Frills and Fancies

If you do follow football and you haven't heard, read or seen the hiding that the German teams handed to their Spanish counterparts in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League, then, well, you must be living under not just any rock, but a rock particularly resilient to the outside world.
German efficiency is an over-used term, but one only has to see to believe what a fine crop of efficient Germans can do. On the football-field at least.

Living on a land which is around 5 and a half hours ahead of London in time, the European matches are broadcast in my country at ungodly hours, but I did find the time to watch the replay of the entire match between Barcelona (from Barcelona, Spain) and Bayern Munich (from Munich, Germany), which finished 4-0 to the Germans.
While Bayern Munich were favourites to win the first tie in their own back-yard (semi-finals in the Champions League are two-legged), an annihilation the like of which happened was on nobody's mind as the two teams stepped out. So what really went wrong for the Catalans? How were they brushed aside despite having over 65% of possession?
Cliched, but true, it was all down to efficiency. The Germans managed 15 attempts on goal with just 34% of the ball while their opposition could only get a paltry 4 attempts, only 1 one target. All this making around 200 odd passes, compared to Barcelona's nearly 650 passes. Short, quick passing, or "tiki-taka" of Barcelona was made irrelevant.
Here is how I would break the result down, in steps, and attempting to draw metaphors for life in the process.
One Dimensional Barcelona vs Versatile Bayern
We all know what Barcelona is about, epitomising "total football", where all eleven players are involved in nearly every move, tapping the ball around until it leaves your opposition dizzy and confused, forcing a lapse of concentration, a sudden gap in the defense, slipping the ball through defensive lines and finishing. Barcelona are about as pretty as any team in world football gets. Week-in, week-out, lesser teams of the Spanish League and sporadically, the greater teams on the continent fall prey to this impeccable order of play. "Everyone wants the ball, and everyone can pass it" as the commentator repeatedly drones.
Bayern are no pushovers, capable of producing passing master-classes of their own. They recently demolished a team 9-2. and have scored 20 goals in their past four games, but the means were different. The four they scored against Barcelona were different from the 16 scored in domestic leagues. The domestic goals were Barcelona goals, so to speak, while the goals against Barcelona were the end product of incisive effective passing. Defending deep and rigidly, as soon as Bayern won the ball, they sped down the pitch, making two, three, four passes to reach the other end of the pitch. Two of the four goals were off counter-attacks. So what took Barca a hundred passes took Bayern 5. Efficient indeed.
Lesson - Living on a principle is effective, none can argue with the success of Barcelona, but a plan B, adaptability can prove handy. Never get predictable. Barcelona have been playing this way since 2009, it was high time other teams found them out.

Brain vs Brawn 
Delicate, intricate play is what defines Barcelona. The frills and the fancies, show-boating to a degree. Add to that the prodigious, never seen before individual skill of the likes of Andres Iniesta and to a greater degree Lionel Messi, you have a well-oiled attractive team that people would pay to watch. Bayern aren't too ugly themselves, but chose to be so this time around. Mid-field engine Bastian Schweinsteiger, a tireless and gifted footballer was given the task of keeping the "amigos" quiet, flying in every time the ball as much as strayed near the above mentioned players, shoving and bossing his feet to the ball, not flinching as these men tried every trick in the book. Dropping a shoulder one way and moving the ball the other, faking passes, none of it worked on the Germans led by the above mentioned Schweinsteiger. The Germans were absolutely ruthless and Messi was as ineffective on the day as an eight year old feeling a football on his feet for the first time, with the Bavarian team often pushing the boundaries of fair-play in their brute but effective ways. No frills and Fancies for show in Germany.
In fact, two of the goals came from corners, the diminutive and quick footed Spaniards no match for the tall, imposing Germans. Barcelona were out-muscled at every corner of the park and Munich's tenacious strikers  busting a gut to get to the ball and finishing.
Lesson - It's nice to be pretty, but you have to have end product. You'd rather be effective than awe-inspiring. Be prepared sometimes to slug it out and play rough.
This softness of Barcelona comes perhaps from being used to playing Spanish clubs lacking in any real quality, too awe-struck by their opponents. Which is perhaps why the English league is still considered the best by many. Whether you are Messi or anybody else, always be ready to be treated rough.

Fitness
 The fact of the matter is, Lionel Messi wasn't fit enough to play, but Barcelona gambled, knowing that even a half-fit Messi was as good as any other footballer, better even than a majority who play the game. And when your trump card isn't 100%, your team rarely is. Given how well Bayern played, they could probably have shackled even a fully-fit Messi, but surely, the Spanish team would have made a better fist of things. Not once could Messi, or Iniesta for that matter, shake off the determined Germans and make a mockery of their defense, like they usually do.
Lesson - 100% of something lesser is greater than 50% of something greater. Explanation - Barcelona could probably have coped better if they had played a fully fit Cesc Fabregas, Messi's natural replacement, rather than playing a half-fit Messi, even though Messi is a better footballer.

