HOW CRICKET WENT FROM PASSION TO PROFESSION

I’ve been blogging for roughly 3 years now. What started off with a lame post on 10.06.09 has now ended up with 125 (lamer? Your call) posts including this one. 125 posts later, some of my friends still feel that my best piece of work has to be the ‘ABOUT ME’ tab.

It reads like this: 

Thinking about it, this could very well be one of my better pieces.

Getting to the point, in social status savvy India, if you hail from an orthodox family from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, the first thing that is drilled into your head is to study well and get into a good job. (I am skipping the ‘get married, have kids and make us grandparents’ part, just saving it for another post)

Fortunately though, my parents were a little different. For one, they decided on sticking to the government’s policy of ONE FAMILY, ONE CHILD. But more importantly, they let me choose what I wanted to be instead of pushing something down my throat. Point being said, they let me decide who I wanted to be.

But that was the easy part. Finding out what I wanted to become was the real struggle. Now I am not bragging here but I used to be good at a lot of things when I was young, like a LOT.

Sketching was something I was good at when I was a kid. Times have changed now, the society is opening up to alternate career choices so technically speaking, that could have been a good career option but there was one small problem; I couldn’t paint even if my life depended on it! And at that point of time, I didn’t know something called charcoal sketching existed. By the time I did come to know of it, I had stopped sketching.

I joined a cricket coaching camp in Kolkata when I was 8. Cricket runs in the family (Dad was a part of the junior Tamil Nadu side) so taking up cricket came as no surprise. When I was in class 7, I had a medical condition that forced me out of action for one whole year. That must have been 2010-11, the year of A.R.RAHMAN. To keep me from getting bored mom enrolled me in keyboard classes, yes you now know why. But music wasn’t really my thing, so I quit in 2006 when I realized that I just couldn’t juggle cricket, music classes and my 12^th standard board exams!

Plan c was to become a chef (no surprises as to who’s decision that was, yours truly!) but when I started to dwelve deeper into the fundamentals of becoming a chef, I realized that there was one small problem- when you eat up half of the ingredients that are supposed to be part of the recipe, you don’t make a good chef. Considering old habits die hard, I decided to move to plan D.

Factually speaking, plan D was neither my parents’ nor my own idea. Remember that part where I said I was good at a lot of things, well that included studies too. So engineering I was pushed into. Given a choice, I would have preferred architecture but unfortunately, I didn’t have one back then. 6 yrs of engineering later, I can confidently say that I will NEVER become an actual engineer, the reason? I’ve missed more classes than I have attended.

Doing the math, I guess that leaves me with just one choice. Become a cricketer! But then, that is not why I chose cricket as my bread earner, it was because I truly loved the game. It was because every time I stepped onto the field, I knew that was what I was meant to be doing. Cricket as a profession, truth be told, I am still a long, long way from getting there but then life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man, more often than not the man who wins is the man who thinks he can!

Until next time,

ADIOS!

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Of late, my life has been dominated by shades of gray. No, not the hugely popular( but how?) book of almost the same name but actual shades of gray.

Why you ask? Well the past few weeks, I’ve seen it all; the good, the bad and the worst! I’ve seen happiness, I’ve seen dejection. On the field, I’ve taken blinders and I’ve dropped sitters.

When success comes it gives you a high. But when failure comes, however small, you go plummeting deep down into the ground. Normally, I am a person who gives a shit about failures; mainly because I’ve seen it all but this time it was different. It might have been because of the expectations the management had on me or the faith they showed even when I kept under performing, I just don’t know. But what it did was keep pulling me down when all I had to do was just stand up and keep going.

One and a half months, 24 match days and 8 matches later, I finally seem to have done what I should have in those 40 odd days- shift my focus to something else!

