I replied, “Sure Anba, I can. Would love to in fact. Thanks for the opportunity”
Anba replied, “Fantastic Adi. You deserve and created your opportunity ;)”
Then came my arrogance, “I have a feeling I will succeed tmrw and will be the key in our win! :) Fingers crossed! :)”
Anba assured me, “I am confident too ;)”

I went to sleep after that conversation. Was making me feel good. I announced to my wife just before hitting the bed, “We will definitely win tomorrow”.
Her immediate question, “Why? Is your opposition made up of people collected randomly from the streets?”.
“No, we are playing Frost. Our traditional rivals. We have lost to them 4 times out of the last 5 matches”
She had her usual smirk on her face about my overconfidence. It was an expression that conveyed that it was my usual arrogance before doom! :)

Got up as usual at 5:30AM. Got ready and was about to leave home by 6.10AM when my wife got up and discovered that the milkman (milkwoman actually) had forgotten that we existed today. So I had to get milk and that delayed me by about 10 minutes. I left home by 6.20AM. I was scheduled to pick Kothand and Tashi up from the Guindy bus stop at 6.40AM. It wasn’t that far away (20 mins was ample time to get there), so I drove happily listening to “Aaromaley” in a loop! :)

Kothand was on time as usual. Tashi had missed one train and would come in a little later. So Kothand and I had some intense discussions on IPL, CSK, and a whole host of things including his immediate shift to Delhi on work which would ensure that he wouldn’t be with RnW for the next 3 to 4 months. RnW without Kothand is like a mathematical equation without its cross-checking methodology. Tashi joined us at 7.00AM. And we left for DB Jain Grounds.

The warm-up
Must have reached at around 7.20AM or so. Don’t remember checking the time. Was quite disturbed that I couldn’t make it at 7.00AM as my captain expects us to though I was fully geared up for it. But decided it was not something to gloss over right now and focussed on warming myself up. Went for a round of joggging around the ground – “quite a big one”, I thought while tracing the boundary.

I guessed that others were done with the usual football warm-up routine (I am not a big fan of playing football to warm up before a match as it might result in an injury) as Anba had started catching practice. Its a form of craziness where people assemble in a semi-circle around one guy as the center, and that guy hits the cricket ball towards any of us and we are expected to catch it. It is called catch practice – apparently catches come to fielders in matches in the same way. Pardon my arrogance, I rarely drop a catch in practice and rarely caught one in the matches! But I do practice catching religiously! :) Once this was done, we shifted to ground fielding. One guy hits the ball along the ground and we (the ones who are practicing) stop the ball and throw it back. We are practicing on how to stop the ball from going between our legs. I am sure you can understand the embarrassment I face whenever I let a ball thats travelling at the pace of a cycle rickshaw through my legs and to make matters worse it goes for a boundary. So, you just do this practice and tell yourself that you did your bit before the match – what can be done if your brain didn’t work when the ball came to you during the match?! :)

Vignesh Raja accepted very obediently when I asked him, “Can you just throw a few balls at me? I want to get a feel for the ball hitting the bat”. And his feedback during the session was very useful. He said,”Adi, you are not moving in the direction of the ball which is why you are missing the deliveries that are full in length and outside the off stump”. We were so engrossed in the session that when we thought of approaching the ground we saw RnW assembled in the usual huddle format (without any physical contact, mind you! We are all straight!) ready to take the ground to field! We had missed the toss itself! :) Anyway, how does it matter? I was feeling good that the ball was hitting the middle of my bat. Before I end this part, I want to mention something about Vignesh Raja. He wasn’t in the playing XI. Yet he made it to the ground. And without even the slightest display of reluctance agreed to give me ‘batting practice’. This kind of humility and team spirit is something that I am yet to see even in established teams! Karthi and Pradeep showed the same spirit in our previous match. It is amazing to see such camaraderie. Let us keep this on forever. Thanks everyone.

