A FANS' CRY

It is that time of the year,when even the country's politics in mass media itself has taken a back seat.It is the time when the country's production is down by as much as one-fifth, by the reduction in manhours spent @ work by its citizens.It is time when movies wait for a better day to be released.It is a time when students give a damn for even the board exams.It is the time when a billion people pray for 11 blue dressed men.

Yes!!! It is the time of the CRICKET WORLD CUP in INDIA.

At this time,one can witness brick walls collapsing in a stampede for tickets,intense betting,TV channels giving cricketers microphones more often than they wud have a bat in hand,advertisement companies finding the acting skills in cricketers better than in bollywood jargons,Corporates running shot of money to compete with each other to sign brand contracts with players having star value.

Cricket can never be called a game atleast when India is in the picture.Which once was "eleven thousand fools following 11 men"  has now become "eleven crore 'not so fools' dying for 11 men" .Cricket they say is a RELIGION in itself.Atleast in this religion,there is no need to fight on who the GOD is.When they discuss cricket on business conferences,placement interviews,parties and even classrooms can it still be called a 'GAME'.If there is an unarguable reply to any question as 'NO',it is for this one.

Cricket not being a game,arguably a religion,what exactly is it? For me,cricket is nothing more than a BUSINESS.There comes the sad part for cricket and its FANS.

Cricket is the trade commodity,cricketers are the barter form of it.BCCI more than the ICC the business owners.ICC the watchman of the business office.People-The so called FANS, the customers.

A tournament hosting as many as 6 minnows with hardly any competitve cricket behind them is hard to sustain interest with its fans.How in world reality can you expect a canada to win over a 3 time defending champion australia.Leave alone the result, would that game drive any interest amongst the fans.Would the stadium have audience but the 2 umpires? Yet they telecast the same match in two channels with 2 different language commentry reaping advertisement revenues for the tournament package.The inner cricket fan voice in me says unless the organisers build the quality of the GAME and widen the number of international participants, their BUSINESS out of the game is going to be confined to the 9 to 10 countries which are @ it now,or may be in the long run even die, with the reason being the sameness of the product.

Organisers would never mind this.I wonder if the very thought to promote the game further would ever cross their minds, when they are generating more revenues than the fiscal targets, from the game easily.All the want from the tournament is India to go all the way for them to have the TV TRPs high to keep the marketing investors happy.India matches would have a full capacity of mad audience.Schedule that on a weekend,expect black money from the ticket sales to fund the board in the host nation.Do they need anything more? Why would they bother if fans dont show up for a match btw ireland and holland on a neutral venue?

The television company telecasting the event would have the same match in 3 of its channels, earn 24 lakh of rupees for each of  the 10 secs in an advertisement.The maths that I know tells me they earn 144 crores from ads in one channel for one match.They arent bothered about the intensity of the match, as it is only the package of a tournament for which they price the ads.One or two interesting games does it for them to bid for telecast rights spending millions and earn them back creating an eyewash among the die-hards of the game.

The brands never have a problem either,if their products sell.They know a Pepsi is sold not for its quality but for Sachin endorsing it. 

Neither does the cricketers need to worry,rather they get the best bargain out of the tournament.They would sign up contracts of 200 cr with a particular consortium as its brand ambassador.The duration of the contract would not be more than the time frame of the tournament.The former players are not to be left out in this.They would charge a few thousands for interviews and columns in mass media which are quite in number nowadays.Does money comes more easy to anybody else.I am made to think if only I had played the same game for my country, rather than at the flat opposite my house, I would almost have had money on trees to pluck from.Not to mention the girl fan following these cricketers get,for that atleast, may be if not for the money, I regret .

WE are the 'Poor Fans',not the FOOLS as the above proverb once said.We follow the game for the quality in it.We like it when the game gets to a nail-bitter.We pray,We cry,We celebrate as if we were a part of it.We buy a BOOST bottle cos Sachin says it is his secret of energy.

We swap our concentration in studies with that on cricket for the Love for witnessing the way the greats play the game.We know seeing a SACHIN's cover drive would make our day.We know they may get crores and crores of money,but we get the pleasure of viewing it,which equals.

ALL THAT WE SAY TO the game's administrators is 'WE LOVE THE GAME, DON'T LOSE US FOR MONEY'.We give you the money.Take care of us properly.Make CRICKET even more competitive and exciting.Have atleast 25 odd countries with different cricketing cultures battle with the same intensity and expertness on the game.It is boring to just see 9 odd countries competing on a genuine basis repeatedly.

(May be that is why we feel club games {ipl teams}are more exciting.)

This is a GAME too INCREDIBLE to be confined within 10 countries who actively participate.The generated huge ransom must be spent on countries coming up on their game.'Create new markets', in business terms. 

To all those FANS who feel LIFE is CRICKET,I delicate this blog to, representing them.

From dawn to dusk @ 7 to 10

I was on my way back from school after a normal day of 2nd standard impositions for handwriting in SBOA,chennai.I got back home,took the evening snack and sat to study with mom doing the teaching and me the reciting.On the verge of completing the portions for the day,mom started to tell me this:

"next year nee hostel poi padikapora"

All I knew about an hostel then was that I will be all alone without my parents and more importantly my sister around.I was super thrilled to know that I would now be able to escape from the routine of mom's knocks and pinches while studies.I thought life was all going to be so easy without my sister's demand for my things.

