. An artist is an observer, an analyzer, and an expressionist. 

A bastard is the last thing an artist could be, for he is free of societal expectations, and is usually unbothered about the world's perception of him. An artist may be indifferent but never resentful. An artist is extremely honest about life, and is always a gentleman at heart.

An artist often faces strong disapproval, for the world around him is not as quick as him in accepting and acquiring his creation.

An artist is married to struggle since forever, and the marriage lasts a lifetime. An artist is never content, and that instability fuels his art.

No two artists think alike, for every genuine artist creates something that has never been done before.

An artist is he who journeys through life like a roller-coaster, befriends discordance and animosity at regular intervals, is possessed by tragedy for long spans of time, yet refuses to trade his art for a happier life.