Panchami

My 5th Published writing in 'Kothe to bolar jonyei'. It's about Durgapujo.

http://kothatobolarjonyei.blogspot.in/2012/09/pujoasche.html#.UF_1DY0gdjg

Thanks 'kotha to bolar jonneyi' team!! Feeling happy and proud.

Yuvi

I wanted to write this post for a long time. I wanted to write it in April last year, just after he got into a tight embrace with MS Dhoni with tears in his eyes in Wankhede. But I held myself back. I thought it was a team performance and as a lover of the Indian cricket team I should not point one person out. Then I wanted to write it in last February, when he was seriously ill and finally the official news of him being diagnosed with cancer was released in the media. But again I held back. I thought my prayer would be more important than my writing.

The thought again came in July, precisely on 13^th of July, the day of the 10^th anniversary of the Natwest final win. But Dara Singh passed away on 12^th and I felt greater urge to write a tribute for my first hero than celebrating the win.

But today, I will not stop myself. I will write about the champ, one of the greatest characters of Indian cricket, Yuvraj Singh.

I first heard of Yuvraj singh in the year 2000. ICC under-19 world cup was going on. Still there was no television coverage, neither there was internet. But at least for the first time in my memory I could read about the results of under-19 world cup in Ananda Bazar Patrika. And two names were mentioned again and again - captain Md. Kaif and Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj with his all-round skill won the man-of-the-tournament in India’s victorious campaign.

At the same time, Indian senior team was going through a tough time. The scandal of ‘match-fixing’ was slowly going away from public’s mind. A relative young Indian team with greats like Debang Gandhi, Jacob martin, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and MSK Prasad made a tour to Australia under the 2^nd stint of captaincy by Sachin Tendulkar. As expected Indians were thrashed by the Aussies 0-3 in the test series and finished third among three teams in the ODI series with a solitary win in the series. Thanks to a magical 141 by Ganguly!

Indians returned home and were again beaten by South Africa (0-2). Their first home series loss in more than a decade. Everything was amiss in Indian cricket. Sachin Tendulkar resigned from captaincy just before the ODI series, lots of mediocre players were dropped without any suitable replacements, Ganguly was selected captain of the team despite great opposition from Mumbai and South lobby (I still remember, how in Ganguly’s first match as regular captain, against SAF in Kochi, both Ravi Shashtri and Sanjay Manjarekar spent their entire pre-match discussion on how Sachin Tendulkar would thrash the Proteas as he was not bogged down by the pressure of captaincy any more, without spending a single word on India’s new captain!

Note for SG fans:  Sachin did score lots of run in that series, 274 in fact but ended the series as the thirst highest run getter below Gary Kirsten (281) and Sourav Ganguly (285))

Anyway, getting back to the point, although India won that series 3-2, lots of unanswered questions still remained and experiments went on to find the right combination for the team. After another short ODI series in Bangladesh India went to Nairobi, to play the inaugural ICC knockout and Indian team unleashed two future greats, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan.

Yuvi, just 20 at that time had a quiet debut match against Kenya though did not get a chance to bat. But in the 2^nd match against Australia, he gave the glimpse of his ample talent. Coming at 90/3 Yuvi played a remarkable innings of 84 and got into a partnership of 64 runs with another Singh in the team, Robin. Not only that, Yuvi was exceptional in the field, saved lots of singles to derail Australia’s chase and his direct hit to run out one of the fastest men in the cricket field Michael Bevan was the perfect cherry on the top for a great effort.

Yuvi played another gem of an innings against South Africa in the semis where he scored 41 and showed that unlike other Indian youngsters he actually likes to bat in bouncy tracks, which helps his shot making. Indian cricket fans knew India’s cricket stars for the new millennium have started arriving.

I am not going to talk about Yuvi’s entire career, series by series or year by year. Yes, he did find difficulty in slow-low pitches of the sub-continent but played enough good cameos to hold on to his place in the ODI team. He had a successful Natwest series in England and the way he and his U-19 captain Kaif took India to a famous win in Lords’ after going down 146/5 chasing 325, is a part of the folk-lore of Indian cricket forever. But that was just the beginning. Yuvi would play more such innings to make himself a permanent super hero in India’s modern fairy-tales in the cricket field.

