A good reason to watch cricket..

.. for long I had been trying to search for a good reason for my extra interest in cricket [well all my frenz know how many hours I screw up reading columns on cricinfo., looking at profiles ].. Now here is damn good reason why one should : Cricinfo reports, after tense test between SL and SA [I must admit SL did a great job in pulling that off]:

A few minutes after firecrackers went off in celebration of the host’s victory, a real blast rocked a southern suburb of Colombo. The car bomb killed at least one and maimed others, quickly putting the cricket, just a game, into sharp perspective. During difficult times this Sri Lankan cricket team has provided much joy for a nation that badly needs good news. Their cricket, especially their resilience, has been a revelation and it was no surprise that Ruphavahini, the national broadcaster, replayed the match highlights in the aftermath of the bomb, a soothing balm in a depressing time.
and for those who know the intensity of the ethnic clash in SL, an emotional Kumar Sangakkara, another great player himself, writes sometime back about the genius Muralitharan [needless to say, Murali belongs to the minority ethnic group]:

For Murali, caste, class, ethnicity or faith is irrelevant – we are all equals. His life – the exploits on the field, his resilience in the face of intense provocation, his natural kindness and generosity, his remarkable charity work with The Foundation of Goodness – evokes a powerful spirit of reconciliation for a polarised nation. He has taken much from the game of cricket, but he has given back so much to our society. More than any other public figure in Sri Lanka, he stands apart, a source of joy on the cricket field, an example to us all and an answer to the ethnic conundrum we face in Sri Lanka.

I dont know how seriously our cricketers take their job.. but to me this is amazing… one top performer can have such an impact. Inspiring not just commom men but men of his stature too.. I remember my childhood when I used to run to the ‘udipi hotel’ every morning [on my way to school] and searching tea-soaked ‘eenadu‘ daily, desperately looking for something inspiring : a news on rupee-value [I didnt understand inflation then ], an interesting innovation.. such things were rare and the inspiration usually was on the sports page, from the ocassional cricket/hockey victory, from certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar or Dhanaraj Pillai.. at least somewhere, we are a force in this world and there are heroes in this land… and thats a beacon of hope [to quote Sangakkara].. perhaps things arent as dark as I perceive them to be. And that used to move me..the paper screamed.. ‘run to school and read, kid! someday you could be like them, someday you might see your photograph like that.’. Well, I did run everytime I saw such a thing.. and I am sure there are hundreds of youngsters who draw inspiration like this.. and for me to this day it continues. I know it sounds stupid to let a goddamn game to affect my perception of progress, resilience so much, but then that is what happens everywhere. Perhaps thats why till I entered IIIT-H [which brought kinda enlightenment] I used to follow the production stats of mika, rice, the aqua-industry everywhere things were bright for us.. and for us there are more conundrums than SL has.

To end this thing: while going through the mails on alumni group I noted a point wothy mentioning [I would have done better to post the content of the mail.. but for obvious reasons I didnt]. One of the seniors was mentioning why the first two batches left a remarkable impression in whatever they did. As I understand it, since there was no IIIT-brand sorta thing then, they were all building it and there was freedom which made them feel responsible.. and they pulled off some great things!!.. in the process they added value to themselves and almost all of them tasted great individual success. Its a testimony to what a few self-starting, motivated individuals can do. These days, the way freshmen speak to [very rarely , courtesy the healthy interaction fiasco] makes me worried ['Sir, the placements are so good, I heard', 'Sir, where are you placed?', 'Sir, what is in demand?'[sic] ].. Of course, I cant talk to them the way I blog but I wish I could tell them these things in a way they understand better.

LOTD : After Zune now its sony’s turn with Mylo [Wi-Fi based and it comes with Skype, Y! and GTalk.. where is this competition heading? ]. And here is something else : Read-Ink [more about this in the next post ]