Surfing it All

In my school days I used to be an ardent follower of Cricket, even when we didn’t have a television at our home. On a Saturday, our Mathematics Teacher asked my friend and me to get some stencils for the school stationery, and we being the Cricket buffs that we are, sneaked for an hour to watch a match at a hotel. When we came back, our teacher asked us what the score was, and I blurted out it was 96 for 2, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, assuming that he was actually interested in knowing the score. His expression turned serious and he gave us a solid thrashing after that incident, for absconding the school on a working day. 

With no mobiles, laptops or internet, the portable televisions mounted on 10 Ft. high tables in tiffin hotels were our only source of keeping track of Cricket matches, but the efforts never deterred us. As we grew up, life was easier at college where we faced no such problems knowing the score, heck we bunked even classes to watch Cricket. One particular incident I clearly recall was the Sydney Test of 2003, where I woke up early in the morning at 4 AM to catch Sachin scoring his century after a poor series he had thus far. I was never an early riser, but I surprised myself when I got up and promptly saw him scoring the hundred at a tea center near my room. He went on to score 241 that match, and needless to say that I bunked the college that day.

Graduating from college to corporate environment brought its own problems. We now had no scarcity of resources to track the score, but they had to be done in a discreet way, so as not to be found out by the superiors. So, it was mostly ESPNCricInfo that we kept open on another tab in our browser forever, so that whenever someone is approaching us, we used to Alt+Tab back to the application. Not that they didn’t know, but it was an unwritten code not to get caught watching cricket scores in office. 

However, during the 2011 World Cup, every such unwritten rule was broken when the entire nation was bathed in euphoria with every victory. The Quarter final between India and Australia was a ripper, and I was at the client location in New York at that time. Many of us asked for permission for that day off and were not given. When 5 wickets fell in our chase, people started having doubts. Some of us assembled near a desk far away from our managers, and started following the score on desktops and phones. With each run and boundary scored, some of us could not control ourselves and started screams of ecstasy. The word got out and soon everyone knew we wouldn’t be much productive that day anymore. 

On the big day of India vs Pakistan, our manager got a clue and talked to the client rep and got us all an off, to watch the matches at our home. We didn’t mind that he asked us to work on Saturday, and are only glad to nod our heads and yell our yays for the decision. With the advent of superior browsers on tablets, and smartphones the going is getting a bit easier these days, and thanks to the number of apps, whatsapp groups of Cricket Enthusiasts I joined, along with Facebook and Twitter timelines I’m aware of almost every single match being played around the world be it a County game between Essex and Warwickshire or a T20 game in Caribbean Premiere League played in the between T&T and Barbados Tridents.

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This post is written for UC Browser http://www.ucweb.com/ which establishes a connection to UC Cricket.

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I'm The Great Indian Litterbug

So, I’m The Great Indian Litterbug (TGIL). I get it that there is a campaign against me, which seems to be on me, but I really get it, coz I can dig sarcasm. I plead guilty as charged on all accounts that are exhibited in this video.

Well, may not be all since I don’t own a car and I cant remember ever puking out of it, may be I did, but as I said I cant remember. But, that’s not the point anyway. I do acknowledge the efforts behind making this campaign, and I’m all for it. At least the video is damn good. I never thought I’d look so good on camera doing all those things with all the slo-mo shots, my actions accompanied by a delicious voice over. I’m sold.

At times when I take a walk along the road towards my home, the place does have a lot of vendors on small wooden carts selling groundnuts cooked in salt water, that I’m a sucker to. Also, they taste great when I’m walking, so I buy them. I try to find a dustbin to throw away the remains, but I don’t really look for it. I get impatient after a while, look around and see if no one is checking, and leave it out on the road for the municipality guys to clean the next morning. After all, they have to do some work to get paid. Once I said one of them to clean the road properly, and he retorted me that I shouldn’t care since it’s not my father’s property. This action serves well for him, I suppose. So no one saw me littering. As I said I’m TGIL. No one can identify me.

Now, I got a loose bladder. Not one of my mistakes I reckon. I don’t always want an open space to let lose, but when I don’t get it, the first thing I do is, take my ID card, which hangs around my neck – I don’t like to use retractors – and hide it inside my pocket. I don’t want to represent my company when I’m being embarrassed. So while I’m in the act, I look around to see if anyone else is doing it along with me. We are brothers in arms, never acknowledged, never seen again, but we revel in each other’s presence. It’s a sort of comfort zone. I feel happy at first, since I have cleared my bladder, but guilty later, coz I know I shouldn’t have done what I did. The sad thing is I can’t undo it using Ctrl Z. I wish I could, though I probably won’t if I have to face the bladder problem all over again.

I have equally factious accounts of circumnavigation for other littering, and I’m sure you got the point I’m trying to make and would be bored to hell if I continue. I don’t want to present my side of the argument here. I pleaded guilty already.

As TGIL, I ask myself, does the video embarrass me? Hell yeah. Do I want to change? You betcha. When will I do it? Well, I’m planning for it. It doesn’t come easy to me, coz as they say old habits die-hard and these are the ones that are nurtured unconsciously. Now I have difficulties in getting a hold on the habits I developed consciously, so the redemption on the habits inculcated unconsciously will take their own sweet time. I’m not promising heaven tomorrow, I’m only taking the first step, it is conscious by the way, of acknowledging my part in the chaos, dirt and grime of our country.  The remedial measures begin right now.

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This post is written for Times of India The Great Indian Litterbug Campaign hosted by Indiblogger Happy Hours