God's new avatar

Profile:  Newsmaker


“I have seen a medicine, That’s able to breathe life into a stone, quicken a rock, and make you dance canary. With spritely fire and motion,” — All’s Well That Ends Well, William Shakespeare.


In life as in a work of art, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is like that potent medicine that breathed life into cricket almost magically and to a greater degree with his Mozart-like passion. His life is to an astonishing extent the product of the Darwinian theory of “channelising aggression to a purposeful end.”


Born into a middle-class Mumbai household, he grew up in Dadar Shivaji Park. A student from Sharadashram Vidyamandir (High School), the young Sachin was quick to lend glory to international cricket. The game, known for its glorious uncertainties, became Sachin’s life. Under the able guidance of his cricketing mentor, Ramakant Achrekar, he rode to mindblowing success. Early this week, he took a totally improbable entry into democracy’s gilded hall when he was sworn in as a Rajya Sabha MP.


It is anybody’s guess whether Sachin can improve the sports world or the state of cricket, and his nomination to Rajya Sabha may have raised a few curious eyebrows. The reticent batsman, who silenced his critics with his willow time and again, has an uphill task this time. In cricket, as much as in life, there is time for entry and exit and one cannot perhaps go on eternally. Sachin’s stint in politics may bring sports into the limelight of parliamentary decision making without playing politics. It may also give him the courage to shed the cricketing gear. But, that’s something only time will tell.


Cricket is all about statistics, and Tendulkar has a series of records to make him the greatest batsman of cricket ever. In November 2011, he became the first batsman to score 15,000 runs in Test cricket. He is also the first player to score 10,000 runs in one-day internationals. On February 24, 2010, Tendulkar became the first man to score a double century (200*) in an ODI against South Africa. Playing for over two decades, he also holds the world record for playing the highest number of Tests and ODIs.


His latest triumph was his 100th century during an ODI against Bangladesh in Dhaka. That is 29 centuries more than the man in the second place on the list, Australia’s Ricky Ponting. Sachin, 38, who started playing at the age of 16, has 100 centuries, 51 scored in Tests, to his credit. Nearly 22 summers after the legend arrived on a caparisoned horse, laden with battle honours, he is now the $2 million man of Indian Premier League (IPL), synonymous with the short format, 20-over match.


The curly-haired, cherubic boy who was determined to avoid the usual traps in life, with its attendant cynicism, worked as an adult workhorse from Lord’s to Lahore and Jamaica to Johannesburg to chase the rainbow. For someone who has been blessed to achieve nearly everything he wanted on the cricket field, the nation is touched to see the calm, collected young man, almost god-like in his ability to remain untouched by applause and adulation.


meghnamaiti@mydigitalfc.com

The gleeful knight

Profile: Newsmaker

The iconic stallion-riding knight exerts a kind of mesmeric control over his warriors. ‘Divinity’ is but a step away as he slowly alights from the horse and finds himself amidst collective identities. The blurring of the boundary line between brand Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has almost taken romantic, epic proportions. Such is his charisma that anyone’s life, even yours or mine described in Shah-ruesque’s detail, could seem like a fairy tale.

Shah Rukh, the underdog from Delhi who went on to rule Bollywood, acted in over 70 films and tasted pinnacle of ‘pelf and power’. Yet the man had done less to lift his spirits; had the unbending, straight-armed gait of someone trying to prevent his clothes from rubbing against the sunburned skin. In a recent conversation with media, he excitedly speaks about the KKR win in Kolkata but he is often indignant, in a way that is linked to professional regrets and a period of tabloid notoriety, when an angry voice from the public ranted at him. The IPL victory has filled up the sense of emptiness in him, almost like a personal triumph. With an intense often, moving involvement KKR victory changed the flow of identification to the masses.

Shah Rukh embraced KKR like his misbegotten offspring and added to its stature, psyche with his passion and unrelenting effort. Nourished on SRK’s romance, the underdog KKR team can remain severely disciplined, keep doing what they have been doing, believe in themselves and fight together as a unit, say brand experts. While KKR has already usurped the number one slot, it now has a reputation to live up to, grow up and mature, say experts.

Shah Rukh’s exploits on and off the field can be likened with Roman Abramovich, the owner of the companies that control Chelsea Football Club, who was as passionately involved with Chelsea. Quite like SRK, he is also present at almost every game Chelsea plays and shows visible emotion during matches, a sign taken by supporters to indicate a genuine love for the sport. Interestingly, Abramovich’s success story is also that of an underdog from Komi Republic, then Moscow to his ascent as a multi-billion dollar businessman. Both the men are self-made, ruthless in their approach and passionate about their dreams. 

Shah Rukh had an entire generation at his command, delighted the teenagers with his cherubic smile, dimples and stammer. The first seeds of romance were often sown in the minds of youngsters from his performances in Dilwale Dulhania Le Ja Yenge or Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. His charm is unique, almost childlike all out there to win the world with his innocent mimicry and glee. Let us remember him as a cherub and forget his dark, plebeian twin.

meghnamaiti@mydigitalfc.com

Dalal Street

Let us go then to Dalal Street, you and I. It meanders through the island city Mumbai, screams out its dehumanised songs into the sunlight over and over again like parrots. At around 3 pm, it grows naturally wild; you see horny lobos and the hoarse hawks cry. You could almost see their cramped minds delirious with insomnia; hunter lives measured with stocks and shares. The twisted and breathing money crushes them. Yet they survive; smelling blood, bees and women.

