Hate you MSD

“Thanks a lot for your love and support throughout. From 19:29 hours, consider me as retired.”

This tweet was followed by social media going crazy and even prompted the Prime Minister to write a two page long letter eulogizing MSD and, among other people, the Infy founder, Narayana Murthy, telling us the leadership lessons corporate India must learn from Dhoni. I wonder why do some people have all the luck and I am not one among those lucky few. So I hate you Dhoni…many times over.

I hate you Dhoni for having been born in Ranchi. The PM makes a hero of you by saying,” rising from humble beginnings in a small town, you burst onto the national scene, made a name for yourself and most importantly made India proud. Where we come from does not matter as long as we know where we are headed - this is the spirit that you have exuded and inspired many youngsters with”. Is it my fault that I was born and raised in Delhi, married in Kolkata and lived in Mumbai? Maybe had I been born at Cherrapunji, I would have got noticed more. Incidentally, Infy and Dhoni were both born on 7^th July 1981.

I hate you MSD for your success. See how many things you have won….the World T20 in 2007, ICC World ODI championship in 2011, Champions Trophy in 2013 and to add to it three IPL and many more. And when I look back , what have I won…some medals for running, a few trophies and some certificates at school, college and at work place but nothing to really write about. You achieved so much more in just fifteen years while I am still slogging for over thirty long years waiting for my place in the sun!

I hate you MSD for being so calm in all crisis like situations. On the day of the T20 final, 24^th Sept 2007, against Pakistan, India had scored 157. Pakistan was at 145 for 9 when the last over started. The well-set Misbah-ul-Huq was batting confidently on 37 with three sixes. Out of nowhere you brought in Joginder Sharma to bowl. Misbah hit a six off the second ball. Everybody was tense and though the match was lost. Off you went and spoke to Joginder to calm him down…maybe you said Oye Jogi chinta na kar. In the very next ball from Joginder, Misbah scooped it up and Sreesanth took a well-judged catch. India had won! Mahendra Bhai, when faced with a difficult situation, I feel like hiding, procrastinating and quitting and often the fear of losing makes me miss opportunities. I remember a situation in an inter-college football match, I got an opportunity to head the ball into the net and take my team to the final and I missed. How many times have I missed penalty shots and failed my team and self….situation gets the better of me but not you.

I hate you for the being one of the most successful captains and for taking India to the top of the world charts in almost all formats of the game. Narayana Murthy says, as a leader you crafted a grand vision, articulated it, and raised the aspiration, confidence, pride, hope and enthusiasm of your people and went on to achieve great success. You know MSD, I never had a Gary Kirsten to support me or else I, too, would have turned the dipping fortunes of my business charts to ensure the grand plans created moved up and not down. Anyway,as someone said, “Success has a proud parentage and failure is a poor orphan.”

I hate you Long Hairy Creature for your dependability in tough situations and your style of finishing matches. Who can forget the last ball of the World ODI Cup Final in 2011 between India and Sri Lanka? When you hit that helicopter-wala sixer on your way to an unbeaten 91 and won the match for India, a billion hearts erupted in joy. And the great Gavaskar said that he would like to spend the last minute of his life watching you hit that winning six in that 2011 World Cup Final and joyfully leave this world. I am a starter and not a finisher. Often, I start many a thing good, take them to a plane but, somehow, have never been able to hit the ball so high to take it over the ropes. There is always someone there at the boundary line to take the catch and get me out. There have been high points for me as well but yet to have a Gavaskar like encomium written.

I hate you for being able to balance your personal life with your professional priorities. Almost at all major matches, I can spot Sakshi watching you play and cheer for you. It seems the Prime Minister himself remembers, “Seeing a picture of you playing with your cute daughter even as everyone around you was celebrating a victory in a particular tournament!” I have never known, in over three decades of working, what is this business of balancing life and work. Work outweighs all personal priorities and, somehow, don’t remember my wife and kiddo watching me play and celebrate.

