Shout
Scream
Yell
Hit
Whip
Kill
All in the name and garb of anger.
Anger for which I am not accountable, but some one else because he/she provoked me!
Saucy Sardonix makes a guest appearance here apres longtemps....here we go :
Its cruel but it’s the truth. Federer’s win at Rolland Garros 2009 speaks volumes about Rafael Nadal.
Federer is no doubt a genius, god’s gift to tennis. His forehands are like laser guided missiles, his backhand is poetry, his groundstrokes are simultaneously the examples of brutal strength and soft touches. Federer was a natural serve and volley player who chose to massacre opponents from the baseline, used his ace hitting ability to pull out of the woods and changed the paradigms of placement angles. The form of Federer post Wimbledon 2003 made the Sampras summit of 14 slams look more like a mere road hump rather than the monumental achievement it is in reality.
Fate, however it seems, is not without a touch, an equilibrium. The 2005 French open announced a teenage sensation, 2006 confirmed it, 2007 labelled him a clay court wonder and 2008 revealed the truth- Rafael Nadal was the one man who stopped Federer from dominating world tennis. The following year he discovered his confidence on grass, toppled the champion’s unbeaten 5 year run at Wimbledon and then reduced him to tears in Australia. Suddenly, the transit from 13 to 14 slams looked impossible, French open seemed out of reach forever and a career grand slam was fast looking to be a chapter in Roger Federer’s dream.
What was most surprising was that the champion who had decimated rivals on all surfaces, made tennis seem the easiest sport in the world, added a new dimension to the word grace was made to look fragile and vulnerable. Rafa’s wins combined with health and injury problems for Federer gave new life to other players. Murray, Djokovic and many others derived inspiration from the Spaniard’s conquests. Federer was having a run of being beaten rather being unbeaten.
At Roland Garros 2009, Federer was reportedly practicing return of heavy topspin (Nadal’s most potent weapon) and strategies to counteract other known Nadal arsenal when news of Soderling’s conquest broke through. The champ promptly packed his bags and retired to his hotel. Such was the mental impact of Nadal’s exit on the swiss ace. It became obvious that Federer was confident against everyone except Rafael Nadal. The win at Roland Garros 2009 may be a backhanded compliment to Roger Federer as the phrase ‘in the absence of Rafa in the finals’ would eternally linger as a punctuation mark.
Perhaps in 2010 Federer may exorcise his demons once and for all by beating Rafa in Roland Garros, an encore to his triumph over the Majorcan in a clay court final this year. Then the world will undoubtedly be united in their ode to this genius from Oberwii as the greatest ever. Till then Rafael Nadal can be thanked for restoring interest and parity to the sport that was fast becoming Federer’s professional pastime.
Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Childline on what she had learned from her work with Childline in India: "Learning to let go."
"Everything will not be exactly the way you want it. You have to let people take charge. The best thing is not to have a picture of what you want, but to have basic principles."
How to change the world, Social entrepreneurs and the Power of new ideas : David Bornstein
"It is in the power of everybody, with a litte courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to listen, and to attempt to increase, even by a tiny amount, the quantity of kindness and humanity in the world. But it is careless to do so without remembering how previous efforts have failed, and how it has never been possible to predict for certain how a human being will behave. History, with its endless procession of passers-by, most of whose encounters have been missed opportunities, has so far been largely a chronicle of ability gone to waste. But next time two people meet, the result could be different. That is the origin of anxiety, but also of hope, and hope is the origin of humanity."
- What becomes possible when soul-mates meet.
An intimate history of humanity, Theodore Zeldin
The moon is our constant companion,
as we trudge along a lonely, straight road;
Eyes enveloped in the silhouette shadows of the teaks and the palashs,
tall and barren as they stand,
I am captivated by the unrealised beauty in their barrenness;
As if whispering in my ears "shorn of all splendour, I still stand in full glory and splendour"
and making me feel at that particular moment,
a complete sense of contentment and peace.
Give me Tagore any day, to pull me out of my disillusionment and keep me grounded in life.
"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
- Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore.
Seems like yesterday when I set foot at the Delhi tarmac on a chilly grey morning in January and almost by the blink of an eyelid, its one month now...And no, I have neither visited Agra nor done the usual touristy things in full measure, though definitely I can be held guilty of visiting Dilli Haat couple of times and hogging momos, dhabeli and misal pav at the food stalls there.
Huh! I could n't resist, after all!
To think I started writing with the noble intention of penning down my experiences in Delhi and not speak of food, but hey, hold on a second...How can one be in Delhi and not speak, think, wonder, talk, smell, listen to or (finally!) eat the food in Delhi? Not unless one is totally indifferent to food in the overall plate of life!
Delhi is truly not just our national capital but our street food capital as well. Life of the common man revolves around food. There is potato and panneer in almost everything. Sample this: Morning starts off with aalu parantha for breakfast, and typically it is served with some dal/gravy which has some pieces of boiled potatoes floating in it. For lunch, the menu is for your asking - rotis (made of wheat flour with a drop of ghee, thankfully!) And along with that is always one of the above in the combination as below :
A) aalu gobi/ aalu capsicum/ aalu matar/methi aalu/aalu jeera ...or
B) matar panneer/ panneer capsicum/ panneer butter masala/ palak panneer...
On some lucky days, I get vegetable korma which is sinfully rich, being made in cashew paste and having a generous portion of aalu and panneer besides carrots, beans and cauliflower.
I got frustrated by this overdose of aalu and panneer and ordered chana bathura one afternoon only to stunningly discover that the bathura had some small pieces of panneer stuffed in it and the yummy chana masala had couple of big pieces of boiled potatoes in it (which of course got the cold shoulder treatment from me)!
Oh, by the way, if you do get bored with aalu and panneer, there is always chole masala, dal makhani and rajma masala. And over and above all this, there is the delectable world of chaat! Samosa, Papdi chat (ok, that also has boiled potatoes in it), bhel puri, sev puri, dahi bhalla, kachori....
Having not one sweet tooth but many, how can I not bring up the gala array of desserts available - the hot moong dal halwa or the gaajar ka halwa, the hot, juicy and succulent gulab jamun or the crisp jalebis, just out of the kadai! My tongue just swirls around the malai and milk based sweets (I can't even recollect their names any more, just their taste lingers in me). Not to even utter a word about the creamy kulfis and the rabri falooda....
If a way to a woman's heart is through her stomach, Dilli sure has captured my heart!
With temptations galore and my succumbing to them with full gusto, am on the fast track to becoming an aalu or a shapeless block of panneer!
Ce n'est pas juste, mais c'est la vie! :(
- 1st March 2009