At 6 pm, twilight immerses the wild incantations. The animals buy and sell their dreams. The sane sex hour of their lives arrive like a temptress and devours them. They wander and roam; their impatient souls slowly get consumed by the burning inferno. They are afraid that others will haul them across the abyss; they are scared of being left behind as simple beings with empty, disappointed hands. They are always terrified that home and trees and mountains exist, and, they lift the fear of many things into the darkness of their lives and sink into it. 

Their fortunes are recorded in companies. They are especially happy or unhappy, especially greedy or hateful in their hearts. You cannot be against this very important occupation: The story of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Warren Buffett. Every one of these characters, etched a furrow in the great grey brain of the earth, and we all carry a miniature reproduction of this archetypal brain within us. We like to tell these stories because freedom is now for sale.

Death for them may come early across the graveyards of hollow promises. And, time-worn vultures will pick at their denial. A shroud of darkness may cover them soon because the Street is stacked under the walls of a dying order. To this end, they have spent the last few decades ripping apart the heroes of the past and the usable contemporaries and put together new and ever new material possibilities, manufacturing modern capitalist legitimacies that make the old measures seem redundant. Let us go then to Dalal Street you and I, but, let us not applaud it.

Meghna Maiti

Dalal Street 

Three pm, Dalal Street

Horny lobos and the hoarse hawks cry,

Their cramped minds delirious with insomnia,

Hunter lives measured with stocks and shares,

The twisted and breathing money crushes them,

Yet they survive; smelling blood, bee and women.

Six pm, Dalal Street

Twilight immerses the wild incantations,

The animals buy and sell their dreams,

The sane sex hour of their lives,

Arrive like a temptress and devour them.

Cause freedom also has a price.

Meghna Maiti

House of Solitude


I owe my existence to the house of solitude. 
The room of silence swallows my self-trapped soul. 
And I discover my collective significance. 
I outgrow my individuality.

Wasn't this my destiny and my voyage of longing?

Yet I take refuge in flashes of you.        
In you, the entire consciousness accumulates.


Meghna Maiti

Bob Marley Cafe

YOU all have seen those shacks: There is something strangely lyrical about these small stopovers, veiling the coastline, forcing us to the land of Bohemia by sound and sights, the dull thud and whoosh of waves, the splash of water, and the call of sea pigeons. As the night draws closer, they grow naturally melancholic, even with the twinkling lamps and usual chatter of foreigners. The thought of such shacks takes me to Bob Marley Café in Mahabalipuram, and I can pour out an entire ocean behind my backyard in the deep, intense hours. I can't see the sea-shaken café, but, I can smell the waves, hear the dolphin play by the sea air across the flutes of their blowholes.


For most of our lives, we labour under conditions composed of land, dust and grime, a tricky confluence to keep us grounded on a busy urban soil. We struggle with the wind, rain, the sloppy roads and vindictive souls. We struggle with darker questions that hang in the air; grope for our true selves. In the process, many lose the race. A rare few, perhaps, endure all the way to Bohemia, inside the labyrinthine claw of life; hoping to meet some of these foundering nomads; dip into the blue, clear water of the Bay of Bengal.

And, then, the curtains open for good; the sun burns a sideway lantern on the tsunami-ravaged coast of Mahabalipuram, its melancholy set of white sand, wind-shorn mosses and rock-cut temples. We take it in, reclining on cane chairs, grow stiller, look deep into the eyes of our lovers, dreams occasionally interrupted by the curious eyes of the shack owners, Swami of the Tamil fisherman ilk with Janet, his German wife. There is no fog in the air, yet a vapour lifts, a screen between worlds, and in the blink of a seafish's pulse, we can see backward through epochs. 

The lively eyes of Bob Marley still observes me and then sinks, the blue water closing over his ears, across the imperceptible canvas of blue water and pearly Medusa.

Meghna Maiti

The face of the party

AND then we see in the faces and figures, millions of apprehensions, clear and dark, for their souls lurk deep inside their beings, so that dusk is eternally falling within them. After a stroll back from the garden, Janet was bewildered to find her tipsy guests sitting around the party tables, all with the same faces. It was 12 o'clock in the night. “Did I get too drunk?“ she twitched her eyes as she stared at the frayed lot.


Janet silently proceeded to the living room, her heart pounding against the ribs, body tingled as though she had prickly heat. Where were her friend Eliana and her colleague, Emrick? Wasn't this supposed to be her housewarming party? She quickly slipped into the bathroom, heaved a sigh of relief when she saw her own face. She was suddenly conscious of her maid's presence and regained control of herself. “Hey, Mary. Is anything wrong with me? Why do you think everyone looks the same in the party?“ “Maybe they all are talking about the same things, ma'am,“ uttered Mary as she filled her glass of whiskey and soda.


She lit a cigarette and sat amidst people in their designer wears, driven to excitement with the fancy cocktails and starters, laughing as they exchanged tales of their friends' affairs, foreign holidays and expensive houses, all the things that take them a little ahead of each other. Strangely, no one seemed to recognise her. She felt hot with shame and misery. What snobs! She felt exhausted, sat there for hours, smoked cigarettes after cigarettes, and wished she were dead. She wanted to lift the veil from everyone's face, pry into the silken darkness of their lives and fold their hands over it.


Janet could not take it any longer and stepped out into the fresh, cool garden. As she stared at the starry sky, a great weight lifted from her mind. Maybe she needs to think only about one face and united voices of countless people and even the most mundane one, feel a breath of high song that has no equal.


Meghna Maiti