A cricket match that saved my @$$

Fun Friday activities seem to be at their peak at Komli Media. Our HR team have been successfully organizing events every alternate Friday which have been a good breather for all of us in the otherwise hectic work schedule. It has been a mix of both indoor and outdoor activities, ranging from Housie to Marble & Spoon race, and Cricket ofcourse.

When I say ofcourse, I don't mean Cricket was an anticipated activity. But not even a single cricketing event would have been a big boohoo to our HR team. Kudos to the anticipation of HR team to realize playing cricket was on the minds of almost all employees and thus they proactively conducted it, and organized it wonderfully.

Everyone of the floor was super excited to hear about this event. To give us time to practice, we had 2 weeks before the event. But who needs cricket practice in a country like India, where everyone has grown up watching Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni. I would like to quote Shreedhar saying, "Practice kyun chahiye? Itna saal practice hi toh kiya! Direct match mein khelenge abhi". 

So our teams were formed, and Pushkar self nominated himself as our captain. It was a Box Cricket tournament with 8 teams participating in it. A knockout tournament, so if you win your 1st 2 matches you reach the finals! A team had to be of 9 players with minimum 1 girl. The girl from the batting team should compulsorily open the innings and the 1st over also to be bowled by the girl from bowling team. Some bizarre rules were put in like a wide and a no-ball delivery were to be counted while the batting team gets 2 runs for this kind of delivery. Also, if any bowler bowls 3 consecutive wides, that team is disqualified! Pushkar, and Nitya were our batters. I am more of a bowler so asked Pushkar to give me the 2nd over, and Shreedhar asked for the last over (4 overs per innings).

Our 1st match was against Mobile team. We won the toss and decided to field. The girl over was a quiet one, as their guy batsman did not face any delivery. He was facing me in the 2nd over. 1st 2 balls were dot. Come 3rd ball, and it is a wide delivery down the leg side. 4th ball, again a wide. Umpire raised warning bell and all my team mates started shouting at me to avoid any more wide balls. Under pressure, I bowl my 5th delivery which is wide down the leg side, again!

Silence spread across for about 3 seconds post which there was chaos. My team mates were cursing me, umpire raised the warning and I felt totally f~%^@d. Rupesh, one of the organizers as well as player from some other team, expressed that this rule was a harsh one and I had not purposely bowled wide deliveries. His opinion was accepted by all and the rule was changed! Now, any bowler bowling 3 consecutive wide balls would be penalized for every 3rd ball by adding 10 runs in opposite team' kitty. I somehow finished my over with dismal figures - 0, 0, W(2), W(2), W(10), 2 - giving away 16 runs! Remaining overs were bowled tidily but we had a near impossible target of 47 to be chased in 4 overs. 

To say that I was abused would be an under statement :P But we had no time to discuss all of it, thus I was safe for a while. Pushkar and Nitya opened our inning. Everyone else felt we were bound to loose, even we felt so, but we had to give it a shot. 1st over being a girl over was fruitful; we scored some 10 odd runs in it. Next over was like the decider, with Pushkar and Nitya both hitting boundaries in it. That over got us 14 odd runs, target thus coming down to 23 in 2 overs. Following over was bowled tightly, just giving us 8 runs along with Pushkar's wicket. We had to chase 15 in 6 balls. Nigel came 1 down and opened up right away, with 2 of his 1st ball and a boundary off his 2nd. 9 more to get in 4 balls. Nigel takes a single of the 3rd ball and Nitya is now on strike. 4th balls hits the boundary fence! Suddenly the surrounding wakes up, our victory was in sight. All this while I was praying for our win as I anticipated what was to come if we dont. And just then Nitya hit our winning runs, scoring a boundary off the 5th ball and sealing our victory. I heaved a sigh of relief and a gush of joy, rushing towards Nigel and Nitya to celebrate! It was an unbelievable victory. We were still not sure if we had really won.

Going into the 2nd match I decided not to bowl; actually no one would have given it to me in any case. We fielded 1st in 2nd match and restricted opposite team to about 26 runs. I effected a run out in that inning. The target was not daunting this time, and riding on the back of chasing an impossible target of 47, we were confident about winning again. And we did! We chased down the target within 3 overs and thus reached finals. Other finalist was Finance team, with Rupesh being a part of it. One of their bowlers bowled a very tight line and he was difficult to score against. We saw him and knew we had to tackle him rightly if we were to win finals. 

Pushkar wasn't lucky with the toss and opposite team chose to field 1st, realizing that chasing was a better option as it had worked well for us. We scored just about 30 runs in that match and knew it could be defended. We got through their entire team in less than 3 overs. Yes, they were all out and victory was ours. We won the Komli Cup as we call it. Nigel got the best batsman trophy while Nitya got the best bowling trophy. Icing on the cake, though, was all of us winning a Fastrack gift voucher worth Rs 500 (Nitya and Nigel got 2 of those). We knew about the prize a day before so were looking forward to win at all cost. And some credit for our win also goes to Rupesh, for intervening and influencing change of rule. Had he not done so, we would have been out in the 1st match itself. And what a paradox that his team lost to ours in the finals! 

Nothing beats the excitement for cricket and so this Fun Friday event enjoyed such a good response. As of me, I was the happiest among all of us because I had screwed up big time yet we got through. I guess I was praying for our win most sincerely thus it came our way, not to mention superb effort by Nigel, Nitya, Pushkar and Shreedhar. The cup is ours, woohoo!!

