THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Playing It My Way is a book that insists on satisfying every bit of expectation the reader may possess regarding a book by Sachin Tendulkar, India’s cricketing legend. Playing It My Way has 28 chapters. The appendix that follows contains Sachin’s farewell speech with which he damped the eyes of millions of his fans after the final match of his career, on 16 November 2013 at the Wankhede Stadium. The publisher is Hodder and Stoughton and the revenue from the selling of the book (actually the author’s share) would go to two charitable causes: the alleviation of malnutrition in children and the provision of clean water to the underprivileged. Playing It My Way has almost 500 pages and covers Sachin’s life from Childhood to his Final Test Match. What I found intriguing is that printed in this book at regular intervals is score cards from significant games Sachin was a part of or whenever the story of his life demanded the scorecard’s presence, which in Sachin’s life is quite of...

I feel talking about a clumsy affair, a delicate event gone terribly wrong. This, perhaps, is what we can say for sure about National Games 2015. Many leftist and Hindu Right wing newspapers as well as channels have already come forward with cases against the sports minister of Kerala. Which newspaper you read is a big problem. The selection of newspaper will decide your point of view. However, from what I understand, every newspaper is printing the stories with the same ugly truths. It feels like reading novels by different authors, but all with same characters and stories. It wasn’t a surprise that in 2015, National Games, the Olympics of India, the largest democracy in the world, would be held in Kerala. Thirty years back, in 1984 Kerala hosted National Games, and this year we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of that event. The arrival of the Games back in Kerala was after a long time of waiting. No one cared much about thinking why have we not been able to host the even...

I came across a report, the other day morning, that said that the Brazilians do not consider this year’s Official Anthem for the FIFA 2014 par expectations. It's been accused of being dominated by an American singer. The only Brazilian voice, a female singer has not given due importance. She appears only towards the second half of the song. You know which song I am talking about here? Yes, the Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez World Cup anthem, We Are One .      Image Courtesy: nydailynews.com The report goes on saying that Brazilians petition the Soccar authorities for making a change in the selection of the official anthem. What I found curious was that the report also suggests exceeding consensus towards the Colombian singer Shakira's new world cup song, Dare (La La La) . I second the Brazilians in their lack of interest towards the We Are One . However, on closer self-inspection I realize that I did not much prefer Shakira's La La La either. The music en...

Is it Shakespeare who asked:- “What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”? Let me think. Yes indeed, in his everlasting love story, Romeo and Juliet . Image Courtesy:sports.ndtv.com Before 1994, Sachin was a rare name in Kerala. It’s a north Indian name, and Keralites did not prefer trying it, ever before. Then something happened. The year between 1994 and 2000 coincided with the rise of a new religion in India, the land of all religions. Much like any other religion, there was a central god figure to this one too. They called this new religion, Cricket, and named their god Sachin. Image Courtesy: Google Indian culture has never been reluctant to worship human idols. Some critics have dubbed it a profitable industry, and some others a fraud. Every epithet appeared pale in the affinity a vast majority of people exhibited towards these human-gods. God-men and God-women even turned to become political kingmakers. Sa...

Warning: This article is fictitious enough to appear real. Read it with a pacifist. Image Courtesy: Google One day in a classroom… When I mentioned reading books in front of the first semester students, they laughed at me and asked; “Last week a student broke his neck by reading a book, sir.” I enquired what happened, actually, and they said the student had fallen asleep while reading from his textbook and that caused a cramp in his neck. It became a college legend and the student was revered as the wise one, the nerd, the intellectual with a broken neck. Although his neck was not broken really, this metaphor stuck. I tried to tell them that I was not talking about reading textbooks alone. Reading indicates a constant interaction with any book. It could be a textbook, or a novel, or poem, or short story collection. It was a pity how narrow their understanding about reading was. However, right then, I observed their drooping eyelids and suddenly changed the subject...