He continued to perform well and played some important innings in the 2003 world cup. The one I remember is his partnership with Rahul Dravid in the difficult chase against Pakistan. Tendulkar gave India a very strong platform with his 98 but when he got out to Akhtar India still needed 97 and Yuvi-Dravid partnership made sure that there was no panic in the lower order in the chase by finishing it themselves.

Another Yuvi master class I remember is his 139 in Sydney. Coming at 80/3 Yuvi played a partnership of 213 with another centurion VVS Laxman to take India’s score above 290. Some of the shots played by him in that match are still visible brightly in my mind.

2003 to 2007 was a mixed period for him. I do remember that he delivered some match winning performances for India especially while chasing in ODIs but he lacked consistency and too many below 20 scores were spread around his 80s and 100s. Also he was drifted into the Indian test team and a few failures there not only made his position in the test team unstable it also affected his ODI performance negatively. The nadir for him and Indian team came during the 2007 world cup. Yuvi scored 47 and 83 in the first 2 matches but only 6 in the all-important match against Sri Lanka. Indians were out of the world cup in the first round and Indian cricketers were the most hated group of human beings in the world for next few months.

Indian cricket found some of his credibility back in September when MS Dhoni’s young Indian team won the first ICC T20 world cup. Yuvi was instrumental in the tournament. We all remember what he did to Stuart Broad in the match against England but I think his 70 of 30 balls in the semi-final against Australia is one of the greatest T-20 innings I have ever seen. Two world cups in bag for Yuvi and he made important contributions in both the time.

2008 to 2011 was crazy time in Indian cricket. Seniors like Ganguly and Dravid were slowly faded away from ODI and test teams. IPL made his grand entry in the world cricket landscape and Yuvraj Singh stayed as the maverick in Indian cricket. His life style outside cricket became more of a gossip than ever. New girlfriends, new nightclubs, new fashion statement, new controversies- Yuvraj singh became a regular name in page 3. He kept performing in the field though but mostly in limited over version and despite multiple comebacks could not cement his place in the Indian test team due to low scores and injuries.

And then came the ‘Mother of any sporting tournament’, a cricket world cup in India. The amount of hype, excitement and buzz were nerve-racking. And a cricket-crazy (mostly cricketer-crazy) nation was holding  its breath for more than a month to see their team victorious in the biggest of stages in cricket, an honour which last came 28 years before and was not observed by more than half of the Indian population as they were not even born in 1983.

  I remember what I wrote about Yuvraj Singh on one of my FB friend’s wall just before the world cup. My point was that, ‘ knowing Yuvraj Singh, he will either have a great world cup or very poor world cup. He is Yuvraj Singh, he does not believe in mediocrity, he will be in news, all the time, for good reason or may be for the bad.’

India started slowly as usual, their batting was good but bowling remained a worry. They tied their match against England after scoring 338 and lost to South Africa by giving away 13 runs in the last over. Yuvi managed a hundred against West Indies but it was his slow left arm bowling which took all the lime light especially after his 5 wicket haul against the Ireland.

In the Quarter final India faced Australia and Yuvi continued his tradition of playing well against the Aussies. He took 2 wickets while bowling and scored unbeaten 57 to successfully guide India’s chase. His expression after hitting the winning boundary is one of the many memorable images of the world cup 2011.

In the semi-final, Yuvi missed a first ball full toss from Wahab Riaz and got bowled but continued his good show with the ball to get a couple of wickets.

Then came the final. India was playing in the world cup final against neighbour Sri Lanka in Mumbai, the home of Indian cricket. Nothing can get bigger than this. Sri Lanka batted first, got to a challenging total of 274 thanks to a ton from Mahela. Yuvi got his customary two wickets.

But bigger drama was waiting to happen during India’s chase. After the fall of Virat Kohli, India’s third wicket, the entire crowd was expecting to see Yuvraj Singh coming out of the pavilion, but MS Dhoni again made a mockery of cricket pundits to send himself instead and played a crucial knock of 91 to bring the world cup glory to India. Yuvraj did come to bat after the fall of 4^th wicket and remained not out when his captain and successful partner of many a chases in last 6 year hit that Kulasekhara delivery for a huge Six. And then the madness took its place in the ground. The crowd became crazy, the players became over whelmed and I have already mentioned about the hug and tears of Yuvraj Singh. I realized how strongly he had dreamt of that moment that he could not hold his emotion to himself.