A summary 
On the whole, it was a triumph of guts over talent, hard-work over technique and Germany over Spain. Bayern Munich's no-nonsense-in-your-face approach rattled Barcelona and rendered even the best player in the world listless.

The Voice Within

Have you ever wondered, or paid attention, to that little voice in your head? No, I don't mean your conscience, the one that silently whispers no to smoking and yes to studying. Nor am I talking about the voice of your conversations with imaginary friends and objects. Its not metaphorically or symbolically that I say "voice inside your head". I'm talking about the voice that echoes from somewhere in the middle of your brain. The small voice that is reading these words at this instant. And without this voice, reading would be impossible.
Have you ever wondered, or paid attention, to ear-phones? Well, who really hasn't? These small discs or spheres which are for some reason almost always black have the power to transport you to a new world, make you feel like you are floating, your feet firmly on the floor but your head in the clouds. Ear-phones are perhaps man's brightest invention for the broken souls (as long as they're not tangled), not only barring the entry of nagging and complaining voices of fellow beings and replacing it with the language of the soul; music but also making sure the noise comes from nowhere.
We are born with ears so fine tuned that we can identify a certain direction with every single sound, be it the leaves rustling in the light morning breeze in a rain-forest, the mechanical ticking of a clock or even an aircraft deafeningly taking off in the vicinity. If however, you remember this post the next time you put on ear-phones, be sure, for a few seconds at least, to try and single out the exact direction the music emanates from. And you would be pleasantly surprised to see that the voice emanates from within, somewhere near the middle of your brain, beneath the corpus callosum (if I remember my biology well). Exactly from where the little voice that is reading these lines has it's source. What would surprise you (albeit pleasantly) is not the fact that the voice coming from precisely here is out of the ordinary, but because you have probably never noticed that it came from right here.
And that is perhaps why ear-phone music seems to have that edge over other sources of music under the "effectively reaching the soul" category. When you listen from a ear phone, the lack of any direction makes it seem like it is you who singing to yourself. From your brain to your brain. Rather than mouth to ear, which is a rather messy business involving the cacophony of the world at large.
Delving even deeper into the little matter of the direction, if sound were a vector quantity, a physical quantity with magnitude and direction, then this inner voice would be like a zero vector, a vector which doesn't have any direction. Or as my physics teacher once said with great insight, a vector with all directions.
The inner voice rouses the soul the most effectively, and ear phones eliminate direction, aiding us in pretending that our very own inner voice is singing. The voice which comes from nowhere, but feels like it is surrounding us, from everywhere.

For You

Deep into the stillness of the night, 

In desolation or in anger. 

On a wet pillow or a smiling lap, 

wherever your head may lie. 

Never fear. 

In inexplicable bouts of joy, 

in elation, ecstasy or absolute grief. 

In loneliness unsurpassed, 

Or when on yourself, your doubts are cast

In solemn thought or in carefree lethargy

In the cacophony of life, or in deathly silence

In vivid art or a bland scribble. 

In the serenity of the mountains,

the lust green by the gushing stream. 

Ow within the claustrophobic confines 

of your lonely existence. 

Even if you have nothing left

That is dear

Never fear 

For there is always a song 

for you

Just the right tone, 

To keep you company when you're alone

A lend a rhyme scheme

To the meaningless poem of life

To lend balance. 

In delight and despair alike

friends and foes drown away into the eternity

Of the song right now

somewhere, 

Just for you

So you cease to exist

And begin to live

“People haven't always been there for me but music always has.” 
― Taylor Swift

Banana Experiments

What does the word banana remind you of? The soft sweet pulp? The slippery peel? Its perishable nature?

Well, let me tell you what banana brings to my mind. I once inadvertently happened to read a piece somewhere in some magazine, or perhaps elsewhere, that the banana activates the mind. Stimulates it, makes it work more efficiently. I tried it out a couple of times and could see that the author was good as his word, the banana speeding my mathematical calculations and increasing my attention span, not greatly but at least noticeably. Inevitably, this is what banana brings to my mind. 

But the foremost association my mind has formed with these yellow curled cylindrical fruits are their aid in digestion, more specifically, egestion. A biological term, which when translated to baby language reads potty. And in adult language reads bowel movement. Sometimes more explicit. A single banana, quite literally, greases your butt and lets the solid waste flow through like there was no tomorrow. Quite relieving. As long as its at the right time. 

