Wit Wisdom and Whoop

Sometime back as most of us recovered from the challenges of facing life with the Covid sword hanging above us, a bunch of my school/pre-university college friends decided to locate the teachers who had taught us in school - upto 10th Standards - and honour them. What started as a small event quickly morphed into something quite big and the event was held in a friend's house. We found that 3 of our teachers were still alive and it was a pleasure meeting them, literally after 47 years for me.  The friends made the event, held in May/June 2022, bigger and bigger in terms of its scope and decided to come up with a Souvenir, even if it was hardly 60 pages. The intent was for each to write about their memories and share. The friend who was involved in this insisted that I contribute (given your writing talents as he described it). I was extremely reluctant, as the piece I write will show why, but I finally mustered enough courage to write. I then dismissed the idea of sharing that as a ...

Who doesn’t have fantasies? They take all forms, shapes, sizes and situations. I have had one for long, and before the reader’s imagination runs wild – it is to do with Cricket. A game one has followed and been involved with since 1971.  Though in current times an excess of the game in format, frequency and information makes me lose track of events. What was once a lazy 5-day long game is now like instant noodles with 20 overs. What was once a battle between nations is now a battle between multinational clubs. But then every generation sees mavericks who are born sometimes far ahead of their times. Who, consequently, end up as blazing stars, but often do not reach the kind of heights of excellence and performance they could otherwise have done. One such blazing star was Salim Durrani, who passed away yesterday. A cricketer par excellence with talents that were sheer genius, but his record and numbers do not show even the slightest glimpse of his greatness. Only those who have wat...