Subhasish Chandra

We have heard this line so many times in the last 16 years and it feels sad that we will never get to listen it ever. If Sachin has been the symbol of greatness, Dravid has been the symbol of perfection. It has been orthodox, copybook cricket that he has played all his life. He has been so good in this business that he has been nicknamed, “The Wall”. Rahul has been always known as a Test batsman and some feel his style of stroke play to be boring and slow and hence unfit for One-Day cricket. But alongside his 13,288 runs in Tests, he has scored 10,889 runs in ODIs as well. So much for boring stroke play, huh!

Soumitra Chatterjee, Manna Dey, Andy Roddick, Rubens Barrichello, Chaminda Vaas, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, Rahul Dravid. What’s common between these names?

These are all greats who didn’t get their due share of adulations because of the presence of another peer in their respective fields. Uttam Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Roger Federer, Michael Schumacher, Muttiah Muralitharan, Neil Armstrong and Sachin Tendulkar being the ones who got the spotlight.

But let’s not talk about what more Rahul Dravid could have got. Let’s talk about what he has got and what impact it has on our lives. And that’s quite a lot.

Way back in 1996 when Rahul debuted in England with that brilliant 95, India had got a batsman of calibre who could support Sachin because at that time the team followed the adage, “Sachin gaya, Match gaya”. The best quality about Dravid was that he was very patient and had the highest level of concentration. He will stay calm in situations where the whole team became restless and frustrated. And he was ably supported by Sachin and Laxman at many a times. His mental strength and dependability earned him another nickname, “Mr. Dependable”. The last decade has seen many matches where the victory rode on others’ stroke play but the fellow who stood there till the end to see the team through was Rahul Dravid!

Michael Hussey is accredited with “Mr. Cricket”. But, Rahul is no lesser a student of the game. He has studied the game to utmost perfection and there is rarely any instance where he has not gone to the field without the complete knowledge about the opposition. For a simple bystander fan like me, who knows less about the nuances of the game, his domination of the opposition allows writing about his knowledge. I remember two instances which show his knowledge about the rules of the game. One is when Steve Waugh handled the ball. Another is when Inzamam obstructed the field. On both occasions, I remember Rahul to appeal the first and the most.

Another aspect of his nature is courage and determination. When India was not able to settle on the formula for a perfect playing XI, Saurav Ganguly came with the idea of Rahul as the wicket-keeper. Rahul was not a natural wicket-keeper and his ODI batting at that time was being severely criticized. He was not a natural stroke maker and sixes were not his forte. It seemed that it would be doomsday for his ODI career. But he converted this disadvantage into his own strength. He not only kept the wickets with fairly good accuracy but also balanced his lack of stroke play with a lot of twos and good placements all over the field. Along with the Number 3 spot in the tests, he cemented his Number 3 spot in the ODIs as well. Many term Rahul as stubborn as he never improved on his stroke play and seldom hit sixes. There were jokes that Rahul’s boundary is the 30-yard circle. But he took all this in his stride and adapted to ODI and then to T20 in his own impeccable style. On the passing it must be mentioned that Rahul had the record for the quickest ODI 50 by an Indian with a strike rate of more than 200.

His patience and physical strength is something worth envying and emulating. He played 93 consecutive tests and missed the 94^th because of gas and not injury! When he used to come to the field, the opposition along with the spectators knew that it would be quite some time before he will leave! Getting out him was very difficult and that is the reason why his Test match average is 52.31 and that too after playing the highest number of balls in Tests, 31,189, and spending 735 hours, 21 minutes at the crease. If we take that on an average a middle order batsman stays for 5 hours at the crease for one innings then that’s 147 innings (51.4% of his 286 Test match innings). Even to think about these number gives makes me jittery. He deserves a separate round of accolades just for this feat.

We are always told to learn the basics correctly. A person whose basics are correct can never fail and Rahul Dravid is one of the best examples that one can have. It is this reason why he easily scored runs in IPL (Sachin and Kallis being the other two). That is how he reciprocated Douglas Marillier when the Zimbabwean had clobbered us in the previous match.