The world cup celebrations dried down slowly and then I read an article where Yuvraj Singh talked about how much pressure he used to have during the world cup and how that impacted his health with regular bout of nausea and vomiting. I told myself, it is not easy to be an international sportsman, specially a cricketer from India and Pakistan. The constant scrutiny, the constant hype by the press do take their toll in one’s mental and physical health. I did not realize the bigger reason for that sickness then, I don’t think anyone could. Not even Yuvi.

Then slowly the news of Yuvi’s illness started making round. He did not play a single ODI after that world cup final and also played his last test in November.

After that it was only the news of his illness, the rare germ cell cancer which threatened to take India’s best limited over batsman away from the game and the treatments. The chemotherapy, the twitter update, the letter from Lance Armstrong, a bald and over-weight Yuvraj making appearance during an IPL match; it’s all what we heard about him.

Finally the news of Yuvi starting practice sessions was out and then Indian selectors made another most controversial call by including him the squad for 2 T-20s against New Zealand and World T-20 in Sri Lanka.

Today, Yuvi will make his comeback to the international cricket. Now it’s less than 3 hours to go for the match to be started. Will Yuvi be successful? Will he be able to take those catches, make those flying saves which only he could do? Will his shot power and foot movement be just like old? Time will give those answers but we will celebrate a great comeback of genius. A real man of character who knows the meaning of never give up and has become the role model for thousands of human being like me who need to face tough situations many times every other day In life.

10 years ago, when Yuvi and Kaif were taking India close to that target of 325 in the Natwest final, I remember Harsha Bhogle’s commentary, who urged every Indian to switch on their television sets as something wonderful was happening for Indian cricket.

Yesterday Harsha came up with this. It is a wonderful article written straight from heart. And I quote:

I hope Yuvraj looks at the rest of his playing career as a celebration, as a lifeline thrown his way. I don't know if he will ever be as good as he was, if he can get your heart racing again by the majesty of his strokeplay. But if he can play like he belongs, that's all he needs - he will tell the world a great story.

I have the exactly same feelings for him. All the best champion!! Have a blast!! Hope my article does not jinx your performance on the field.

You

I fight with you about Mohun Bagan-East Bengal and Sourav-Rahul. I love the beauty of your eyes. I adore your way of talking. I laugh when you make countless Faux Pas. I make fun of your craziness and chattering. I cuddle with you whenever I get a chance. I share PJs to give you 'Saas-Koshto'. I give you shoulder when you are sad. I go to 10 shops to find a crackle to see you smile. I walk with you in the streets of Kolkata. I call you 40 times till you pick up the phone. I get angry and twist your hand when you do not listen to me. I hold your hand when you are drunk. I take you to night walk in Shantiniketan. I watch your video to improve my mood. I think of you to realize how beautiful my life is.

I am in Love with You!!

Tritiya - Choturthi

My 3rd and 4th published writings in 'Kothe to bolar jonyei'

http://kothatobolarjonyei.blogspot.in/2012/05/blog-post_10.html#.UA2oHbQnwvY

http://kothatobolarjonyei.blogspot.in/2012/07/borshamongol.html#more

Thanks 'kotha to bolar jonneyi' team!! Feeling happy and proud.

Also my blog page views corssed 10,000 mark!! Another Yay  for that!! :-)

twentieth Century's Greatest Events... in 50 BC!!!

As a fan of the Asterix books for last 20 years there are countless numbers of times when I was greatly amused and had laughs of different degrees caused by the humor, wit, word play, pun and spoof created by the Great Goscinny and Uderzo in those books.

Obviously I have read the English and Bengali version of the Asterix books and not the original French version. Hence some of the humor and word play are lost in translation and also some of the English word play should be credited to Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge who did a tremendous job of translating these books in English.

But one aspect where Ms. Bell and Mr. Hockridge could not have much impact is the visual spoof in Asterix stories. Time and time again various contemporary events and personalities have made their appearance in Asterix books through the drawing of Albert Uderzo.

Let me discuss some of those spoofs which occurred in various Asterix books. Some of them are quite clear but some of them very subtle and nicely wrapped in the story. For example, Goscinny and Uderzo showed their respect to their great competitor Harge when in ‘Asterix the Legionary’, the person from Belgium in Asterix’s ranks have a small tuft of hair a-la Tintin who hailed from Belgium (More details is in this awesome blog ). It was a subtle one. Another rather simpler tribute to Tintin stories were seen later, in ‘Asterix in Belgium’ where the great detectives Thomson and Thompson made a cameo to announce the arrival of Julius Caesar, the great Roman Emperor to be precise.