Dad got back from office and knew his plan of sending his son to a boarding school went down well with me.He, then,told me I was going to be studying in MONFORT School,Yercaud.He passed me the brochure of the school.I was even more excited this time,as i saw the beauty of the school in pictures.Dad always knew a boarding school was the place for me to build character,be independent and lead life on my own terms.The reason for him to think so,was obvious, for he was in a hostel when he was young as well.

Then came the day,

The day,when I had to join the school arrived.We,the four of us,took the train,the yercaud express which now is a testimony to my school journeys.We got to the school,and then to the cot allocated for me in the dormetry. Mom spread my bed,arranged my cupboard and said "this is how it should stay when I come over next time".My sister was speechless and saw the proceedings with some bitterness in leaving me there for she wouldnt have someone to fight with back home.I began to know life was not going to be a joy ride,ironical to what I taught, it was going to be, when I heard it the first time.

My dad spoke to the warden Brother Simon."My son is for you to take care of".For me it had more meaning than what English language had taught me.Tears locked my eyes.I tried my best not to cry when my parents were there.They bid bye with kisses.I couldn't hide my tears.

The moment they left I went into a room where all new comers were,cried out for the first time in life for a reason more significant than a chocolate.I had got all my lessons of LOVE then, at the age of 7.

Studies were always better with head knocks and pinches than with silence in a classroom.Cricket was always better on a house opposite mine than big open playfield.Waking up with mom's alarm at 7 am to catch the school bus on 7.20 am was always better than a 5.45 siren in the dormetry and a 6 o'clock cane whack for a 6.30 morning study.

Amid all the home sickness I had in my 3 years stay at monfort,I must say I learnt to be independent as my dad envisaged I would.I learnt to keep time with the routine in place.I knew how to fold my clothes,cook noodles with just hot water and manage the pocket money given to me.My mom needn't be there for my bath anymore.I always kept my cupboard neat,earned a prize for the 'cleanest cupboard in the dormetry'  as well.I learnt to FAIL in exams without having no body to recite to.I had the food shared with 7 other people in the table.Table manners came along.If I can speak english now,i learnt it there back in montfort.

If any memories of montfort ever linger,it will be me wanting to skip the swimming classes on a wednesday afternoon with intense cold temperatures of an hill station.I dreaded that until I learnt swimming during the summer vacations of the ninth standard.Another close memory is the letters I wrote to my parents every sunday morning.Dad told me he has them treasured more than the money he has with him today.But,its a pity he hasn't shown me them. I would love to see it sometime again after decades.

The weekly English movies,the prize night,the sports days,the sunday morning walk to the Sacred heart high school, all remains fresh till date.I had my cousin there for company as he joined me there for his fifth standard.I studied till 5th standard there until the hill climate in yercaud decided to cut short my stay in montfort throwing me ill with spells of chicken pox and jaundice.

Its a faint memory I have of my friends there.I caught up with one close montfort friend Niranjan Raj after exactly ten years on facebook.Talking to him was really nostalgic.Looking forward to catch up with others if it so happens.

The dawn to dusk from age 7 to 10 has made me cry for home sickness,made me count days for me to get back home but looking back, those days have shaped me as an individual whom I am now.Cry,love and self stays the way those days had defined them.To those days I treasure, I dedicate this blog of mine to.

cheers,

nagappstheblogger!!!

The phenomenon called GIRLS

The world for some is so beautiful coz of a phenomenon called girls; On the contrary,the world is NOT so beautiful for many others coz of the same.Girls are better known to be complex prototypes of God whom God himself has a tough time understanding.

If somebody asks me to give a one liner on girls,i wud say "have them around for some fun and lots of tears".let me make it crystal clear the some fun i mentioned is well worth the lots of tears that comes along with them.God is supreme jus cos he hides joy in sorrow and sorrow in joy.Girls his trumpcard to exercise that duty of his.

Sometimes we feel we can die for the love we get from a girl.Someother times we feel it is better to kill the same girl for the curse she has brought into our life.Life looks super complicated when girls are around.When i sat down to think why that was so,i found,girls arent so complex to understand.The prime reason for this notion being girls are so instable in their decisions.They take in 100 mind questions to pick what they want.Although debatable,it remains a fact that girls arent contented.It is that which is the root cause for all their miseries and henceforth for the people around them.When one realises what all girls are all about there is no question of girls being a Da Vinci code.

The lesser sex,these days the men,are what they are primarily because of the so called lesser sex-the women.A female's love is what drives a boy mad for serving her desires and helping him achieve things.Thats why i am a very big fan of the proverb "Behind every successful man there is a women".

In a nutshell if a women is this efficient to give and take love,she is twice as efficient in giving bundles of problems.Without taking any credit from them,it is not them but their love that is compounding the problem in hand.Only when we know it is not her whom we are gonna miss but her love we feel heartbroken.So there is no point in blaming girls for the mishaps.If one deserves her love,he surely deserves the pain which she comes along with as well.

I have always had this question in mind-'what wud life be like without any girls in this world'.I have come up with different answers for the same question on different occasions.I recently figured the true generalised answer to the question.It wud surely hav had no surprises,hence giving us no interest in such a life.God knew life would be life(so unpredictable),only when there were girls for the surprises.Whats life without million surprises a day.So the bottomline is "U want to have them or not,U definitely cant ignore them".

All things said and done,i ll have to say,however strenuous life ahead might be with tis phenomenon in my life,i am all excited to find the one for me and fight a million battles of love with her.To whom else can i delicate tis blog of mine but to that to be special one in my life.

cheers!!!
nagappstheblogger