Flashback - Summer Cricket

Summer vacation has started…rewinding back 15-16 years.. summer vacations meant cricket in the morning, cricket in the afternoon and cricket in the evening 

The morning cricket used to be home and away matches with neighborhood suburban teams – made up of school going kids similar to us.

Cricket used to be played with rubber balls – white color Montex balls – (tennis balls were generally used in flood light “tournaments”).


Typical matches would be played like this:


Any player of team A would find out a team B who is willing to play on so-and-so date/time- and a schedule would be fixed.

Both teams buy the Montex balls (typically 2-3 would be needed) to be used in the match. Batting team will provide balls to the bowling team – so any balls that got busted by power hitting were to be replaced by the batting team itself. The match getting paused since the ball has busted, and someone from the batting team has gone out to the nearest shop to get a new ball was a common occurrence. Matches would be 12, 14 or 16 overs a side.

The match used for be not just for bragging rights, but for played for a 21 Rs or 51 Rs “prize” – each player would contribute 2-5 Rs to buy the balls and come up with the 21/51 figure.

Umpires were always from the batting side, and rules were like this

• Umpires used 6 pebbles to keep a count of no. of balls bowled – a pebble transferred from 1 fist to another means a ball bowled.

• Keeper/umpire didn’t switch sides, the keeper/batsman position is fixed. Hence the square leg and the main umpire don’t switch positions after each over

• No runs given for wide balls - too much judgmental decisions could skew the score since the batting team provided the umpires

• If playing on a smaller ground on “away” matches – our ‘home’ ground was a full size ground.. runs behind the keeper or runs on the off-side were called as 1-D or 2-D – meaning, if the ball goes in that side of the field 1 run or 2 runs were “declared” given the ground size constraints

• Paper score cards were used – stats of batsmen were maintained, and scoring was typically done either by the score leg umpire or one of the players who always sat besides the square leg umpire. A typical score card would have the main score, count of overs, and individual batsman scores. The main score would be tracked like this:

1 - - - 5 - - - -10 - - - - 15 and so on…each – or number would be marked with a backslash to mark it as a run scored


• Scores were shouted aloud at the end of each over so that the bowling/batting team could be on the same page – bumping up your score by 3-4 runs (under the noses of the opposition team) during the course of the match was an art

• Finding the right Montex ball (predicting its life, and good bounce) was an art, and such experts were typically sent to buy the balls

Band Baaja....

The recently concluded festival season, and the now in progress marriage season, brings out the band-baja on the streets.


Here is an example of the DHOL-TASHA seen in Pune during Ganpati festival – discipline, rhythm, but just too many people involved to create the magic / passion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXl0htbW6fw&feature=related



Here is another version – sandal – popular in Nagpur – 2 people, 2 drums – the unique drum beats, the tempo, and the unique ‘sandal’ dances. I was not able to get a good video for this though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWU3_IP4aUU



And here’s the worst example you can find – a marriage band in Pune. Called a ‘brass’ band, has drums, but any sound made by them is drowned out by the amplified output of keypad generated music. Really, money down the drain!



What is missing in Pune is the ‘real’ marriage band, example – as seen in one of the Love Aaj Kal songs, albeit used as a soft background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDne5fEsxec – see the first 10 seconds to understand what I mean. The trumpets, the 6 feet drums, no electronic amplification needed. I do feel sorry about the band members though – dressed in 10 year old crazy uniforms, in the stifling heat.

Pune.. rapid urbanization

With rapid urbanization in Pune, we have now developed conjoined twins – the original village and the new townships that have come on the village land that was earlier used for farming. Some examples are – the urban “Aundh” has the “Aundh-gaon”, Baner has “Baner-Gaon”, “Pashan” has “Pashan-Gaon/Someshwarwadi” as their alter egos.




The folks staying in the old village still continue to do some marginal farming – either by choice, or waiting for it to be zoned as ‘residential’ so that it can be then sold for crores. Most farmers with bigger land holdings have made their moolah this way, and drive around in white Pajeros, Enddevours, Scorpio and other assorted SUVs – the only common factor being white clothes and white vehicles. Ex farmers have now become the local corporators, MLAs – they own the thriving water tanker business – people living in the’urban’ areas think that they have 24 hours corporation provided water supply, but in most cases, the meager water supply is augmented with the ‘water tankers’. At 800 Rs for 9000 litres of water, all of it drawn from wells owned by the farmers, it’s a business with 80% margins !