Guru - Chela

As an Indian you can never miss upon two things - Cricket and Cinema. These are the two most popular means of entertainment an Indian can savour. T20 cricket is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds but ODI and Test cricket are still widely followed. In cinema, however, Hindi cinema (affectionately referred as Bollywood) is 'the' most famous, and regional cinema can never really out-do it. The changes in Bollywood cinema over these years have been phenomenal. To describe it in a sentence, subjects have become more interesting while music has become less melodious. Adding to it, a new wave of cinema has emerged and the change is refreshing. 

A lot of the credit has to go to Hollywood movies for this and ofcourse an improved exposure and Internet. The acceptability for fresh ideas and experimental kind of movies has been the reason for their success. Back in those days when Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro or Chashme Buddoor or Ek Ruka Hua Faisla were released, the general mindset was not really tuned to any other kind of cinema; had these movies released today, their response would have been a hell a lot different (in a positive way). I really look forward to the movies made by Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Kashyap, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Neeraj Pandey, Sujay Ghosh, Anurag Basu, etc as their approach to cinema is very fresh. But this may not have come to them naturally; there were a few before them who sought after bringing this change and one of them has been Ram Gopal Varma (RGV).

RGV started off very fresh, unlike his contemporary film makers. The subjects, editing, camera work was all very new. Remember his movies like Raat, Bhoot, Rangeela, Company and Satya! All those were well conceived, well directed films and they were 'new'. Ofcourse off late all his movies are disasters but he had a good time and perhaps inspired a fresh breed of movie makers, one of which was Anuraag Kashyap, his protege. 

Yes, I am now talking about the man behind Paanch, Black Friday, Return of Hanuman, Udaan, Gulaal, Girl in Yellow Boots and very recently Gangs of Wasseypur. He has been a film maker much like RGV, having excelled under his tutelage and then going beyond him in terms of success. There is so much similarity, yet so much difference, in the work of both these men. Look at the nature of subjects they choose - such extreme subjects. Look at the star cast for their movies - again, very unorthodox. Yes, the protege has turned out to be a better film maker though, perhaps the reason being better application and the right approach. 

If you recall RGV named his production house as Ram Gopal Varma Film Factory. A factory creates similar type of products in variable quantities ofcourse, and off late RGV's approach has been exactly that. Subjects are different but execution is typical. Similar camera work, similar background score and similar editing style. This similarity has become obnoxious. As opposed to that, Anuraag Kashyap's movies are a different brand of cinema. He has matured enough to understand this simple thing which his mentor has been simply clueless about. 

Let me explain this by comparing RGV's Rakhta Charitra to Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur. Both are revenge stories, both are high on violence and both have a generation leap. Now consider the presentation - RGV's typical against Kashyap's unconventional. Consider background score - RGV's typical against Kashyap's realistic. Consider music - RGV's melody-less tunes to Kashyap's groovy tracks. Infact, getting Chhi Chaa Ledar sung by a street child Durga was a master stroke by Kashyap. 

How do you define innovation? Doing different things or doing things differently, isn't it! Well, Kashyap has been doing both and that is the reason for his success. RGV's films have always been about doing things differently, and that is why perhaps his success has always been below par. Kashyap, on the other hand, has worked towards achieving commercial success for experimental cinema and I can't help marvel at his success! 

The way I look at this is that one can certainly out-do his/her mentor. And that is a real sense of achievement, isn't it? The trick is to learn everything you can from your mentor and applying it/experimenting with it like never before. And ofcourse, never cease respecting your mentor! You learnt from him after all :)

The year gone by

2012 was by far the most eventful year in my life, on both personal and professional front. Feels like having lived about 2-3 years in a single year itself. Looking back, couldn't help summarize all of it in 2013's first blog post. 

It was a year when Couponraja.com, my project back in Logicserve, crossed the glorious milestone of 100k fans on Facebook. We celebrated the event with cake cutting, and the team leaving for a short trip to Dapoli and Ganpatipule over the weekend. After spending almost 3 years in Logicserve, I moved out to Komli Media in April. It was a tough decision but it had been on my mind for quite some time. I finally made it, joining Pratik's team as Account Manager. The switch over has been good overall, and hope it stays the same :) 

I always had this dream of getting a full expense paid business and leisure trip sponsored by my employer, and it finally became a reality. I had been to south Goa in October thanks to Komli's annual Offsite. Also, a short business trip to the capital city in November. I traveled to and fro by flight, in both these; another dream which was finally fulfilled. Ofcourse, an international trip is pending yet :) 

Talking about Goa, I had the fortune of being there twice in a year. Back in January I had been there with MET friends, enjoying in north Goa. Except the cruise party, we hung out everywhere else from Club Cabana to Curly's to Britto's to Cafe Lila to Chapora fort and random shacks. It was the funnest trip of 2012. Other trips included the recent Alibaug trip, river rafting at Kolad and Palasdari waterfall in June-July, Ulhas valley trek and my first ever overnight trek at Harishchandra fort in November. 

A few things happened which are going to have a lasting impact on my life. There are certain choices which should never go wrong. You cant afford to fail in certain testing times. But in the end, it is just about living with it. Happiness is more a state of mind than something tangible, isn't it? And certain things make you wonder if you should feel happy about them or sad! In retrospect, I feel happy about certain things, and wish things could have turned out differently. Anyways, let's live with it now and hope 2013 turns out better for good.