The Bowling & Fielding
We bowled like a dream. KK and Tashi – the opening bowlers – bowled so damn well that standing at short midwicket position I was able to overhear the batsmen discuss during over changes, “The ball is bouncing. Wait for the bad ball and be careful. Get a helmet if you want”. The batsmen were clearly psyched up. KK’s scalp of BK, Frost’s most consistently successful batsman, through a brilliant catch running backwards by Bharath was truly motivational. I haven’t shouted so loudly in quite a while! :) It was what changed the complexion of the match at a mindgame level. FCC always had BK anchoring one end and the others going after the bowling. This time their anchor was off. And they truly lost direction. BK had to come back on to the pitch in the guise of a substitute runner to pump the guys up to make them stay at the crease and gather runs. Anba’s wicketkeeping stood out from our fielding effort. I must also add that his field placements looked good. They were in tandem with the bowler’s strategies as they should be. Really loved fielding this innings out. Our bowlers bowled very few wides, so we might not have fielded for too many deliveries over 150 (as we did in our previous matches). That definitely left us a lot more refreshed to come out and bat.

The batting
When we stepped out to chase 142 down, I had no doubts that we would (not could, would) do it. The only point was whether we could do it within 20 overs to get the bonus point. (If you chase down the opposition total within 80% of the stipulated overs i.e. 20 overs, you get a bonus point). Tashi and Anba started in their usual solid style. I was all padded up and ready to get out in the middle. I requested Morarji to throw a few balls at me to get a feel of the ball hitting the bat. Yeah the same torture I inflicted on Vignesh Raja a few hours ago, I decided Morarji was too happy and needed some balance of work. Morarji did it very diligently and sincerely. I totally appreciate his willingness to come out in that hot sun and throw a few balls at a player who hasn’t gone beyond a 20 before. Now, that’s team spirit again for you! :) I love this team I tell you!

Coming back to the match, we were at 37 off 7 overs when Tashi got out to a ball that kept low but he was going very well at the current rate. It was the ideal start you reqired for a chase of this sort. A steady one with the new ball that has become neither too hard nor too soft. And the main bowlers – atleast their opening ones – have exhausted some part of their quota of five overs without a wicket. The fielders’ noise would be a little low because they have been under the 11 o clock sun for half an hour now. Ideal time to enter the wicket for batting.

The innings
As I crossed Tashi, I could see him feeling a little sad that he couldn’t make as many runs as he could have. I asked him, “Did the ball keep low?”. He replied, “yeah”. That alerted me to face the bowlers with a slight bend in my knees to take care of the ball that occassionaly likes to rub itself against the mat throughout its journey from the bowler’s hand to the stumps. As I took guard Anba whispered something which I couldn’t hear. Anba clarified in a louder whisper, “They are making an issue of the time we are taking to take guard and all that. Let’s not get into that”. I immediately understood that this was Frost’s level of mind games and nodded my head in agreement to Anba.

The first delivery I faced I defended it off the front foot on the offside. The second delivery was a short-of-length one slightly outside the offstump asking to be cut. I forgot Gavaskar’s principle of no cut shots during the first session of a test match and went fully for it. Only thing was I was a micro-second late in my shot. The ball took the edge and traveled straight to the keeper’s gloves. The keeper was from an outsourced agency. He dropped it. Actually I think if he was in the habit of collecting deliveries that came straight to his gloves, he would have held on to that one. But I guess being outsourced, he had a different problem! :) Whatever it was I was thankful for Frost’s outsourcing policy had saved me the embarrasment of getting out on zero on my debut at #3 position for RnW!

Then came on a bowler who looked like was on drugs or something. He started bowling beamers at me. Just that these were beamers for those batsmen who stood three steps outside the crease. I am of the Rahul Dravid mould – I stand with the crease parting my legs. So these were juicy full tosses dipping into my thighs waiting to be creamed through midwicket where there were no fielders. He bowled two of those and both disappeared off the middle of my bat to the mid-wicket boundary. He then tried to compensate by bowling one outside the off-stump – good line – but length was the problem. It was pitching at his own feet. I cut it behind point for another boundary. I felt like Virender Sehwag. 13 runs off 5 deliveries :D

Then came Bk. Before the match started I didn’t know he bowled also. Someone told me he was an intelligent stump-to-stump bowler. His first ball to me was an uncharacteristic short one on the leg stump which I promptly deposited for 4 runs at the fine leg boundary. But I wasn’t sure I had timed it well so I was running very fast (ok, as fast as I can!) between the wickets. I was telling Anba, “Anba, run. I don’t think the timing was good”. Anba was tired after keeping for 25 overs and then opening the batting is not an easy task at all. He just said, “Adi it might not have been good. But it was good enough!”. Then came the best shot of my innings (my pick): a flick off a ball on the offstump towards the fine leg boundary. I had timed it so well, I knew the minute it touched my bat that it was a boundary. For this Anba said, “Ok, so did you time this one well?”. I was grinning.