So here I am now, watching movies, texting friends (though with the current rule of 5 smses per day, that became just a little bit more difficult ;D) and occasionally getting into fights with daddy dearest. The perfect way to relax, hell ya! :D

Things are settling down now but when I look back, all I see is a scared young adult under the helmet whose only wish was for all this pain to end as soon as possible. Robert frost once said “The best way out is always through.” I’ve loved this quote and I’ve always yearned to live by it. But that’s the funny thing about fear. When you are afraid, you stop listening to your greatest ally- your sub conscious mind. And this is what starts the downward spiral.

Looking back, I guess that was what did me in. I just couldn’t muster the energy to fight back the fear.

But I guess that is the way of life. “Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. BATMAN BEGINS” And I guess that IS the truth. We fail only so we improve. The catches I dropped, the opportunities I missed have only made me hungrier for success. And THAT is a good thing.

As I end this post with a smile on my lips and a new found strength in my heart, here’s a little gem I picked up from the LION KING UNIVERSE.

"The past can hurt. You can either run from it or learn from it." Rafiki

THE GREAT INDIAN CURSE

Over the past few years, the most important thing I’ve learnt is that being good at everything is a disadvantage. A CURSE rather.

March 2007. Having finished my class 12 exams, I had a rather clear path fixed in my mind. Join an ARTS college, get a degree in 3 years and focus on cricket. Had that plan worked out well, I would have been doing my PG in SRM UNIVERSITY right now.

Unfortunately though, it didn’t work that way.

Why?

Because the South Indian society has this strange habit of placing engineers and doctors on a pedestal and looking down on everyone else. Never mind if the engineering/medical seat was BOUGHT and not EARNED. Who cares. DR.KARTHIK or ER. KARTHIK looks better on the wedding invitation than say, a S.KARTHIK(B.COM)

So yes, a victim of this system I became.

2 years at veltech and now 3 years at SRM later, I’d still say, I regret having taken up that decision

I wouldn’t really say I hate engineering. Engineering does have its perks. Especially if it is done at INDIA’S NO 1 PRIVATE UNIVERSITY. Ac buses, hi tech class rooms (though strictly for 1^st sem only ;D), beautiful girls(again, 1^st sem only if you are a mech/automobile engineer :D), a non alcoholic pub right in the campus and hmm, an opportunity to learn how things work (with a disclaimer warning of course :D).

Now tell me, which arts college would offer all this.

But then the 5 years have really taken a toll on me, both physically and mentally. Not many people would understand this but doing engineering while you are trying to make a mark in cricket is actually tough. VERY VERY tough.

Until now, it was just the academic part that worried me. The matches would appear right during the cycle/model tests and we would have to miss them. If the staff is considerate enough, you would get a retest or an assignment (god bless those souls!) but if they were a pleasure starved necrophiliac, the only thing we would get to do after we get back to college is to make trips between the classrooms and their cabins asking for a retest. Without any success of course.

As if this wasn’t enough, after having gone around campus begging the staff for retests/assignments, squeezing in a couple of tests on the days we do attend college and finally managing to secure an above average grade, some A-hole with a self confessed sense of humor decides to pop in and say “unnaku enna machi, sports quota dhaana, avangalae mark poturpaanga.” Oh how I feel like slapping each and every one of them.

But then, even this is fine when compared to how things are panning out at the moment. The college cricket team has been underperforming of late and as a counter active measure, the university’s sports department has gotten stricter. No ODs, no permissions and a letter asking us to pay the entire 4 years tuition fee if we decide to go for a league/state game instead of a college match. Which comes to approximately 8 lakhs. For someone who has been unsuccessfully trying to complete a 4 yr engineering course for the last 5 years, even a bank loan is impossible at the moment. So college match it is. WITH NO EFFING CHOICE.

Ideally, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But what has happened now is that my league team hasn’t taken a liking to it. I’ve been missing out on a lot of opportunities in my league team because some bucking fasterd with no knowledge of the TNCA cricketing schedule decides to conduct a college tournament at exactly the same time a TNCA match is scheduled. Believe me, I am missing out on a LOT.

So yes, this is my situation now. With one more year to go, I might have to miss out on a lot more.