(To be precise...)

In 60’s, The Beatles was a rage in Great Britain as well as the entire globe with their brand of music. They had huge fan following specially among girls and there are many stories about the love and frenzy showed by their fans in wherever they go. When Asterix and Obelix made a visit to Britain in their 1966 book ‘Asterix in Britain’ obviously they found the hysteria around an all-male 4 member music group topping the chart.

(Notice the hair...)

During those days except The Beatles, another most famous British personality, although fictional, was the secret service agent James Bond (with code name 007), portrayed by Shaun Connery in 7 official Bond movies during 1960-70. Hence in the 1981 book ‘Asterix and the Black Gold’ the Roman spy was aptly named Dubbelosix who had an uncanny resemblance with a slightly older Shaun Connery.

(006 ... 007)

 Let me take another example, this is from my most favourite Asterix adventure ‘Asterix and the Great Crossing’. The story is rather simple one, while trying to catch fresh fish from the sea, the super duo of Asterix and Obelix would meet with a great thunder and as a result end up being in the new continent of America. And after various events there including a marriage proposal for Obleix by the leader of red Indians they would try to run away from there. And while escaping they would get into another rather small island and then Asterix would do this:

(Not to forget this statue is a gift to the United States from the people of France)

It’s a simple one but with Oblix’s dialogue in the previous frame, this one is one of my all-time favourite spoofs in Asterix books.

Then I read ‘Asterix and the Great Divide’. It’s not a great story, obviously not a classic, it was also written by Uderzo only after the death of Goscinny. But one particular page of this book actually fascinated me a lot.

You can click on the above pic to expand it. The entire idea of Histrionix meeting Melodrama in her balcony reminds you of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and then Uderzo uses a parody of “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” spoken by Melodrama.

But that’s not it, in the same page, if you look at the last frame; this was clearly very much inspired by the movie posters and comics of Tarzan, especially with the knife hanging from the waist.

And then it struck me. It’s not only the spoof but also the huge range captured by these two geniuses through their books is what makes these books so memorable and lifelong treasure.

These are just a few instances; I know there are many more such spoofs spread around these 30-odd books and I do not count out the chance of a 2^nd part of this in near future, especially after buying two more Asterix books this evening. 

My first Hero

Being the only child in a small family of three people, I always felt lonely and often played alone. Hence I had to invent various games or ways to amuse myself and keep me busy. That's why I was an avid reader all my life because you do not need anyone else when you are reading a book.

My habit of playing alone has gone through various transition. From the days of playing book cricket and board games against myself to playing table tennis against a wall, and finally in 2005 I found the ultimate game for playing alone, FIFA against the computer (that would be a topic of one of my blogs someday).

But before I invented to individual sports (in true sense) I used to entertain myself by replicating certain things which was happening around. And as 3 years old during mid-late 80s the most interesting thing was those television shows. Grandest of all, off course Ramayan!!

Being a reader and fan of stories, I knew those stories even at that age and when those events were happening in front of my eyes that amazed my three year old self to no limit.

But Raam was never my hero, I still do not think highly of him. Laxman, Indrajit, Ravan (yeah, I am sure some people are fans of Bad man) no one was very impressive.

But Hanuman!! Yeah, now you are talking! Hanuman was a cult. Hanuman was the first super hero. He can jump over the ocean and fight to demons who captures his shadow, he can lift a mountain, he can say 'Jai Sree Raam' for countless number of times and still not bore you. Hanuman was cool. Even he used to come in an advertisement of asbestos sheet just before the Ramayan starts. 

I was in love with Hanuaan. I remember I used to have one of those kids' mace and with which I was always the Hanuman. Not Raam, not Ravan but Hanuman and being Hanuman (I always read that whenever I see one of those 'Being Human' T-shirts) my imagination could fly to no limit. He can get all the chocolates, can go and bring back dad early from the office and can do all the Dhisum-dhisum with demons.

And then one day I came to know from my dad that, Hanuman also had another name, Wow! I thought. Hanuman also had a 'daak naam' (we bengalis always have two names, remember 'Kahaani') and the name was Dara Singh! Now that's a cool name for Hanuman, I mean Dara Singh sounded much more warrior like than Arun Govil. And that day onwards Hanuman and Dara Singh became the same person for me. 