My innings proceeded in this way. I kept dealing in boundaries. Our aim was the bonus point. After Anba got out after a glorious knock, KK walked in. I remember one conversation that I had with KK when we had around 23 runs to go for victory and about 9 overs left. To get the bonus point we had to make those runs in 4 overs. KK said, “Adi, we have 4 overs left and 23 to make for the bonus point. Let us make it in 3 overs”. I replied, “KK, never employ me with your company mate”. Was referring to his innate ability to compress targets and expect delivery. But if he does what did in the match at his company also, then I am game. He took strike the next over and blasted 4 4 1Wd 4 2 1 . off that over. We only had to make some 4 runs to win next and we comfortably made it home.

The feeling
To have beaten a team to whom we lost repeatedly in the past with so many overs to spare was a feeling that was undescribable. To have made the first fifty of my cricketing career at the age of 30 is something I am going to value for the rest of my life. A small snippet before I end this long monologue: The bat with which I batted was a Kookaburra bat. It was my birthday present last October (Oct 2009) from my sister-in-law. Her condition while buying the bat was this, “You should make one fifty in the first three matches that you play with this bat”. This was the second match I was playing with that bat. Most of RnW thinks that it was the bat that made the 50 while I was just holding it showing it off. I somehow agree to it. The bat is who I dedicate this knock to! :)

Cross posted from the runsnwickets blog.

Why is it that I want everything else and everybody else around me to be in a certain way to enable me to be in a certain way? Why can’t I remain the way I want to? Which is a bigger tragedy – others not being my way? Or I not being my way? Cleary the latter is a far more significant problem than the former.

The whole point with “I” is that it is already the way it has to be. My perception is so clouded with these damn thoughts about work, home, family, properties that I acquired so on and so forth that I am unable to clear my sense of perception. These thoughts transform themselves into such strong emotions that after a while there is no perception – only emotions and thoughts. And that brings me back to my original question – why emotions?

What does emotion need to exist? Obviously something is driving its existence and pushing it into the realm of the mind. What is that something? When Ï” am a complete being being by myself whatis the need for a horrible crutch like emotion? Ok – I don’t know by experience that I am a complete being but yes without it being complete it couldn’t be the source of creation. When will I destroy myself to let this source of creation take form and express itself? For that to happen I need to break all that I identify myself with. Including these compulsive emotions. How well they disguise themselves to confuse me about myself?! It is amazing that the amount of distance they build within me between Ï”and my desire to experience Ï” seems to be infinite but also a matter of a moment of deep realization. THis crippling duality and the absolute stillness – when will I make the journey? Have I started? Or am I just standing on the shores waiting for the river to invite me? Unless I let go of the bank I won’t experience the river, but if I knew how to jump into the river – the question remains whether I would have chosen to do so?

The question arises mainly because even after having tasted the Divine I am unable to break away from my compulsions and shortcomings. I continue to live with them and do not seem to have escaped from them.

Sachin on his part has gone about his life in the most commendable of ways. Except for running his hands over the seam of a ball once, I don’t remember a single controversy that they could pull him into. To have remained clean and in-control for so many years in the murky scene of Indian cricket is by itself an achievement nobody can ever equal. Even when he failed as a captain the transition to being a player was so smooth that subsequent captains (much junior in terms of age) have always felt grateful to have Sachin in their team. You just cannot keep the man out of action. He will always be found in the centre-of-the-pitch congregations to decide who will bowl next or what is to be done along with the captain Vice Captain and others. And if he wasn’t there, he would chewing at his nails in the same way we would be sitting in front of our television sets and getting involved.

