The Story Of The Average Joe

As the names puts it aptly, our dear average Joe is…..average. He is the one who epitomizes the all sacred “law of averages”. Well most of us are like him..he is one of those guys whose decent but not great…Whats good though is that thankfully Joe’s dreams and desires are also average…a decent house, loving family and a decent salary…and he would be on his way…..but at times circumstances/coincidences/serendipity force him to dream big…and dream big he does (yoda style)…more often than not he ends up on the loosing side…after all he is all but average….the guy who never tops, whose never “the man”, not the one who dazzles everyone once he enters the party….not the one who gets the look back from someone that he thinks is special….at times he is happy enough that at least she knows his name…all these looses do leave him a bit sad….but then he just pats himself thinking…”maybe thats all I deserve with what I have….because maybe sometimes being good is not good enough”………

But wait a minute…life for our average joe hasn’t been all that bad….he seems to have moved up inlyf…rat race it maybe but he seems to have come a long way from where he had started…well tht confuses me a bit …how did he move up so much…after all wasn’t he just average…whr does an average guy like him standout…shouldn’t he be just lost in the crowd….

Well thr is one thing though which fuels the fire…which does make our average joe sometimes not so average….joe can sure put up a fight….average he might be everywhere but the dood does seem to have a strange tendency of getting up after taking all the hits…underdog he might be but he is tht man in the ring (as our belived Mr. Al Pacino would put it) “whose still willing to fight and die for that inch”…hes the guy who might not win but is definitely not ready to loose…

May be tht is the thing which makes our average joe not so average…that unwavering fire in the belly which just doesn’t know how to give up…so dear life….and dear studs…beware we r not going down ever without a fight…without making a flash……because it is tht knck of standing up again every tym after falling down which makes all of average joes like us not so average…

he might loose 9 out of 10 fights but that in that 10^th  fight he will knock the champ  down, and move up one step at a tym, defying the norms, defying expectations, defying the averages…..

and maybe one day tht special someone might alo notice him…..

till tht day we fight till we fall!!    

Full Circle & Hope Against Hope

To say it has been disappointing would be an understatement. Hopes and dreams came crashing down at SCG. No longer would it be remember as the Sachin Cricket Ground, it will be SCG where Clarke and his Australian side choked India into submission.

As an ardent romantic, I got up early today, hoping that the impossible would be averted. Anyone with slight cricketing knowledge would have told u that India had less chances of saving this match than the odds of Tim Henman making a grand comeback and winning the Wimbledon in 2012.

As soon as I got up, suddenly I remembered having a familiar feeling; it was a long time ago, it has been more than ten years since. It was India’s tour of Australia in 1999-2000. I used to wake up with a familiar feeling hoping against hope that the impossible would be eluded, that a new legend would be written today. Alas! The day pretty much ended as it used to in those days. Misty eyes and a broken heart reflecting on what could have been.

Then it also stuck me - what about those years in between, why has this feeling of despair deserted me for this long!! There have been disappointments but not despairs.

A lot changed after that season of 1999-2000. India’s lone batting hero found some able partners. The group also found a leader who could march his troops and go for enemy’s jugular. The group got together and turned things around, slowly but gradually. They laid the foundations of what can easily be concluded that as the most successful period in India’s cricket history. Away wins in New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, England, Sri Lanka, levelling series in Australia and South Africa. WC final in 2003 and a notch above all these the WC win in 2011. This group of man who wanted to play for pride and for honour (Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly, Kumble, Yuvraj, Bhajji, Sehwag and Mahi and many others…..) gave us which we have long been deprived of before Belief. With that belief followed victories.

If some of us thought that we had the most talented team during that period, we would be lying to ourselves. We had our fair share of shortcomings, but that was the beauty of it, we fought it out. There were goals which were set out for and achieved. The WC’ 2011 win and holding the top spot in test rankings for close to 2 years. It saddens me when at times a few people label it as a fluke or a result of successful home run .I would strongly disagree. 2008-2011 was the period when this group reached its crescendo. It all started off with ODI series wins in Australia. We were the better team against the test series against South Africa last year. I don’t want to defend but the 2000’s were so much better than 1990s when the only solace was watching the lone warrior go down fighting against an opposition army.

Life has come a full circle for me it seems - After those wonder years, here again I was watching the lone warrior fighting. The blade of his sword might not be as venomous as it was in those days but the spirit remains. The trio of Sachin, Dravid and Laxman were the integral part of that group in 2000 which changed the way we play cricket away from home. The group which laid the foundations on which the castles of 2007-2011 were built. I know that those castles have been brought down and our defences and spirits broken. This tour to Australia, might well turn out to be trio’s last real battle. They win or they loose, I will always be thankful to what they had already given me. I just hope that for one last time - more for them than for me, that they pick themselves up. Against all odds, with their backs against the walls they script the most sensational revival. I don’t know if they are capable of that anymore, but they definitely deserve that last hurrah.

I know that a lot of history and hope was associated with SCG and all those hopes were bludgeoned by Clarke and company. I will still get up at 5am in the morning hoping against hope on 13^th of Jan for that toss at the WACA. After all, it was here that a certain 18 year old announced himself to the world with an innings of defiance. Life might have come a full circle for him as well!!

Reason & The Attitude -1

This is Christmas morning as I write, and under the warmth of my lazy mushy 'rajaai', I had been browsing random stuff at the net for the last couple of hours(Will Ponting play the next test, the sucker never gets injured or what, some random puzzle a colleague of mine has challenged me to crack, chatting with a friend in France about the chicks ova thr, and chking the latest scans of Karrena, man she keeps getting hotter by the day). To sum it all, as many including myself would rightly point it out, that what I had been doing the last couple of hours in effect has been a total waste of my time, with probably no outcomes or value adds. But as just many of fellow loosers would agree and relate to, that this lazyy browsing in the morning has a sense of pleasure, relaxation and comfort attached to it that could never be derived from those crazyy late night alcholol flooded parties, or those fruitless dates, painful get togethers etc etc. I do admit that some of the events mentioned above have a sense of joy associated with them, but trust me the prolongitivity of this lazzy rajaai ridden browsing cannot be matched.

However, as those wonder 4 years of our life (college ofcourse) keep geetting further away, days like these have become few and far. The thumb rule now is that every action of ours should have an outcome, which is only judged by the fact that how well does it fit into that psychotic 'i will save the world' story u are trying to build for your MBA application. Which then brings me to the question that has been the bothering me for quite some time now. If it is only the rajaai browsing that gives me the pleasure of my life, them y Y YYYYY m i stuck in this rat race where every action of my life is more or less defined by a pre decided story line, scripted not by my own desires but by a norm which the world has decided is perfect.

Shouldnt the story be mine...............

To be continued ;)