I like the Hindu concept of Muhurta.There exists a right time, auspicious time for everything. And our natural calls are no exception. Especially with the conflicting effects of a banana in the alimentary canal. 

And there could be no wronger (I use the grammatically incorrect intentionally, for emphasis), time for it than during an exam. And I have unfortunately, though not unwittingly, been on the receiving end twice. 

With my unparalleled belief in the ability of the banana to enhance my cranial efficiency, I encouraged the efficiency of my digestive system. And before I knew it, my rectum was full, right while I was writing the exam. 

Here are a few things about having a full rectum. First and foremost, filling of the rectum empties the brain. The rest of the effects are trivial,and are experienced only if the outlet valve is not opened immediately. They include shivering, weakness all round, inability to decide on whether to sit or stand. 

life revolves around the several choices we make, weighing up the pros and the cons. The question that haunts me before every exam is not my preparedness, or my thoroughness with the content, but whether I should have a banana or not. I have risked it several times, managing to stay alive despite the heated assault of my underside. I have managed to literally, come out on top. 

Bowels vs Brain via Banana is how I would word this scenario. 

Walk In Thunder

To walk in the rain, let go all inhibition,

Walk in the downpour, of ambition

Walk in the rain, alone

Walk in the rain, even if there's nothing to moan

With every drop that lashes your face,

A tear drop too,

Silently, only for you.

Walk in the lightning,

The flash of earth's brilliance,

Transformation in resilience.

Walk in the lightning,

To see the sky lightening

If only for a second.

Walk in the rain,

Forget your sorrow.

In the pleasant pitter-patter of the rain drops

Trust me

Your troubles do seem hollow.

Every wish unfulfilled,

Every goal unconquered

Every path, traversed and failed

Seems golden

In the merry light of the rain.

The rain never ceases,

Nor the tears that pollute it

Every drop

like the cradle of your mother's arm

Hear the noise, the yell of nature

A billion drops, for every creature.

And then suddenly

Hear the thunder

All serenity and tranquility

In the noise

The distant rumble of satisfaction

To express your hearts elation

For walking in the rain

Forget all sorrow

Walk in the rain, even if there's nothing to moan

With every drop that lashes your face,

A tear drop too,

Silently, only for you.

Betrayal

 And as I continued to type meaningless words into the chat window, the guilty glance to the bottom right corner of the screen gave me a relief. 5:47 pm. Still far from six o clock, the self stipulated stipulated time for me to switch over, from the digital screen I am currently looking at to the fresh pages of my books that beckoned to me so lovingly and unceasingly. 13 more minutes to waste. I still am uncertain whether round figures really are an auspicious a time to start ones work as students make it out to be or it is simply a farce designed to fool the self into buying a few extra minutes without stinging too far into the conscience. And I will never know. Smoke screens to save yourself from the embarrassment of answering to your own mind are rarely blown that easily. 
A double standard you see. I know I need to study, I know I will eventually kick myself before sleeping for unnecessarily and so deceptively biding the hours in fruitless exercises. It is 7:08 pm right now for your information. I am not one to waste time. It was all planned, I blog till 7.30, and then get back to my books. The quest for a round number. 
If excuse making were a talent, we would all steal the prize for it. The biggest excuses in our lives are to ourselves. Procrastination is never unjustified to the self. In every instance of the postponement of a task, we serve to ourselves with an excuse. A so called reason for the absence of immediate action. What is to stop me, or all of us for that matter, to start jobs at odd times.Why do we set our alarms at round figures? Or at wacky times designed to wake us up at a round figure? Superstition? 
Round figures are a nice to way to get round things. I thought I shall start at 4, but since its already 3 minutes past 4, I might as well get done with this all important and crucial computer game and start at 4.15. And before you know it its 4.17. 
As humans, we always strive for the linear. The logical, the practical. We like cubes with six faces to decide money. Or coins with two sides to settle disputes. But the world is spherical, there is no face to it. Nature is never built in straight lines. Our obsession with round figures perhaps is something to do with that. The numbers repeat a zillion time over in tens. And two fives fit in neatly to make a ten. Human beings find comfort on the definite faces, the flat edges. It is not an inherent natural instinct. It is an acquired malady. Acquired over centuries of aiming for the linear. The perfect. 
And now the bottom right of my screen tells me it is 7:29. So I will cease to lengthen this post and give my books the pleasure of my company at an auspicious round figure. 