I need to clarify that I am not writing about the 200. I would have been surprised if he had retired without consigning a few of these statistics to his ‘done’ folder. A 200 here, a 400 there is all smaller than the man himself. He is not because of the 200 he has scored, the 200 is so big now because it was Sachin who made it. Frankly, did 194 ever evoke such a formidable picture to you? The substitute runner due to cramps that Saeed Anwar took still shames me into embarrassment to say that an unfit guy made the highest ODI score. I am not ignoring the tough conditions in Chennai to last that long. But at the international level you fight your ghosts – Sachin was punching the right side of his back when he was at 193. And we know the history of his back problem that cost us the 1999 Chennai Test match v/s Pakistan. Now, that’s why the 200 appears so big. It isn’t a big figure as you will see in the coming future. I won’t be surprised if Sehwag or Shane Watson or someone who is capable of breaking this record, actually come close to doing it and declare themselves retired hurt just to keep the respect that Sachin has accorded to the figure 200 now. I remember Micheal Atherton (or someone else it was, I don’t remember. Can someone please clarify? Clarification: Mark Taylor it was) declared his individual test innings at 334 (which is Don’s Highest score in Test cricket) as he didn’t want to go past the Don. I am sure the same will happen to this 200*. People will find it immensely tough in the first place to break the barrier of 200, but once they do it they will realise the overwhelming feeling of overtaking Sachin Tendulkar at that point.

As this man goes on about his life in a scrupulous and meticulous manner setting himself, naturally, as the ideal role model for generations of people to come. Let us take this 200 as an opportunity to bow down to the greatest sportsman that India has ever known. Thanks Sachin for providing us unbridled pleasure through your complete involvement with the game. It has been a privilege and a great pleasure to be living in the same time as you are. Thank you so much!

PS: There is an uncanny resemblance of achievements between Sachin and AR Rahman. Whenever either one has achieved something incredible the other follows it up almost immediately. I am referring to the Grammys being followed by the 200! There are many more such things. Probably another post for that topic! :)

What is a business plan? I think most people refuse to ask this question when they start building out one. It is a set of well-accepted business jargon that people continue to use and reuse. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. A business plan, in my opinion, is a document created for a certain purpose detailing the core aspects of the business addressing the basic questions of what, how, why, who, when and a few other purpose-relevant questions.

I have created a basic set of questions that the VC wants answered but does not know how to word it in a way that the entrepreneur understands it.

Each question can be answered in a single slide. So a business plan can be utmost 11 slides. Anything more than that means that either the entrepreneur does not know how to word it, or worse does not know the answer.

Here are a few basic dont’s:
1. Don’t create ppt’s of 35+ slides. And don’t send such plans (> 2MB in size) by email. If not anything it is bad email etiquette.
2. Don’t put up the market slide up first. Without the context of what you are doing, it is virtually impossible for the VC to understand what is happening in the slide. So, it’s always better if the market slide follows the value propostition slide.
3. VC’s, generally, like to see disproportionate (usually jargonised as ‘exponential’) growth. That doesn’t mean you show something that’s unrealistic – look at it from a market point of view and see if there is that kind of a space for your product/ service to actually grow. If there is then don’t worry, the VC will also figure it out. If there isn’t and you are trying to fabricate stuff, then the VC will figure out even quicker than you can complete your argument!
4. VC’s love stories. If you once went to Google or Microsoft with your revolutionary idea and they rejected it. It’s okay if it was rejected, but remember to tell them the good points that they said about your product. The VC will definitely take note.
5. Please listen. Don’t keep talking continuously. The VC, however inhumane, is still a human being. He has to go back and deal with a family. In all probability, yours is not the only business plan he is going to see in a day. So, be compassionate. The chances of reciprocation are higher.
6. If you are in advanced negotiation stages with other VCs, make it a point to reveal it during some point during the discussion. It will help save time for both of you (VC and entrepreneur). Sometimes, this might be a chance to get two investors in at the same time (co-investment).

Unable to think of anything more. As of now this is it. In case you need any more clarifications/ have any suggestions please drop in a comment here below.

Spirituality does not mean going away from life. Spirituality means becoming alive in the fullest possible way so you are not just alive on the surface, you are alive to the core. If you look at how full of life and joyful you were when you were five years of age and how alive and joyful you are today, has the level gone up or gone down?