I hate you for not just being a good player but also for being a great ambassador of the game. Why did you have to recall Ian Bell in the summer of 2011? Technically the batsman was out but you showed your sportsmanship and recalled the man. The ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat, said "The initial appeal and umpire decision may have been acceptable to the letter of the law, the decision by India captain MS Dhoni and his team - as well as the Team India coaching staff - to withdraw the appeal shows great maturity”. When I was young and got out on a controversial decision, I would take my bat away and made sure the game ended till I was recalled…not really upholding the spirit of the game. But so what, “jiski laathi, uski bhains!”

There are many more reasons for me to hate you….you could keep your Goldilocks hair but in my Irish Brothers’ school they would put chewing gum to make sure we could return next day with a crew cut…you are a Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army and I flunked my NDA exam killing my dream of wearing the army fatigue. But the most important reason for me to hate you was when you suddenly became my daughter’s idol… a huge poster of yours entered my house. No father can accept anyone replacing him as the ultimate hero! And as luck would have it, one fine day, I was at a hotel in Mumbai where CSK team was putting up when a friend said he could get your autograph for my daughter and there it was before me a miniature bat signed by the one and only MSD! How come my daughter never asked for my autograph till date? No wonder my hatred for you knows no bounds!

I am on the lookout for those two hundred people who pulled down the walls and pillars of your under construction Ranchi house in 2007 after Bangladesh Tigers beat your team at the World Cup at Port of Spain. The day I find them Col. Dhoni, I shall extract my pound of flesh. Till then O Captain My Captain, I shall pray and cheer for your victory at the Desert IPL…Salute O Thala Dhoni…there will never be another you.

SS

What’s in an Age?

Let us just cancel 2020 from our calendars…we will not add it to our age, one year that everything happened, and nothing did.

But age has always been more than just a number, hasn’t it? More of a milestone for some, a burden for others. I, for one, have never really given it much of a thought. I just look forward to birthdays and wish they would come more than once a year! But recently, my five grey strands are no longer shy and have been making more than special appearances. And that got me thinking, am I getting old?

“Baba, I cannot believe you went and played. After promising last year, you still went. You said you will only watch. No, but you played all the matches. You are not in school or college anymore. If you break a bone or pull a muscle, then what are we going to do? Do you know how long it’s going to take to heal? Anyway, nobody ever listens to me, but I am supposed to listen to you people. Doctor banaya hi kyun if you never plan to listen to me. I am not talking to you any more…”

Just a glimpse into the numerous “conversations” I have had with my dad when he would come back after playing a football match. While the sentences change their order, the gist remains the same. If, for a change, we do manage to force him not to play a company match or go run a marathon, using every possible scientific and emotional argument, that will be the day he will sulk. He will hardly talk, watch news, be as unanimated as a child who has been asked to finish his homework instead of going out to play. 

While he has been at home during this lockdown, he sent me a photograph one day that triggered an exponential reaction to this. Him doing a shirshasan!!! Within a matter of 15 seconds, I had sent possibly 30 messages. When I called in the evening, I told my mother, “Please don’t give the phone to him, I do not wish to speak to him. He doesn’t know where to stop or act his own age! I will not say anything else, let him do what he wants!” 

Of course, all these end before we go to bed with my father having pacified me with promises of him being careful and not doing it again.

And as I lie down on my bed, I think whether it is right on my part to stop him at all? Should I not be happy that he did this, that he won a match, that he managed to perform a headstand? What if he had done it at 35 instead of 53? Would I have reacted in the same way?

It was the summer of 2009. My mother and I got onto the lift, along with a kid from our building and his mother. He had circular glasses slipping down his nose. “It is my birthday tomorrow,” he announced to me. “Oh, how nice! A very happy birthday to you! How old will you be?” “Nine and a half,” he said, proudly! “What? I think you mean 9,” I laughed. “No, last year I was eight and a half, so this year, I am going to be nine and a half!”

Smart boy, I didn’t really have an answer to that and just nodded my head in agreement. Till today, my mother and I call him ‘Nine and a half’, we really don’t remember his name!