The Truth

As the blue coloured, rickety old BMTC bus snaked it's way through the heavy rush hour traffic, he thoughtfully gazed out of the window. Of course, he couldn't see that the bus was blue from inside but he had noticed it before getting on. He had never been to a city before, but he had been shown extensive videos of it. He remembered those videos, his training, his early life.
He was stopped short in his reverie as the bus jerked to a halt and a man took the seat next to him. He gazed at him, almost worshipful. He too was in his early twenties, he thought, as the man carelessly fiddled with his brand new touch-screen phone. He too had a similar device, though not a normal phone. They called it a satellite phone.
And their bag colour matched too, he noticed. The same tinge of gray. His was gray so it was not conspicuous, but the man's was so for he liked the colour. In it, the man had books. But in his own bag he had something else, not worth discussing. 
He suddenly shivered, which had nothing to do with the chill wind of the Bangalore December. His past gripped him, quite suddenly. Dashing him like a wave. He too could have been like the man seated next to him. Armed with education. With books in his bag, a normal mobile phone in his pocket. A bag of the colour he liked. A life of dignity, a future he could dream about. 
But now it was too late. A message on his "special" phone told him to get down. They were tracking him thoroughly. 
And his family too. It was ingenious indeed, he knew he wasn't supposed to know that bit. And so did his masters, but they made sure he knew it while knowing he wasn't supposed to know it. It really hit you hard, the fear, anxiety, that way. Cruelly, brutally, systematically, they had exploited him. His lack of purpose, lack of satisfaction. He had always wanted to make it big, be different. Well he certainly was different now. Wanting to be normal certainly was different, but not the kind of difference he had hoped for. 
Nothing kills you more than imminent death. And he had learnt that in the past hour or so. He recollected fondly, his growing days. His home village, when his mother would call him from play for the evening prayer. Back then too, he wanted to be different. Obsessed with prayer, he would rather pray than play. He had always been different. Now it certainly was different, but not what he wanted. They had misused his faith in God.
He stopped himself again, from thinking the same thing. He was entering the cycle of self-pity. It was an entirely new equation to actually do what he had been talking about, with a sense of foreboding, for about a month now. 
Without realising, he had just received a suitcase from a stranger, with the briefest of nods between them. His gray bag, again to be inconspicuous, was the sign. He had never seen him before, and he never would again. 
He waited, for long. He had clear instructions. He was to board the first, most crowded bus. The bus could be going anywhere, it didn't matter. He was going only one place, where eventually all those who were born would. It did not bother him to verify the contents of the suitcase. He knew them well.
And as he waited at the bus stand, ignorant of the local language, in an alien land, no one he could turn to for help, he felt lonely, desolate. He was in enemy territory.
A bus came and went, almost empty. It didn't serve his purpose. A bearded man in white, got off. He almost shouted for his father, but stopped himself. He turned away, trying to beat back the tears. Was he to give in after all that he had done? Were the tears a sign of his weakness or attachment he had promised to let go off? Had he forgotten this was not about him, but it was for an ideology, for his brothers and sisters? It was for humanity, and he was to be their martyr. 
He turned back. The bearded man was still there, but it certainly wasn't his father. But he looked like he was of the same blood, from the same land. And it gave him an uneasy security, to stare at the bearded man. He almost did smile, when a loud screech informed him of the bus. The bus was jam packed, like the bus from his village.
The mad rush allowed him to, for one last time, look at his father. Tears streamed readily now, though no one bothered to ask him why. Why should they?
In a rush, he felt his blood boil. He had been hood-winked, cheated, into believing all they fed him. And now as they happily gloated, the butcher was sharpening his knife for him. He was sharpening his own knife. It hit him hard, really did. 
All those days of battle training, ideological training, was a farce. He could have been like everyone. His choice was to be different. There was no reward for him, no immortal place in humanity for his act as they promised him, had him believe. Only a place in hell, not very different. He was just a guinea pig, not very different. 
His hands quivered, but never did he let go off his suitcase. Or his bag. He nearly fainted. The crowd pushed him up the bus. He was squeezed, amidst a sea of humanity. The people, who like him would soon move upward, forward in the cycle of life.
He wanted solace, rest, peace. Only the contents of the suitcase, ironically, could bring him that. And for one last time looked around, his lips moving in prayer. The same man with the phone and the gray bag tripped him up. 
He wanted to hug him, tell him how lucky he was. Inform him, what danger he was in. Ask him to run away. Ask him, how he could become like him. Something stopped him from pulling the wire. He knew exactly which wire was to be pulled. But couldn't do it. A message beeped on his phone. He threw it away.
He had to do it. His family, who though he betrayed he still loved, was in danger. But they were not worth so many innocent men, women and children. 
The heartlessness of it all crept under his skin. His family deserved it, simply for bringing up one like him. A voice screamed from within. Hug the man, he did. And how. He looked up for one last time, to God, before pulling the wire. And then he heard nothing. 
He would never be a martyr. Always be a rascal, in the eyes of the people, the millions. And a failure in the eyes of his "Masters". Not anymore were they his masters. 
They had always called Bangalore "The city that had never been bombed". Miraculously, until now it had escaped the true wrath of a bomb blast.
He didn't know where he was. Or what he was doing there. He lifted a paper, and looked at his eyes. They were closed, but yet happy. He preferred the Jail until his imminent death, over the training camps, where they filled your head with the bullshit, the rot. And he dropped off to sleep again, in paradise. 
Many stories would be told, of the apparent hero, who saw his actions and pulled his hand from his wire. How another clung onto his suitcase, threw it away. But only he knew the truth. 
The truth. Yes, that was what saved them. The truth took over him, his conscience, better sense, caused his hand to shiver, his legs to crumble under his own weight. The truth overpowered him, thrashed him up, left him beaten and bruised. The truth triumphed. Like the residents of this foreign land liked to believe. He was one of them.  
Bangalore would never be bombed. He somehow knew.