For most people, it has gone down. It need not be so. With age, physical agility may go down but the level of joy and sense of being alive need not go down. If your level of joy and aliveness is going down, it is as if you are committing suicide in installments. This happens because you only focus on certain aspects of life, but without including every aspect, you cannot live a full life.

Unfortunately, most of the time, belief systems are passing off as spirituality. The moment you believe something, if you believe “this is it”, you are bringing a certain degree of rigidity into the very life process that you are.

This is not spirituality.

The spiritual process is always a quest, a seeking; that is why when you say, “I’m on a spiritual path,” you say “I’m a seeker.” When you say “I’m religious,” you say “I’m a believer.” There is a significant difference, because believing means you have assumed something that you do not know; seeking means you have realised that you do not know, which brings an enormous amount of flexibility. Whenever you say, “I do not know something,” you are flexible. Whenever you think, “I know it,” you become rigid. This rigidity is not just in attitude; it percolates into every aspect of your life. This rigidity is also the cause of an enormous amount of suffering in the world.

How human beings are, that is how the society will be. So, creating human beings who are flexible and willing to look at everything rather than being stuck in their ideas and opinions definitely makes for a different kind of society. And the very energy that such human beings carry will influence everything around them.

This is a speech by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. It was emailed to me by Kirthana.

2 – Number of times Federer reached all four Grand Slam finals in the same year (2006-07)

3 – Australian Open titles won (2004, ’06-07) and three times he’s won three Slams in the same year

4 – Times (or more) reached final in each of the Grand Slam tournaments

5 – US Open titles won (2004-2008) and number of times Federer has lost to Nadal in Slam finals

6 – Wimbledon titles won (from seven consecutive finals)

7 – Consecutive years of winning at least one Grand Slam title

8 – Eight losses in his streak of 21 consecutive semi-final or better Grand Slam appearances

9 – Countries of opponents he’s beaten in Grand Slam finals (Australia, Chile, Cyprus, Great Britain, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, and U.S.)

10 – Record consecutive Grand Slam finals reached between 2005 Wimbledon and 2007 US Open

11 – Appearances at Roland Garros before winning first title (same as Andre Agassi) and number of different opponents he’s beaten in Grand Slam finals

12 – Titles won during his 2006 season, when he came within one match of completing a calendar-year Grand Slam

13 – Titles won in his streak of 20 consecutive semi-final or better Grand Slam appearances

14 – Ties Pete Sampras for the most Grand Slam singles titles in the history of men’s tennis

15 – New Grand Slam titles record

And that’s exactly what I am upto nowadays on the weekends. This game makes me look forward to my weekends. There is a club called RunsNwickets – which was formed by some wonderful people (KK, Anba and Guna) that I have had the fortune of coming in touch with. The unique aspect of this club is that any cricket enthusiast based out of Chennai is welcome to join in! And that’s exactly what this club is excited about – cricket enthusiasts. If you are one and are in Chennai, just walk in.

Coming down to my experience with the club so far, though short in time, has been most wonderful to say the least. Had two nets sessions and two cricket matches in the last 5 weeks (we play only on Sundays) and brought back those old school and college memories of real cricket. Played lots of tennis ball cricket in the meanwhile (since college) but nothing matches the sound that emanates from a willow that has just timed a cricket ball sweetly. The smell of the cricket kit and the pink colour of your palms is unbeatable!

Before we begin to romanticize my cricketing exploits on this blog, we must understand that I am over 100kgs heavy and over 6ft tall. And my wife says I didn’t run even when she complained of contractions. Little does she know that I was actually doing my 100m sprint! ;) In case you still didn’t get what I mean, this is what it is: If I stand straight and look down I can’t see my two feet! (I can’t get more direct than that without affecting my self esteem!!) While my ability to run between the wickets is suspect, the inability to be a good fielder is confirmed.