“Wait, I will take it out myself,” she said, as she expertly slipped out her prosthetic eye so that I could examine the socket. “Do you take it out and put it back yourself?” I asked as a cleaned her eye gently. “Yes, I do,” she said as I quickly glanced at the mother, sitting on the one side of the clinic room and she smiled and nodded in agreement. She was seven years old, had retinoblastoma in both eyes, the most common eye cancer in children, diagnosed as a baby, had received chemotherapy, laser treatment to the tumour, multiple sessions of examination under anaesthesia. One eye had to be enucleated or removed while for the other she had to come for regular check-up to make sure that it was completely regressed. She let me examine her retina, looking wherever I asked her to, without complaining about the bright light that I was flashing in her eye, scanning till the periphery for any sign of recurrence. “Do you wear your glasses at school?” I asked, as I was drawing the diagram of her retina. “Yes, and during my dance classes, and when I go to play, because it is important to protect my other eye,” she replied. When she left the room, having replaced her prosthetic eye herself, she just left me amazed. When 27, 47 and 67 year old patients leave you struggling and exhausted with their non-compliance to simple instructions and non-cooperation during examination, these kids not only brighten up your day with their understanding and maturity but also restore hope that all that you explain is not always lost!

12 years BC (read Before Corona)-

“Two tickets for ‘Life in a Metro’ please, the 12.45pm show.”

“Sure ma’am, can you please show me the age proof of your daughter?” said the lady behind the counter.

“Why?” my mother pretended to be surprised, while all along we had expected this question and had decided to just act nonchalant. I had even worn my high heels and carried a purse.

“This movie has an ‘A’ certificate, we have to check.”

“Oh, well, she is going to turn 18 in 6 months now,” as I stared incredulously at my mother! Really? That is your ‘We’ll go confidently and get the tickets, let me talk, you stand behind me mode'?

And that is the story of how we ended up watching ‘Mr Bean’s Holiday’…

8 years BC-

It was my first trip abroad! Having soaked in the beauty of Langkawi, my dad and I had reached Genting. We had done the rides during the day, clicked pictures at the models of Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and the Canals of Venice and visited Ripley’s. 

“Let’s try, na,” said Dad. 

“You know they won’t let me go, you go inside, I will wait here,” I said.

“If they don’t let you in, then even I am not going, but let’s take a chance,” he urged.

“How old is she?” The security guy at the entrance of the casino asked the most obvious question.

“She is 17, her birthday is next month. She will not play, she just wants to see.”

“You know I cannot allow that,” he smiled as he looked at my passport.

“I assure you, she will not play. Let her just go in and take a look. I give you my word.”

“Well, you will be 18 in a few days…alright, as long as you keep that promise. Go on kid!” he grinned.

Being asked my age and which class I study in, have never been surprising questions for me. While initially it would irk me and I would reply sternly, I started enjoying later. The look of astonishment, jaw-drops and fumbled apologies became quite fun as I would tell them I have finished school and am doing MBBS, or I have become a qualified doctor. Even patients sometimes find it hard to trust junior doctors and I don’t blame them. Most of the times even we do not generate much confidence in them, but at times it’s quite amusing to see them being taken aback when you tell them your age and that you are also a doctor!

Movie halls, autos, patients and building aunties have become routines and I am quite used to it…or so I thought!

Corona Times, year 2020-

After a case presentation on zoom, our Sir had ordered some food for us. He had asked me to take it from the delivery guy outside. I could not find anybody at the hospital gate so I came back. “Hasn’t he delivered?”

“No, there was nobody,” I said.

“But he called me that he had reached…wait let me call him back,” he said.

“Alright, I will just go outside and check,” I said and went out.

The delivery boy was there this time and he was on the phone with my boss, I supposed. As he handed over the packet to me, I heard him say, “Yes Sir, ek bacchi aayi thi lene, maine de diya!”

I stopped dead on the track and spun around…the words still sinking in and before I could think of a rebuttal, he had left!

Whether you add 2020 to your age or not, smoothen out your wrinkles with multiple injections, wear your mother’s heels and lipstick, or dye those silver strands, your age comes out no matter what you do because none of these truly reflect how young or old you are. So, I shall flaunt my greys proudly, maybe they will make me look older…or I may go one day and get them dyed purple! 

MS