The old vacated semi-urban village houses are now occupied by migrants from various states, mostly you will see folks from Rajasthan who ply their trade as carpenters, electricians, painters – all servicing the booming realty market.



With the adhoc urbanization, city planning / development goes for a toss – you have 6000 Rs/sq foot real estate built – but no approach roads, no water. You have developed localities – but no civic amenities. Space for a police station, library, garden, play-ground – all exist – but only on paper – in the city’s Development Plan. The 1987 development plan for Pune, is still only 30% implemented J



The moment you enter the ‘gaon’ part – you will feel as if you are 100 kms outside Pune – the pace of life there is light years slower than the frenetic city life.



For those in Pune – visit the 300 year old Shiv temple in Someshwar-wadi ( 5 minutes off Baner/Aundh T point), and the adjoining civic garden. The temple premises are pretty big – old stone masonry, and a fort-like look.



Also, try the Baner hill (right behind Baner gaon, besides Pancard club) – a nice place for a weekend morning/evening stroll. 300 odd steps to the top of the mountain, excellent views all around. The main hillock adjoins a hilly area that separates Sus Road-Baner road – you can volunteer as part of a nature-lovers’ group who assemble on the hill top each Sunday morning at 7:30 AM. They have constructed few water tanks on the hill, and group together on Sunday mornings to water trees/plants that have been planted as part of an afforestation drive.

Random....

As you travel towards Mumbai on the Pune-Mumbai Expressway – right after the Amrutanjan Point – as you start the descent towards Mumbai, you have a Tapri on the roadside, and 1 lane of the already congested ghat section is filled with parked trucks while the drivers have a cuppa




· If you get a chance, you must visit the Big Bazaar / Big Cinemas complex in Pimpri – a huge free parking lot – reminds me of the Walmart parking lots in the US – you can actually push the shopping cart right till your car – in almost all other malls – parking is non-existent, they charge you even if you park on the road, and you can’t carry the shopping cart out of the store J Lots of food court options, and a chance to catch up a movie in the same trip, free parking included!



· Here is an unique approach my friend is using to search for baby names, apart from searching for them online. The trucks and water tankers that ply around the city have the names of children of the owners painted on it, and per my friend, are a good source of potential names

News from around the world..

US Army’s “smart” bullets: http://www.pcworld.com/article/212029/US_army_takes_on_taliban_with_smart_bullets.html?tk=out


England snow – man drive in circles for 72 hours, even with a GPS:

http://www.news.com.au/world/grandfather-72-drove-in-circles-for-three-days-in-heavy-snow/story-e6frfkyi-1225976656404



Gender discrimination in India - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-ensure-prized-baby-boy-Indians-flock-to-Bangkok/articleshow/7169495.cms



Dead child comes alive http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/living-infant-declared-dead-saved-from-pyre-75392?pfrom=Cities



Racism embedded in Indian psyche - http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-12-23-the-darker-side-of-indians



Day in the life of an Indian worker: http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-indian-worker/20101116.htm

Ever wonder...

I have never been able to understand why “English” or proper nouns are written down in Hindi the way they are:


Indian Oil is written as INDIAN AAAA-YAL

Birla is written as BIDLA

· Instructions in public buses or trains are meant to give information to travelers or provide warnings. In India, they are never written in an easy to read format – be it in English or Hindi or Marathi – “beware of pickpockets” or similar such messages in buses etc are always written in a broken font (I think a stencil or something is used when painting the messages) - its impossible to reach such message until you really stare at them J

· The other way – “Ram” in all English school textbooks is always written as “Rama” – but “Lakshman” is not written as “Lakshmana” JJ

· What is the origin of the oft-heard word in old Hindi movies – “Vilayat”

Memories from the past

It’s almost impossible to see kids flying kites (January), or playing with marbles (summer vacations) –


@ Kites : The words like “Suttar”, “Kanna”, “Saddi”, “Luddi”, “Bareilly ka manja”, “Girgot”, shouting “O….Paar”- till you were hoarse, “Serous” – I still don’t know the correct technical/scientific name for this raw material – which you boil and mix the ground glass -, searching the neighborhood kachra-peti for used tube- lights to crush/grind them to make “maanja” – will be lost with this generation.

@Marbles: Playing for hours under the baking sun, all for the “gola-baddi” , impriving your ‘anti’ and ‘nukka’ and playing for other various forms of “jeet” seems to be a lost art. I still have my collection of ‘won’ marbles. In the current milieu, apartment complexes with paved ground surfaces don’t even have earth surfaces to make the perfect “baddi”