Random Musings

It’s warm and getting warmer. I’ve been back two weeks now, and I’m discovering Jaipur anew. There’s so much that has changed, and even more that’s exactly the same.

The last two weeks went by quickly cause the Shek and sis were here, and we hung out everyday, ate like pigs, and generally had a ball. Too much food, far too much, but it’s so worth it, even though my tummy does groan.

Now though, they have all flown away to far away lands, veiled behind the TSA and the DHS, and we remain here. The upside is that we remain here with MacBook Pro, so it’s not so bad.

Yes, that’s right, I have a new laptop, and it’s a rather nice one. But then, if you’re reading this, you know me, and if you know me, you know that this was inevitable. I bow before your wisdom, O stranger, and move on.

There are a lot of funny stories that I could be writing right now, but I’m too tired to do so. I thought I’d been neglecting you, patient reader, so I came by to write to you a little. I hope you’ve been good, and haven’t given up on me in disgust. Soon I shall write tales of Rajput valour and dinner parties with swords drawn. Pistols in the morning? Almost, almost. It’s a different world here, one that I didn’t think I would be part of, and I’m not (thankfully), but one can’t help but be peripherally involved on occasion.

Oh never mind. It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before, and the food was great, so hey ho for the good life, as the convict said as he escaped in a body bag.

Ah, the most interesting thing is work, but that’s later. Bye bye.

I’m up late, watching the Euro 2008 match between Greece and Sweden, and it’s bally hilarious. The poor Swedes are trying their best to play football–you know, put the ball in the net–but the Greeks seem determined to play via the Socratic Method. If you’ve ever faced this in school or college, you know how irritating it is.

” Socrates used to tick off people doing this; they thought he was mocking them by asking them stupid questions or tricking them into being confused because he was clever. They brought him to trial, convicted him, and executed him. While execution is not as much a potential problem today, the method still really irritates people when you (as it seems to them) “show them up” in subjects they think they are expert. Illogical people do NOT like this method used “on” them; and they cannot see it as a method that is being used “with” them in order to help them.”

So in football, the Greek chappies pass the ball around in the back line.. and pass in the back line.. and KEEP PASSING IN THE BACK LINE!! For TEN MINUTES.

It’s extremely boring, and frankly, I was nodding off. I think Sweden was nodding off too, and I’m certain I saw Ibrahminovic pull out a cell phone and send a SMS. It might be an iPhone, that holy of all phone holies, and he might be watching a couple of Youtube videos of the Brazilians.

In any case, it’s half time now, nil-nil (inevitably), and the teams are out of the dugout. Let’s hope that Greece remembers what happened to poor old Socrates.

Inspired by something a friend wrote, I have decided to write about basketball, and how I started playing.

This is back in class XII. So that’s about seven years ago.

I was always pretty good at sports, but I’d never played basketball. I mean, sure, I could dribble the ball a bit, and run about on the court, but I did not know the rules, and had never been formally coached.

My good friend Tubby, on the other hand, was a member of the Xavier team, starting five and all that. And the team was pretty good. Zonal and Cluster champs, that sort of thing.

So anyway, I used to play soccer, and volleyball, and all that, and Tubby started telling me to play basketball. He thought I’d do well at it, since I could apparently jump quite high, and I had good stamina and all that jazz.

I’d smile, and fob him off gently when he told me all this, since I thought he was batty, and nothing else. But he persisted, and got after me, and told me that I should try and all that. Basically, he pissed me off, and I finally decided to try, since he was being a pain.

So I turned up for practice. Tubby gave me a glowing recommendation, but the coach did not look convinced. I didn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe Tubby either. I sorta smiled sheepishly, and looked at the ground, at the sky, into the middle distance, anywhere but at the coach.. I knew that if I looked him in the eye, he’d burst out laughing and tell me to take a hike ( in Hindi, and not so politely.. anyone who has been coached in school knows what I mean)

Well, seeing as his star center was recommending me, the coach sorta nodded, and motioned toward the junior court. “Go forth, and play”, was his message. He obviously did not believe that I was any good. I mean, who starts playing in 12th??

Now this was a little raw. The junior court meant that I’d be playing with kids from class 8. Don’t get me wrong, these kids were good, they’d been playing for three or four years, and were very skilful, but hey, they were about six inches shorter than me. But I knew that the coach thought I was an idiot, so off I went.

The kids knew me well, but they knew me as this guy who kept winning debates, and quizzes, and stuff like that.. Not sports!? So while they were polite ( and since I was a senior prefect and could make life miserable for them if I so chose, they HAD to be polite) I could tell that they were thinking that I was some idiot.

Well, while I could not claim to be a basketball player, I could do three things very well.. I could jump, and I could run real fast, and I could steal the ball before they knew what was going on. And hey, a six-inch height advantage always helps. Within the first ten minutes, I’d stolen the ball a dozen times, blocked a whole bunch of shots, and generally pissed the kids off.. They’d stopped trying to simply blow by me, and were passing the ball away every time I came close to them..

So I had a good time, but I did not think that I’d get very far with the team. The coach was watching though. And the next day, when I started heading toward the junior court, he yelled, “Arre NAG! Kahan jaa raha hai.. Idhar aah”. Literally, Where the heck are you going, get your ass over here.

So I started practicing with the senior team. And these guys were GOOD! Four of the first five had played the nationals, and they were taller than me, and approximately a million times better. I knew that I could not compete with them on sheer skill. So I decided to narrow my focus. There was no point my trying to learn how to shoot, or do all the little tricks that came naturally to these chaps. They’d been playing for five years, and I’d just started.