Which brings me to the GREAT INDIAN CURSE. Too many complications, too many sacrifices. All for a stupid ER symbol in front of your name. if ever I had a chance to change the system, this would be no.1 on my list.

Until next time,

ADIOS!

TRAINING TRAVAILS

Considering that the majority of my readers are/were commerce students, I guess I’ll have to do the honours of introducing the NOVEL concept of INPLANT TRAINING. Well, at INDIA’S NO 1 PRIVATE UNIVERSITY we are advised (‘forced’ rather) to finish 2 weeks each of inplant(or is it implant? O.O) training(or in their words, HANDS ON INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE) before the commencement of the 3^rd and 4^th years.

As far as the workers in the company are concerned, the last thing they would want when they are trying to finish making 2000 jobs a day is a bunch of over enthusiastic students pestering you with questions. So what do they do, they ask us to OBSERVE. Which, actually means “go sit in that corner and pls, for heaven’s sake, leave us alone!” so 7 hours a day, u go and sit there in a corner of the factory ‘observing’ what is going on.

If you are lucky, you get to go for 4 or 5 days but still get the 15 days certificate required. But when lady luck isn’t exactly on your side, you get to travel 2 hrs to a factory just to sit for an additional 7 hours on all 15 days in a factory.

Now at SRM, we aren’t required to maintain a record of day to day training. So what normally happens is that people enjoy for 13 days, attend 2 days of training and submit the report. Which is quite sufficient because truth be told, 45 mins is enough to understand the entire working of the factory. But Veltech Dr. RR and SR technical institute have this custom of torturing people with useless paper work. I was a victim once. And I just got screwed by the same people again.

The company me and my friends went to had these old dilapidated buildings housing offices on one side and the factory with huge, I mean HUGE machines on the other. It was a reputed company having once supplied parts to DAIMLER-CHRYSLER (Mercedes to the common folk) but then the people running the company never bothered to upgrade the machinery and hence the orders started declining. But that’s another story.

About the people in the company, well we had no trouble with them really. All of them seemed to be pretty happy to let us wander about on the company’s huge green campus, only requiring us to report to them once in a while. All but ONE. We decided to call him ANNIYAN THATHA cos with his glasses on he was strict, mean and always shouting. But without his glasses, he would literally like cajole and spoonfeed us! Very ANNIYAN like, so ya the name kind of stuck on. But the only problem was that whenever we happened to meet him for something important, he always had his glasses ON! :S we weren’t spared even on the day we went to collect our ‘completion of training’ certificates!

As for me, life was hell there. But I’ve become so accustomed to the difficulties of a cricketer pursuing engineering that it seemed like a walk in the park for me, albeit a long and difficult one. B) wake up at 5.30. get to the ground at 6.30. team practice till. 10. Get back home by 10.15. shower and eat. Get to the company by 10.45. go there get shouted at by anniyan thatha for coming late daily. Report to our allotted section incharge at 11. While away time till 4 pm. And ya, since this was a manufacturing plant and not an IT company, we didn’t really have a place to sit also! :S

Anyways, this continued for 15 days. Eventually, we decided to cut short the time we spent in the factory. I got permission from the DGM, HR about my practice timing woes and thus didn’t have to get scolded by thatha everyday. The others decided to reach just before thatha arrived (which was usually 1 hr after the usual company timings, very punctual on his part :/) just as to look punctual. We would leave for lunch early and get back late. And towards the end of the training, we would normally leave the place by 2.30 itself.

The 15 days kind of sped by. We took turns bunking, we got caught by anniyan thatha on occasions more than one. We took pics in the factory and uploaded them on fb. We had the worst canteen food anyone could ever think of. We broke rules. We became friends with the junior engineers there. And to some extent, we did learn a thing or two as well. But eventually, when we did walk out of the factory with our certificates in hand though, we had only one thing in mind. Even if it was the last thing on earth, we resolved never to come back to this factory. Be it for training or for work! :D

Until next time,

Keep smiling,

ADIOS!

CRICKETER BY PROFESSION. ENGINEER BY COMPULSION.