My record so far has been this in the two matches I have played in so far:
First match:
Fielded first. Was at third man and long off. Did not let a single ball go through me. And did not concede an extra run where there was none. No dropped catches. I got a pat from my captain and team too for my fielding esp since there were quite a few misfields and dropped catches!
When my turn came to bat, we had to make 61 runs of 30 balls. I made 8 off 8 balls which included a boundary and thought I did a good job. But my running between the wickets, I must admit was pathetic. I would run the second run as if I did not have a thigh bone. I was at the wicket for about 20 mins i.e. till the last over and if we had a coach, as we did in schooldays, he would have dropped me the very next minute!
Scorecard is here. (Yes, club cricket tournaments in Chennai have online scorecards!)

Second match:
Batted first. Was scheduled to bat at #5 or #6 like last match but our top order stuck in there brilliantly. We posted some 180+ runs for the loss of 2 wickets.
Fielding was just about okay. Same position. I intend to make that my own because it suits me and my current physical outline. Same things again: Didn’t drop a catch, didn’t concede any extra run, no misfields. But no improvement either. So no pat nothing. Need to get my act together in the next match coming up on Sunday. Pray for me! :)
Scorecard is here. PS: I didn’t take any catch. The scorer thought he had be generous and credit one to my name! ;)

A small note on tennis before I end: Just finished watching Federer’s third round match at Wimbledon 09. Smashing form he is in. Though he dropped a set I would still say it looked like he wanted to give himself some more time on the centre court! Go Federer Go!

But then I had given my word. I went there – near the gate. Stood for a second and just started with my mind kind of stunned into silence I guess. It went blank. I started lifting my hands and putting them together with a smile to welcome whoever walked into the gate. Everytime someone walked in – I would do it. It was a ritual and I did it. Some people responded. Some didn’t. Initially my namaskarams depended on the response. If they smiled back then I would hold on a little longer otherwise it would drop off.

Then something incredible happened. I decided to welcome whoever came in with the same complete (as complete as I could do) namaskaram irrespective of their response or who they were – children, adults, etc. I was trying to create a condition inside myself that ‘whatever happens to you (the visitor) inside here will be good’. As I started doing this, my hand ache, my elbow ache, the pain in my legs, everything went out of my mind. I was offering myself completely to each person who was walking in with 100% sincerity and a blessing of ‘good will happen to you here today’. The smile came on automatically, I didn’t have to put it on. It turned into one of the most enjoyable experiences. Imagine getting the opportunity to welcome 10,000 people with a blessing. Won’t you smile on your own? Oh sure, anyone will. I guarantee you.

Now comes the even better part. As this enjoyment increased, I could sense growing excitement inside me. I would start looking outside the gate waiting for people to come. As soon as I spotted a visitor, I would bow down to them. Looking at me everyone responded. Even no-response meant that it was a response because they weren’t used to a person bowing down to them. And I used to get excited seeing people entering the venue with a feeling of ‘Ok. I have come to a good place where something good will happen to me’. I began seeing at as an opportunity to break some constraint inside them, unblocking some block inside their minds to let them be free and take in whatever is being offered by Sadhguru completely.

The namaskarams just got more intense as I kept creating more intense conditions inside me. Then came the point where something inside me broke and took me to a totally different plane. I saw no difference between me and the person coming in. It was the most intense experience of my life. The namaskarams were not being done anymore, they were happening as an expression of joy. Tears started flowing out of my eyes. But I was smiling. I could see people coming in were also moved. Of course, a few of them got scared too. But this didn’t carry on for a great while. This must have happened for a few moments. And that was it. That’s when I understood that anything that we do can take us beyond our current state of experience of the body and the mind. It depends on how willing we are to break whatever we have created inside ourselves – free will, determinism, whatever – and concentrate and give ourselves totally to what we are doing.

The seamless way in which the show was organized, co-ordinated and executed was a treat to watch on the television. Danny Boyle said to the organizers on winning the Best Director’s award, “…I wanted to thank you for that and also for an extraordinary, what a beautiful show you’ve done. I don’t know what it looks like on television, everybody, but in the room, it’s bloody wonderful, really. So, well done, everyone…” It looked beautiful on television too Danny. It was just stunningly well-coordinated. The opening sequence by the charming Australian Hugh Jackman was probably one of the best live performances I have seen. I admit I haven’t seen many (live performances) but if you have seen it you will agree like the audience in the Kodak theatre did. They gave him a standing ovation. He deserved it. Among his witty ways of introducing the key people, I really liked the part about himself the best – “An Australian, who played an Australian in a movie called Australia” and the next one was about Brangelina – “I don’t have joke on them. But I am contractually obligated to take their names atleast five times on this show”.