Sweltering Summers

Certain circumstances found me, around a month ago, at a temple near my house. And as I walked hither and thither, I quite by accident, overheard a rather small chap, 'bout three feet tall, happily announcing to his uncle (so I assumed) "My summer holidays have started".
The ever so slight and nearly undetectable smile that crossed my lips was involuntary. Not an accident though. His small sentence had taken me back, back to the days of greener pastures. Of unbridled joy that scarcely needed a reason. Excitement that hardly need a stimulant. Being a kid.
"Summer holidays" would be found under "archaic usage" section of my memory, something so long gone and forgotten that it has been perhaps a year since even the thought of it entered my upper storey. This upper storey has been kept busy, continuously receiving information, continuously reproducing gained data for academic purposes, in the name of a bright future. In striving to secure education at the best and most elite of institutions. In the quest of knowledge, which eventually, all of us hope, would replicate into wealth, which in turn we all hope, would replicate into comfort and luxury and security and everything else the government so blithely claims to be providing us. Which would in turn, again we hope, replicate into happiness. A pretty wife, a spacious home, filled with laughter and joy of children and grandparents alike. Lol happiness!! 20 years on? 50 years perhaps? Still hope. In hope we all live, success is when we cease to hope and begin to experience.
But even then, success, isn't by any means proximal to happiness. I'll tell you what happiness is.
Happiness is climbing up the tree of your neighbour's  mango tree simply to enjoy the view from the terrace. Happiness is completely screwing up your meal timings in the summer hoildays for you were playing outside the whole day and couldn't tell the east from the west. Or possibly you never bothered to study the sun's position. Not yet responsible enough in the eyes of your parents to sport a watch on your left wrist.
And let me not stop here, in the gay descriptions of summer holidays alone. Back then, when switch-boards were the only thing you reached for, even classes weren't monotonous.
Being gay meant only being happy, nothing in life was implied. A red-star meted out by the teacher next to thy holy name could make a day, a black dot at the same spot was the only sadness that existed. School bags didn't cause back-aches, friends didn't cause heart-aches.
Above all though, nothing failed to amaze. Nothing failed to awe. Hours and hours could be spent looking up at the fan and wondering about the mystic power that caused it to turn by the flick of a switch. Cars and trains weren't means of transportation, they were fantasy and magic. The world was still a nice place, full of nice people, only those who smiled. Only those who pampered. Those days when we knew nothing.
Innocence, that is happiness. When we know what we are truly after, only then will we know disappointment. Responsibility leads to guilt, failure leads to bitterness. Knowledge, eventually, leads to sadness. The more you know, the more you know how much you don't know.
When you don't know, you think you do. Everything is within your reach, everything is achievable. Weaknesses don't exist. There existed days, not in legends but when I was kid, when I thought I could sing and draw well. When I thought my father was the king of the world, my mother an angel. Not today.
Knowledge has let us down, shown us how bad we are.
Because, real happiness and contentment is impossible to achieve, and hence we are better of contented in ignorance of reality than dissatisfied in the perception of reality. No dream is too large, but no size is enough, when you know there exists something bigger.
Sugar sours in comparison with the juice of the cane, as do grapes beyond reach. A world where bitter is perceived as sweet, in the lack of knowledge, of existence of sugar, is the only world where everything is sweet. Where the neck aches to prevent you looking up at the grapes.
In the world of childhood. The world of happiness without success.