Academics was something that came to me very easily. Whether it was my mom’s tutoring methods or me inheriting my dad’s genes, I would never really know. But ya, I was good at it. So good that my history professor said that the only one he was expecting a state rank from in our batch that time was me(but ya, that didn’t really happen. My history professor btw was called ‘maddy’, not because of his resemblance to a tamil actor with the same nick name but because he was plain MAD). I guess his prediction makes sense now. Never trust what a mad man says!

My academic journey continued. I managed to scrape through the demented class 12 exams with an 87% aggregate, quite a task considering I attended school only for 2 months that year! The 87% was enough for me to get an arts seat(something which me and my parents had planned for long back) but persuasion from people I trusted well enough had me buying the application form for SSN ENGG.COLLEGE, one of the best across the state. But alas, my 87% wasn’t enough. But having already been sucked in by the charm of engineering, I went and sat for the DOTE counseling.

I still remember that day, august 6, 2006. Dressed in formals, waiting in line for my turn to come. My only aim was to get into automobile engg, more importantly at Hindustan college. But when my turn did come, all seats at Hindustan had been filled up! What did I do? I chose VELTECH instead! What happened over the next 2 yrs is something almost everyone I’ve met know(my friends keep mocking me even now abut my standard introductory speech that I come up with whenever people ask me what year I am studying in. :D)

Its been 4 yrs now. 4 hard years. To be frank, i never really realized how tough or how interesting engineering was until 4^th sem came. My 3 sems each at veltech and srm were a breeze. Agreed, only a lunatic would study the same course again but ya, I am one. :P but 4^th sem was different. Out went ‘engineering chemistry’, ‘value education’ and ‘biology for engineers’ and in came the core papers-the fundamentals, the blocks on which automobile engineering is built on. Now I regret having made that decision to take up engineering, not because I hate the course. But because I love it.

Strange reason you might say, but ya, that’s the bare truth. Blessed with a pretty good memory[something that I am proud of. Thank you dad for the genes! B-)] clearing the exams is not an uphill task. But Sitting there in my class, watching one of the best professors(he is such a deviation from the torturous text book following grandpas we know of-young, charismatic and brilliant beyond words) in action explaining how to design the steering mechanism of a car(something which isn’t part of the syllabus btw), a silent tear passes my eye. Sitting there like a dunce watching my classmates come up with answers, my pride and ego having taken a beating, my heart aches, longing for a break from this beating. But alas, I will not be getting one. It is not finishing engineering that I am doubtful of, it is finishing as an engineer that worries me. Clearing exams is something even a 15 year old can do, it is to finish with the practical knowledge of an engineer that I want. And I also know that like it or not, I would never be a true engineer.

Though I love engineering, my heart lies elsewhere. Destiny beckons. I would always continue to love engineering. But I would also continue despising the south Indian society and their rantings for getting their girl married off to an engineer maapla. To heck with it. Half the pass outs don’t even know Newton’s 2^nd law of motion. And they happen to be qualified engineers. If a sheet of paper certifyin that so and so is an engineer is all you need, then rest assured, you’ve found your man. But if a true engineer is what you need, then I guess half the girls in south india will stay unmarried.

How cruel society is.

But all said and done, I’d like to add a word about my parents here. they are probably the best thing that could have happened to me- letting me be ME, Letting me choose who or what I wanted to become. That I love my parents is an understatement. Mom and dad, if you do happen to chance by this post, I want you to know that the 4 yrs[well, 4 now, 6 when I finally finish the course ;)] of hardships that I’ve gone through-the sacrifices, the battering of pride and the pain that keeps silently crawling through me like a sidewinder through the sands of the deserts of Utah, creeping up eerily every single day, is for YOU. I love you beyond words and this is my way of repaying it.

5 more semesters(hopefully) and I’ll be rid of this pain. And then, I’ll be what I’ve always wanted to be, what I am destined to be. Until then, I’ll just have to go with the tide.

How cruel society is.

Until next time,

Adios!