Had to grow up, did some more reading, study about Bollywood, came to know about Dara Singh the person, watched some of his old movies, a few new movies (Kal Ho Na Ho). His roles may be small but as long as he is in the screen my focus used to be always on him. That childhood liking, hero-worship continued even till today.

I think, on Monday I read about his illness and the news that he is hospitalized. My spirit was dampened which was some what lifted reading a few comments in ToI, where all the reader were writing about how good he was and praying for his speedy recovery.

The problem with God is that, if something going to happen then how much prayer you do, how much tears you drop nothing can stop that event. And today, when I logged in to Facebook, I started seeing the condolence messages for Dara Singh, I still did not believe and checked ToI, but Dara Singh is really dead. 

My first Idol, my first hero is gone. According to Indian mythology Hanuman is eternal, he can not be dead. Thank you, Dara Singh Ji, for making Hanuman eternal in my mind's eye too. Whenever I will think about Hanuman, about my childhood, your face will come in my mind. Rest in peace Sir. Be Good wherever you are.

PS. This is the 50th post of my blog. Even till late last night I was thinking of a suitable topic to write and somewhat came to a structure. But after this news I thought it would be important to save a memorable part of my childhood in the webspace as a tribute to great Dara Singh.

When Asterix Meets Das Kapital

There are in total 33 books of Asterix. I am sad to accept that I have not read all of them yet. I do have all the PDFs but I prefer to read actual books and till now I could have collected only two-third of those books. And yes I am a big fan of them. I read these books time and time again and absolutely love the pun, wit, humour and parody created by Goscinny and Uderzo in these books. With the multiple readings and re-readings of these Asterix comics I have noticed how various contemporary events made their appearance with a different guise. May it be Neil Armstrong’s famous quote after landing on the moon (Asterix and the Great Crossing) or the name of Hindu gods and reference of cricket (Asterix and the magic Carpet), sometimes I wonder how could they even did their thorough research in those days of no google and Wikipedia.

But the one I read recently took that banter into a completely different level. The book I am referring to is ‘Obelix and Co.’ and the subject of their banter, Capitalism!! Now that is something you don’t easily get in a comics. Tintin did touch various political issues and even try to highlight a global conspiracy to increase the oil price in ‘Land of Black Gold’ but this Asterix book is in a completely different level.

The story started in a typical fashion in Totorum, one of four Roman camps near the Gaulish village. But unlike the other stories, the legionaries are not following much discipline. The reason is simple, they have decided not to go out of their own camp from the fear of getting beaten by those indomitable Gauls. The only thing they do was to wait for their relief. The relief party did come which brought great excitement in the Gaulish village who decided to gift that entire Roman army to Obelix on the occasion of his birthday!! And after a few painful moments when Obelix was enjoying his birthday present and the other villagers singing “Happy Birthday to you” this Roman army group also asked for their relief.

All these events made Julias Caesar an unhappy man in Rome. And to add the misery all his experienced officers has now become corrupt and only interested in maintaining protocol. This has been pointed out by Preposterus (who incidentally was a pass out of LSE, Latin School of Economics), and it was him who came up with the idea of corrupting Gauls by introducing capitalism in their mind. And his target is none other than Obelix and his menhir delivery business.

And there starts all the craziness! With the sheer mastery of their art, Goscinny and Uderzo touched all the various aspect of consumer market and corporates. The business lunch, the circle of money, the production of useless fancy products, the meaningless campaign strategy to attract buyers by making them envious to their neighbours, over production, menhir graveyards (to keep useless old menhirs ala car graveyard) nothing was missed. That’s not the end, those big sugar-quoted advertisements on the bill boards, a competition from home grown businesses as well as foreign makers, free gifts with menhirs and even a road block (common tactic by French/Bengali strikers) made their occurrence in the book.

But finally the bubble had busted and all the sestertius given by the Romans were devalued and our Gaulish village went back to their normal way of thrashing Romans. This time it was a gift from Obelix to the villagers who showed great resilientof his character by not touching a single Roman during the attack.

On the outside this is another simple, funny Asterix adventure but if you can dig deep you will get the true meaning. Although it is happening around us all the time but the complexity of these strategies are rooted far deeper. But the effortless way this book has touched the actual problem is mind blowing.

This one will always remain one of my favourites in the Asterix series.