Never a dull moment

  Forty five years ago - Nostalgia NCC camp Foggy morning walk image this morning made me recall an event forty five years ago - our NCC Air Wing 10 day camp held in 1974-75 second term break at Air Force station Tambaram We were twenty four cadets from our school occupying three tents Night dew used to render our beds damp and mist of us used to be up by 3 am and used to chat. The night sentry cadets used to knock on the tent pegs and asked us to keep quiet. Our school was lucky. We were not assigned night sentry assignment in the camp. We dug small moats running around our tents - to prevent snakes from entering the tents. There was hip high grass where we pitched our tents - we cut them and levelled the ground. We had carried all our stuff in the longish black camp bags which were like giant versions of mridangam cover which we laid out neatly before we went for morning march. There were prizes for well laid out tents. Our neigbour Wessley school bagged the prize. On the first e...

When we ask somebody to be a sport, we want him/ her to be accommodating forgiving and forgetting an unsavoury incident or mishap. The term sportsman spirit also conveys a similar meaning of accommodation - let the bygones be bygones and let us continue our journey. But the game of cricket seems to be different in some aspects as a sport. Where else do you find visiting teams being pushed into Test matches with only perfunctory three day match thrown in for acclimatisation after the visiting team lands on a foreign soil ? The visiting team is also made to follow a punishing itinerary pushing it from one far off corner of the country to another with different climatic conditions with short intervals between matches. Added to that, the pitches are doctored to favour the hosts. Normally a host does his/ her best to accommodate the guest and fulfill the guest's needs. But the home association hosting a visiting Test / One day cricket team does not behave the way English dictionary defi...

Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel are old hands in politics and know the ways of getting out of trouble. They can take care of their interest in one way or the other as far as their "cricketing" interests are concerned. There is Rajiv Shukla Congress MP who is now acting like a saint. He has been through the thick and thin with BCCI for years now and it sounds funny when he says that he does not know anything. He will also survive as he is a veteran. There is Arun Jaitley, the President of Delhi Cricket Association. With his stature and reach, it looks odd that he is keeping quiet. I get a feeling that he is also covered and has some interest. There would be many more in various State cricket associations who have benefited by their "interest " in cricket. The others like Shashank Manohar and Lalit Modi are also keen to have politicians around as there is safety in numbers and the spread of politicians across various parties with "interest" in cricket also ens...