It would be really difficult to imagine an Indian Test match scorecard without Rahul’s name in it! I will just end with few tributes from his fans:

• Rahul Dravid retires, proof that decent and well-rounded men can excel at the highest levels of sport.  — Derek Pringle.
• Rahul Dravid retires… cricket loses one of its finest batsmen; sport, one of its finest gentlemen.   — Jeffery Archer.
• Rahul Dravid retires.. the world’s most respected cricketer over the last 20 years. — Michael Vaughan.
• Not often do you find a person as exceptional as his achievements.  — Sanjay Manjrekar.
• He’s probably the nicest guy – no, he is the nicest guy – that I’ve met in cricket.  — Shane Watson.
• Some succeed because they are destined to, but Rahul Dravid succeeded because he was DETERMINED to.  — Navjot Singh Sidhu.
• He’s not only a great cricketer, but a great man.  — John Wright.
• There was and is only one Rahul Dravid. There can be no other.  — Sachin Tendulkar.

The first website I log in to everyday is always Facebook. It helps me to get in (virtual) contact with my friends. I can safely say that I know quite a bit about my friends who regularly post and whom I follow. I get b’day and marriage invitations. I discuss love and hate, physics and metaphysics. I share their joys and sorrows. On visiting their albums, I visit places where they have been to. I connect to them but the question that haunts is,

ARE WE REALLY CONNECTED?

Virtually, Yes. But really, No.

Can “Like” and “Share” replace the abstract feelings that these words actually convey?

Can “Sharing a Coffee” on FB be the same as having it with your friend sitting in front of you?

Can “Online Invitations” on FB convey the same message that paper cards do?

Can “I Like You” on FB really be sensually same as telling someone face to face?

I think majority of us will reply in negative to all these questions. But all of us will become restless if nobody comments on our posts (I’ll, if no one comments on this post). We become restless until we share our feelings, our picture, our achievements or our sorrows. And it would be quite a punishment if we fail to log in to FB! But come to think of it, a few years ago, all these feelings were reserved for our friends who have become just pictures and letters on our walls!

“IT” has brought us so closer. It has brought the whole world into our reach but it has separated us from the very feelings which brought our ancestors together to form the concept called as society. In the name of racing forwards, we are basically running backwards. The civilization instead of a giant leap forwards is jogging backwards. First Mobiles, then email and now Social Networking is taking away the physical bonding and in its place individualistic mentality is taking control over us. We are very happy to connect, contact and comment on FB but will seldom do the same with all the friends that we have so greedily assembled on our FB friends page.

We are actually Loners who boast of having hundreds of friends. We endear relationships and friendships and yet are afraid of committing to them. FB is just the tool to give us some happiness in this disjointed world. Otherwise how can 30 something people enjoy Farmville and Cityville?

I presently have 470 friends on FB but how many of them I remember or actually want to meet is the million dollar question !!!

Let’s try to bring some reality in our virtual relationships.

My students term me weird and abnormal. They think that I’m different from what they perceive is normal for a human being. Well abnormal means anomalous (in Greek, an- not, homalous- even) which means irregular, out of pattern. Truly speaking, it’s nothing new for me to hear these adjectives. They have been said by different people in different circumstances at different periods of time in my life. And I have found it to be correct 99 out of 100 times. Yeah, I’m quite queer and sometimes my weirdness stupefies me as well!

Well, abnormality (out of norm) has been a feature of my existence and has stuck to me since my birth. I was born as a very weak child (had only a well formed head and butt). Nobody gave me more than a week to live. But I, with extreme care and love of my uncle and aunt, defeated all odds and am still living sound and actually have move towards the fatter side! While every child around me was walking on their fours, I was using my butt as the fulcrum to glide forward. I cried so much that not a single bird ever dared to venture towards my uncle’s house! Everyone used to think that I would be normal as soon as I grow up! They were wrong!

When my brother was born, I used to sit on him to test his weight taking capacity! You have guessed correct, I was spanked black and blue. As a kid, generally nobody has difficulty in finding friends. But yours truly was different, he needed biscuits as baits to catch friends. Bait finish, Friends gone! I was not able to get a single friend but what I got was chicken pox at the age of 4. This incompetency brought me close to my first love, books.

Another trait of my character is the uncanny love for written things. Let it be paan-stained newspaper cuttings, newspapers, hoardings, books or Hardy Boys. While others in my class were playing, I surprisingly was gulping books way beyond my reach. I read “Man on the moon” in class 4 or 5 and read “Hardy Boys”, “Nancy Drew” & “Three Investigators” in class 9. Totally other way round! I was so engrossed in my story books that I used to finish one every day and actually screwed my class-9^th result! People used to think me over-smart as I used to discuss and argue with not only my class-mates but also with teachers and seniors. I actually had gulped copious amount of books on different subjects and needed to discuss them which often lead to arguments. This knowledge made my life chaotic. Now, it was becoming difficult to accept things without reasoning and with my reasoning always different, I am always at loggerheads.

