The last of the 20s!

Its that time of the year again. And it almost feels like yesterday when I was typing out the birthday post a year ago. I should simply call this year "Flash". Coz the whole thing seems like a blur.

And yesterday kinda sums it up coz I couldn't find the time to write this post. I suppose time moves faster when life is busy. And this is the good kind of busy. Where you're working on interesting projects, doing interesting things, meeting new people and having fun doing all of it, you cannot complain. The year was chugging along as usual for the most part until June when it really started to pick up steam. After that I suddenly seemed to have embraced the great outdoors. Maybe I should call this the year of the hike! I've hiked more this year than all other years combined. And even though part of it is coz I haven't been running as much as I want to, its something that I have come to enjoy a lot. I'm fairly certain I can run most of the hikes I did this year but I would not have noticed the beautiful scenery, had colorful conversations and laughed as much if I had. That's not to say that I'm moving away from running any time soon :).

Perhaps its also a sign that one always seems to have more on their plate(and mind) with every passing year. And this coming from a single guy still in his 20s. Good luck to the future me :).

Which brings me to the big three-Oh! For most people, the 20s is the decade that shapes them as an adult. Its almost a journey of self-discovery in many ways. And by the end of it, you probably have a quiet sense of self-awareness and self-belief that you can tackle pretty much anything that life throws at you. At least that's how I feel. I think that's also a good measure of whether you are ready to not just live for yourself but share your life with someone else.

So here's a toast to the defining decade!

All Blacks

I started watching rugby during the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. I instantly became a fan of the All Blacks. Their open, fast, free-flowing style of rugby was brilliant to watch and easy to like. And the Haka is one of the great spectacles in all of sport. I grew up watching the likes of Andrew Mehrtens, Zinzan Brooke, Christian Cullen and ofcourse, Jonah Lomu. Year after year you'd see them dominate the tri-nations. Watching them play you'd think there is no way they could lose. And yet when it came to the World cup they would somehow conspire to do just that. They would dominate sides in the round-robin matches before 'choking' in the knockout stages.

Last night's win in the World Cup Final at Eden Park, in many ways, mirrors India's victory at the Cricket world cup this year. New Zealand is a rugby mad nation. They've been waiting for a World Cup win since 1987. Playing at home is always added pressure. And they were playing their old nemesis, France. In past world cups they've always won by huge margins before losing a dog fight to France. But this time they came away with the scrappiest of wins by the narrowest of margins. There was none of the classical rugby on display that the All Blacks are known for. But in the end, all that they'll care about is that they're the ones holding aloft the Web Ellis trophy.

The rewards are in the journey!

Five years ago to the day, I defended my graduate thesis. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I had built it up in my head as the be-all and end-all of all things academic in grad school. For almost a year I had been working toward this day, looking forward to it. Had all this nervous energy flowing through me. When my prof finally signed off on the document, it was bittersweet. The defense in the end turned out to be a mere formality. There was no real sense of achievement. I had a document which now said I was a Master of Science. Friends were calling me up and congratulating me. But I didn't really feel like that. The fuss seemed pointless.

And as I walked around campus shortly after I realized the defense itself really has no meaning. Its a mere full-stop. What will stay with me through life are the long hours spent in the lab, the conversations with my labmates, the frustrations of being stuck, the little victories of progress. Those are the moments that I'll look back on fondly.

Running a marathon is very similar. On race day, for the most part, you're just going through the motions. The real joy lies in the grind of the training. Getting out of bed at 5am when you don't really want to, running with friends, pushing your body despite it telling you that your running on empty, the frustrationo of being injured, carefully treading the line between training and overtraining and passing milestones along the way. That's the heart and soul of it!

Sometimes we get too caught up in the results and the consequences that we fail to appreciate the process itself. I think a lot of times its the journey that matters more than the destination and the sooner we learn to enjoy it the better we are for it.

Fairy tales do exist!

Being a sports fan is one of the most frustrating things. Its an emotional roller coaster peppered with far too many lows that it would seem like it should be strictly for the mentally unstable. And yet for those of us who cannot imagine a life without sport, it's something that seems to make no difference. Because punctuating all the agony and heartbreak are those rare moments when the stars align to make your wildest dreams come true. And the euphoria that follows is matched by few things in life.

Being a true fan is always about taking sides. There is no meaning to a match if you are not rooting for someone to win. We tend to pick sides on instinct. On seeing something beautiful like watching Henin's poetic backhand or Mark Waugh's elegant cover drive or Jordan's hanging fadeaway or a smooth Bekele stride.

But nothing adheres us to someone like defeat. There is something strangely endearing about someone who faces adversity. You see your problems in that person or team. Their battle is your battle. Their tears are your tears. Their victory is your victory. Nothing bonds a fan to a sportsman like the agony of a defeat. Which is why when they do the impossible and win it all, its fiercely personal to us. I can count the number of times I've felt this on one hand in the two decades that I have followed sport. You will always remember where you were when it happened. It is always the same feeling that overcomes you when it happens - pure unconditional happiness!

I was sitting in front of my computer back home in Madras following IBM live updates of the 2001 Wimbledon final on people's Monday. And when Goran finally did the unthinkable, it was the perfect end to a decade filled with frustration and bitter disappointment. The next day I ended up treating every friend of mine at the college canteen. People thought I was loony. And though I started following the Boston Red Sox only in the late 90s, in their quest to break the curse of the Bambino, I could somehow feel their decades of hurt. So when it finally came together in the Fall of 2004, as I watched from the campus gym in Minneapolis, there was a need to let out that joy and share it with others. Given that I couldn't find any fellow baseball fans around, I instead wrote about it here.

But if you are an Indian, nothing has tormented you like the cricket World Cup. For those of us who started watching cricket with the advent of Tendulkar, we have grown up listening to stories thrust upon us by our fathers about the likes of Kapil Dev, Gavaskar and the legendary spin quartet and how they did us proud in '83. And yet we had never gone through a moment like that until today. When Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit that emphatic six over long-on to end it all, the wait for a generation of Indians was over. We had our own '83. No matter what happens from here on, we will always have April 2nd, 2011! Years from now I'll be passing on to the next generation the story of how I spontaneously stood up from my couch as the ball soared over long-on and let out an uncontrollable yell that brought to fruition twenty years of expectations and dreams!

And that is precisely what makes it all worth the while!!

Women's tennis a bore?

Anybody who thinks women's tennis isn't interesting should've seen today's Aussie Open match between Francesca Schiavone and Svetlana Kuznetsova. After 4 hrs and 44 mins, Schiavone finally prevailed 16-14 in the final set. This after two medical time-outs and saving six match points. And she's 30 yrs old!
What stood out, especially towards the end of the set, was the quality of shot making. Rallies were being won almost entirely on winners. The rallies themselves were smart and full of variety unlike a lot of women's matches which are slugfests between eastern europeans.
And in terms of drama, this match was second to none.

I really think this is the most competitive era of women's tennis and this really was a banner match for the WTA.