So I played to my strengths. Stamina, a good jump, and fast hands. Defense was where I decided that I could actually make a difference. I could run up and down the court for forty minutes and not be winded (being on the swim team helped.. when you swim 2000mts a day, you naturally learn how to stay alive!), and I could block the shooter. I didn’t even bother shooting, I’d just steal the ball, or grab a rebound and pass it to one of the cool chappies, who’d do something fancy and swish!

Practice used to be at 6 AM.. So that meant getting up at 5, grabbing a hurried bite, and zipping off in the freezing cold morning. I was pretty cheerful, since I knew that my chances of playing on the first five were about the same as a snowball fight in the Sahara. On the other hand, I knew that ymy teammates liked me, and they appreciated the way I played. So it was nice fun.

A couple of months went by, and then came the first tournament…. I got the official school jersey, and boy o boy, was that a good feeling.. My number was 5. We got on the bus, and went off.

The tournament was the Jagat Singh Memorial Trophy, at S.M.S. This was a pretty decent tourney, for the city. We arrived, and did the usual round of warmups. Then the coach called the starting five out, and I headed to the bench, ready to cheer my lungs out.

But wait! What was this? The coach conferred with the team, and then called me over..

“Nag, the other team has this guy who is very good, and the last time we played them, he kept scoring three pointers.. We need you to stick to him like a leech. Don’t do anything fancy, pass the ball if you get it, but just stick to him”

(Translated from Hindi)

Well, a leech I could be! Resolved to be the stickiest, slimiest leech ever, I shrugged off my windbreaker, and joined the first five.. as part of it! Let me tell you, I was bloody nervous. I was very afraid that I’d mess things up, and be yelled at, and I had a funny feeling in my tummy, and my hands were sweaty and shaking, and I had this lump in my throat….

My team mates noticed my nervousness and told me not to worry.. They said that I would tire the daylights out of the chappie that I was being set to guard, and that they would take care of all the scoring.. just keep out of their way

The match began.. and I stuck to my man. And stuck. And stuck. And STUCK. I followed him around everywhere, like a sweaty shadow. I stuck my hand in his face, stole the ball, and blocked his shots. I had no idea what was going on in the game. I just kept silently telling my opponent one thing:” Dude, you are NOT going to score”

And I did run him ragged.. Halfway through the second half, I could see him flagging. He was moving slowly, his breathing was all uneven, and it was obvious that he was done…The next ten minutes were very pleasant. I smiled a lot, and jogged about with him. All very genteel..

And at the end of the match, Xavier’s won 68-40 or something like that. How many points did I score? None, of course.. But I had 6 steals, 8 blocks, and a huge bunch of rebounds.

And the guy I was guarding? He scored 5 points. The last time he’d played us, he had top scored with 28..

And that was how I became a part of the first five.

I played only a few tournaments, since I passed out shortly afterwards, but we won every one of them, and I played each and every match, and was the only guy who was not substituted out in every one. I was never tired enough, you see.. And I even scored a few points, an average of 2 baskets a game

I was awarded over a hundred certificates in school and college, for many things. But the one with the crest of St.Xavier’s and the words “Excellence in Basketball” is the closest to my heart.

So I finally changed the look of www.adityanag.com

I’d had the old site up for ages and since I had time on my hands, I thought of trying something new. I went with a simple theme, from www.freecsstemplates.org This is a pretty good site, with some nice templates. I’m not very good at designing, it’s not my thing, so I wanted something simple and nice. According to a friend, the look is feminine. I’m not sure that’s true, but if it is, so be it, I say. I’m not going to redo the whole damm thing. I may change the colours around, but that’s only if men start propositioning me!

In a few minutes, the UEFA Champions League final starts! AC Milan v Liverpool. This is going to be fun. In 2005, the same teams met, and AC Milan were leading 3-0 at half time.. and Liverpool won. So AC Milan wants BLOOD! BLOOD I SAY.

And Federer beat Nadal on clay. Armageddon is here. I wish it had been the French Open final, but we’ll take it nevertheless, thank you very much! This sets up the French Open just perfectly!

The teams enter the field. Gattuso is glaring as usual. Liverpool plays in home RED, AC Milan in away white..

OOOAAAA ooooAAA OOOOaaaa OOOOOO

Paolo Maldini oldest player, playing in a record equalling eight final.. Crouch out for Liverpool, Kuyt in.

Toss over, Liverpool loses. And now I take a break to watch.

It was a pretty even first half.. Decent performances from both sides. Gattuso gets a yellow card. And then, on the stroke of half time! Inzaghi scores. Pirlo takes a free kick from 22 yards out, curls it in, and the ball ricochets off Inzaghi’s upper arm. Now was that handball?? Difficult to tell. The rules say, “Deliberate handling of the ball.” It all happened very fast, but from where I sat, admittedly far away, it did not seem deliberate. Inzaghi was running forward, and the ball hit him on the arm, and that too on the upper arm, near his shoulder. He certainly did not lift his hand. He had his arm down, near his body, and the ball just swung into him. On balance, I’d agree with the goal.

But Liverpool has looked threatening, and they have had their chances. With Gattuso sitting on a yellow card, he can’t be as much of a defensive force as he is used to being. The second half begins now, so more after the match.

Ah well, so Liverpool lose. They had a few chances in the second half, but Inzaghi did it again, and 2-0 was too much. Kuyt’s late header was not enough, and the men in red went down 2-1 in the end.

Still, it was a fun match, and since I was relatively neutral, I enjoyed it.

Now I am wondering what to do next. Hmmm. Planning to go to Delhi for the weekend, but not sure about that. Let’s see how it all pans out.