The first category to be awarded was the “Best supporting actress” one and I was absolutely amazed by the way they announced the nominations. Oscar awards are meant to signify excellence and the nominations are supposed to be the litmus test through which you actually qualify to be the best among the best. And the entire event lent itself to excellence right from the way the stage floor was done, the display screens coming together and splitting away, the curtain made of a chain of Swarovski crystals added a touch of grandeur, the lighting heightened the excitement and I was personally floored with the sensitivity of their mic and sound systems – I could hear Anne Hathaway breathe when she performed with Jackman. Coming back to the award, it was when Penelope Cruz gave her acceptance speech is when I realized how big a deal it was to win the Oscars:

“I grew up in a place called Alcobendas, where this was not a very realistic dream. And I, always on the night of the Academy Awards, I stay up to watch the show and I always felt that this was, this ceremony was a moment of unity for the world because art, in any form, is and has been and will always be our universal language and we should do everything we can, everything we can, to protect its survival”.

I will not lie. I had tears in my eyes when she said those words. It was just so damn touching. I didn’t quite know who exactly she was till now, from now on I will ensure I watch her movies with the same intensity as she has chosen to act. She sees this stage as a moment of unity and here back home we have people saying “Oscars mean nothing”. Penelope spoke words that defied her age. She has my undivided attention henceforth!

Then came the first Indian moment. In fact when the Sound Editing award went to ‘The Dark Knight’ I thought it was only obvious that the Sound Mixing one also went the same way. But no, it was meant to be a ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ sweep which started with this. Resul Pookutty made a moving speech about how it was not just an award but history being handed over to him. So true I thought. My mind was racing ahead – I was already thinking about Rahman.

Then came many awards. Each of them making moving acceptance speeches. Everyone of the award presentations blended so beautifully with each other. I would say it was flawless. While I was sitting amazed at the way it was organized, the original score nominations were being played out. An orchestra played out the themes of each of the nominations – I could only identify ‘Latika’s theme’ from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Rahman was backstage because he was due to come on next for his performance for the nominations of the best song. As it was being said, “And the Oscar goes to….”, and the envelope being opened, I guess my heart rate increased to equal Rahman’s and every other true Rahman fan. Simultaneously the maid servant of my house made an entry and the presenter announced “A R Ruhhman for Slumdog Millionaire” and that was it. My maid servant must have thought that I had a heart attack or something because I shouted so loudly that it would have blown anyone away. Irrespective of me, she just walked across the TV calmly and went on with her work. Here I was almost dying of happiness and she walked as if nothing had happened. Quite ironically, Rahman also walked as if he had won just another Filmfare or some such award. It was just such a simple thing for him – it was another award. For me, his true fans, Americans and the rest of the world the Oscars are like the pinnacle of excellence and Rahman did it like he always knew how to do it. In fact that’s true – he was always at the pinnacle of excellence in every film that he gave music to. Each one is a masterpiece. I sat numb through his acceptance speech.

In fact I think I was numb through his performance also or I don’t know if I didn’t like it. That guy who came in towards the end just made the whole thing sound so out of tune. I had to see the video repeatedly to confirm my feelings. Rahman himself was a little out of tune I guess for “O… Saya…” but I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t have been able to get a sound out of my throat! And then came the “Jai Ho” award. It was written I guess. And this acceptance speech literally swept me off my feet. Wow!

I could go and get ready to get to office finally. I got a message from a colleague “Dude, don’t come to office without sweets”. So I went with the auspicious Tirupathi laddoos that my wife had got from there a few days ago. No, she didn’t go there to pray for Rahman. I am the only guy who is so much in love with this man! The world now has opened up a possibility of letting Rahman berserk on a global scale. Now more people will fall in love with him. Till now, it was just me and my Tamil friends and then it was Hindi friends and now it is going to be everyone. Just about everyone. Rahman’s world was written already; looks like the time has come now when people like me will have to let go of him so that billions of others actually have the option of making the maximum out of him. Rahman’s music is available to those who are willing.