(While people find order in symmetry, I find order in chaos. “Ordo ab chao” is the motto for me. This habit of mine has crept into my life-system and is in most probability going to stay forever.)

My weirdness obviously made me a loner. I was a library where people visit but don’t stay! People don’t understand me and I don’t understand them either. Till class-10^th, at least I had friends. Later it became difficult for me to make friends and even acquaintances. The more I grew older, the more I became queer and loner. The biggest problem maybe is my disbelief in the institution of society and relations. I have always a different set of ideas regarding any topic and it more than often irks people! Like, I hate anyone who carries his religion, caste, community up his sleeve. But that’s not, I presume, how it works in the society. We are supposed to support a group or the other, preferably the majority but then Subhasish Chandra is weird, right!

These differences in opinions and views have led to the development of a trench in between me and others. Others think I am weird as I am not like them and I think why can’t they be like me? Obviously, the other side is in majority and I get the adjectives! There have been occasions when it becomes difficult for me to tolerate myself. I have been asked by many, including my mother, to be little normal. But for some reasons, I can’t get along with the norms of the society. If they fit me then I have no problems. Otherwise I have to protest or neglect them. In that case I will be decorated with the adjective. And frankly speaking I don’t like most of the social norms. Recently, I came out of a temple because it needed the worshipper to do his ‘aarti’ in Indian clothes which I didn’t like! My friend felt offended and thought my actions weird as well because I was not even going to do an ‘aarti’ over there!

This is not the only case. There are several occasions when my actions have actually offended people but I found it reasonable at that time and even though I felt bad later, not because of my actions but because someone else was hurt, it’s highly probable that I would repeat the same again! Just can’t help it. Pleasing others is something which is not in my veins and I hope it never appears as well. Hypocrisy just doesn’t work for me.

If you have seen the sitcom, “Big Bang Theory”, you can readily associate me with a person who is 80% Sheldon & 15% Leonard. Rest is a mix of Howard, Raj and even the comic book store owner, Stuart!

Caution:

If you have found not a single trace of weirdness in me then you don’t know me at all.

If you have found weirdness in me and hence decided to keep a distance then you are a sensible being.

If you have found weirdness in me and yet like to associate with me then either you are a Mahatma or a weird like me.

It’s a long time since I wrote on this platform. The only reason for this inordinate delay was my pending appointment order. As now not only my appointment order is here but also I’m safely posted at Institute of Science, Nagpur, I can again dabble on the blogosphere. And the best thing to write now is the story of my appointment.

All this started way back (yeah it seems such a long time!) in May 2010. It was one year since my masters and I was roaming around the country giving examinations and interviews so that some institute finds me well enough to be a research student when Taresh told me about an advertisement for the post of Assistant Professor in Maharashtra’s government science colleges. I was least interested in the job as I had least confidence in clearing the MPSC interview as I was of the view that only connection played a part in government postings. I had no connections and hence was convinced it was useless to apply. But Taresh and my brother Santu persuaded me into it and I filled the form. They helped in completing the other formalities and the application was done!

I didn’t get into any research institute. Instead I turned up as Lecturer in Physics at MIET, Shahapur, Bhandara. I was soon engrossed in the daily routine of the college and forgot about my application. So, it was a surprise when Taresh called on 19^th April, 2011 to tell me that I can expect a letter from MPSC as he had got his. Mine came on 20^th. I was required to be in Mumbai on 26^th for the interview. I was in two minds but my parents and the helpful lady at the MPSC helpdesk said that what the loss was if I gave the interview. Well they were correct and I went o Mumbai on 24^th. I lodged at my friend Adosh and Sameer’s room at Thane. I was so convinced of my failure that I spent the evening before, i.e. 25^th, chatting with Adosh, Sameer and meeting Chetana and Kaustubh.

