Life as I find it

Yesterday, an unknown, aged housewife in one of the many buildings in Mumbai died. Virtually unknown to many, and the love of a devastated few, this was the typical loving grandmother and charming Indian housewife - the stuff indian dreams are made of. She left behind an aged husband, a son and daughter (both married) and three grand daughters from them in terms of immediate family, and countless more who had been enriched by her cheerful and affectionate presence in their lives. She was my grandmother.

I dedicate this portrait to the countless of beloved grandparents everywhere, and hope that their loved ones manage to tell them how precious they are, before it is too late.

She had led a difficult life. Leading the perpetually nomadic life of an armyman’s wife, and striving to care for her children, she would have settled afte her husband retired, only to be faced with a new adventure in life - her first granddaughter - me. With both parents working shifts, I grew up with my grandmother and was soon joined by my uncle’s daughters and the three of us grew in a world that childhood memories are made of, when its a riot of three kids, being looked after by doting grandparents.

Memories flood our minds as we struggle to comprehend this loss. Her unending enthusiasm for cricket, delight over new clothes and matching accessories she painstakingly managed, “celebrations” in the local restaurant, where all she would eat was the ordinary idlis, an aunt orphaned at an early age she also played mother too, her group of friends in the building she stayed in (ranging from 10 to 70 years of age), evenings spent in the society park, bullying three nauthgy girls to study, ……

My granfather seems lost. His constant companion of over 60 years, mother of his children, grandchildren, devoted wife, and old-age companion is gone. He still hadn’t understood it completely. He is silent most of the time, and when he speaks, he laughs and jokes like nothing has happened.

Yesterday, she was frail and still. Gone. our only satisfaction was that she had met all of her countless loved ones within her last month of life and was very happy.

I miss her, and wish that she had lived more, but that is my selfishness. I would never want her to leave me no matter how long she lived. It was time for her to go, and for us to face the terrible emptiness in the home with that one departure. I hope that the ones left behind find the strength to move on. I hope my grandfather survives this tremendous shock.

Mrs. Nalini Godbole, my beloved grandmother is no more, like the many other grandmothers who are missed desperately. I only hope that the grandmothers still with us know of our love for them and die as fulfilled as she was able to.

This is obviously not happening anymore. As far as I was concerned, we were out when we lost to Sri Lanka without bothering to wait for the results of the Bangladesh - Bermuda one. What a performance by India. I am at a loss for words that describe it adequately. It was a blazing start. Good bowling, good fileding to about two third of the Sri Lankan innings - even a little after that, and then, it suddenly seemed to loosen up. Even then, life was ok. We had a batting side with the seven stars - all of them “match winners” in their own right. But when our innings started, our team simply fell apart. There is no other way to put it. Just fell to bits one by one. Sehwag seemed promosing, Dravid tried to hold on, but no one actually did it. Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Dhoni in particularly were so disgraceful as to make anyone who didn’t know history disbelieve their reputations. They were like the neighbourhood boys playing with a professional team.

The day we need to depend on Bangladesh losing to Bermuda to prove our eligibility in a World Cup, we are already in trouble. We might as well walk out now than later. Oh we all know that this is cricket, and anything can happen, but when the only team we can perform against seems to be Bermuda, perhaps its time to say that the “anything” does not include determined cricket from the Indian team.

Loads of emotions on a riot all over. Advertisers upset. Fans devastated. Sad, sad time.

There is a lot that needs to be reassessed and worked on on our cricket front. Rahul Dravid got it right when he said we don’t deserve the Cup, and it is not about one match or a few more matches, but there is something we really need to look deep into.

Yesterday, I conducted an outbound leadership programme for school students, where they were given tasks to perform, and their results were discussed to identify problem areas. One of the teams got off to a flying start, and then got over confident and messed up their second task. On the third task, they got so nervous about the previous bad performance, that they failed even worse. in the discussion, one of them was very straight in speaking of what happened. he said, “We played like the Indian Cricket team. Everything was good. Then we got overconfident, and then we took so much pressure that it made us fail.” He was bang on target.

On a kids level, this would suffice. But when we are speaking of an international team, it is not as though they don’t know all this. The issues are far deeper. Right now, I wouldn’t mind recommending an outbound management development programme for the Indian Cricket team, to help them see things better and away from a context where their personal reputation being at stake makes them be more defensive than objective when it comes to dealing with feedback.

What feedback could be stronger than our data from our World Cup performances?

We really need to take a pause and figure out what it is that we are trying to do, what it is that we actually end up doing and what it is that is going differently from plan and deal with it very strongly, if we ever hope to bring our performance to a level that matches with out status as the worlds highest earning cricket team. What is it that is being paid for? What is it that is being delivered, and how can there be a congruence that will keep the overall followers from being disappointed?

I see this as a two fold problem. One, of course is the performance itself. The condition of players, their training, and efforts not just on maintaining form and performance, but actually attempting to improve on it. The other side of the coin of failed expectations are the expectations themselves. What are we basing our expectations on? Are advertisements of popular players any indications of their actual performance? Is our love and enthusiasm for the game actually leading us to expect far more from “our side” than is actually on the cards?

I think our advertising and media coverage needs to get more realistic. For a country with hockey as its national game, its tough to find people who would know the name of our captain, while most can reel off the names of the cricket players at the drop of a hat. We are totally focussed on cricket as a sport to the exclusion of most others. We are putting all our passions in one basket, regardless of the condition of the team, and somewhere down the line, this is going from the enjoyment of a sport to keeping fingers crossed not to have our expectations demolished. The media has made Gods out of our players, and the same media unhesitatingly degrades them after a defeat. Does anyone actually stop to think if there is any basis for making then Gods in the first place? We are just fooling ourselves, and if we’d like to avoid heartbreak, we might be wise to look at them in the fancy ads as popular models, and base our cricketing experience on actual current performance and condition data.

On the performance side…… I don’t even see where I can begin. The team needs to get into far better shape than they have been demonstrating. A World Cup is a WORLD CUP - all teams there have come to try and win it, and the very fact that they are entering the fray should be a cue that VERY strong preparations are in order. Have they actually happened? If they have, how is it that their lack of effect goes unnoticed and uncorrected until this disgrace?

Why aren’t players in form, and why aren’t they being brought into form in time, or replaced by players who are in form? Why is our fielding got such a general reputation for being weak? When a line up with Utthapa, Ganguly, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Dravid and Dhoni fails to make runs, what is it that is going wrong? I get a very distasteful feeling that the World Cup is more of a trial and testing area than an arena for performance, if we give performances like that and are left with analysing them to see what’s not working.

I follow Cricket, but as far as stars go, I’d prefer to see ads endorsed by Australian cricketers or our fine kho kho players. I don’t see these world record holders that get whipped as heroes anymore.

I had read this post a lifetime ago, and it seems to have come true.