I was totally nervous but was certain about one thing. Even if I fail, I had a job in hand and hence it was not going to be the end of the world. Well I had a terrible interview. The interviewers just ripped me apart. I was in a dazed condition after the interview. I walked out of the building and straight way went to an internet café. Apart from the terrible interview I gave, I had to look for what my 4.8/6.0 GPA meant on the percentage scale. I searched the University of Pune but didn’t get any help. I was frustrated to the hilt and hence had my lunch and went to Gateway. I clicked few pictures and then the battery fizzled out (I’d forgotten to charge them!). I walked like a madman to Marine Drive. At 3 o’clock in that blazing sun only couples were there comforting each other. I had just my backpack for company. I sat there wondering about the day’s proceedings and when I was sufficiently hot outside as I was inside; I decided to walk back to CST. I could only walk to Fashion Street when I felt that it would be better if boarded a Double Decker. And I was in CST soon. Had a nice brunch at McD and came back to Nagpur on the next morning and went straight to JMPC, Bhandara where we were conducting a SEEE camp. All was forgotten about the interview. But destiny had other plans.

I was inclined in not sending the document supporting what my GPA meant. But then I decided o give it a try. Chiti, Avdhoot and The Internet helped me in securing the prescribed document and it actually reached MPSC on the very last date.

In the month of May, I stayed at Chikhla with my parents and came to Nagpur only on 11^th June for my IAS prelims. Just for the sake of quelling the query in my mind, I logged to the MPSC website and see if any result had come. And lo it was there and yours truly were first in the merit list of the five selected! I just couldn’t believe. It took some time to sink in. I danced with Santu. I needed to tell this and immediately told my parents and then went to have Ice-Cream with Santu and Prasad. I informed a lot others and in the excitement forgot to tell Taresh without whom this wouldn’t have been a reality. I had to wait for another one month to get the letter from MPSC and the Attestation form. Now, I was officially selected. I duly sent the Attestation form on 9^th July and planned to go to Mumbai as well. But the 13^th July Mumbai blasts stopped me from going and then I thought that it was not wise to go to Mumbai just for the Medical board letter.

I waited and waited and at last a letter came. But while three among the five selected were given postings I was to go to Mumbai for the same Medical board letter which I had thought will come home. Well I went to Mumbai on 12^th November and this time stayed with Avdhoot. On 14^th I went to Mantralaya and got my letter. The people there were really helpful. On 21^st November I did my medical at GMC, Nagpur who made it a 2-day affair. The police verification on 16^th December went smoothly and I was sure to get my appointment letter in a month or so. I was happy as by that time I would have been able to finish the syllabus at MIET smoothly.

But suddenly on the night of 28^th December, I received a call from my friend Dalesh that I’ve been appointed at Institute of Science, Nagpur. He told me that his uncle had seen on the internet and asked him to inform me. I immediately rushed to Prasad’s room. It took quite a time to search the file and the downloading was painfully slow. To add to my woes the 8.2 MB file’s downloading stopped at 7.3 MB! We downloaded again and this time it was successfully done. And finally I’d my long waited and cherished appointment letter in my hand!

Dr. Harde told me after my selection that even though my interview went bad, the others were even worse. I will remember this for life and never stop in taking a chance whenever it will beckon!

And now I must return to my work desk at my new college.

XOXO, Subhasish Chandra.

Aspiration for a chair, both literally and symbolically, has been a human trait from time infinitum. And everyone is entitled to harbour such an aspiration and take steps to achieve it. The chair is surely a seat of supremacy. It separates one from the rest. It provides one with a platform where one can be on his own. The chair provides security and great power. And with great power comes great responsibilities. George Bernard Shaw said,

Power doesn’t corrupt man. Man corrupts power.

The chair, a seat of power, also tends to be corrupted by individuals who take the success straight to their cranium. When a man cannot cope with his new found success, he starts feeling all others around him to be inferiors and treats them as his slaves. This absolute abuse of power not only degrades him in the eyes of his subordinates but also in his own eyes, if he choses to introspect even once. The succession of a colleague to the post of one’s superior is not always met with exhiliration and jubilation. There is always a tinge of sadness and jealousy when that happens. But there is always a satisfaction and belief that as one amongst them has been raised he will try to solve the hardships, which he had suffered when he was a junior himself. But more often that not it has been seen that the new “chairholder” forgets all about his past and tends to abuse his power. This trait of human nature is really beyond any comprehension! It must be remembered that a given chair provides one with a certain set of powers in a certain organisational setup. Outside the setup everyone is a nobody. There one has equal opportunities as the other bystander. The dynamics are completely different there. There would be a chair supreme in that setup which may or may not approve of the supremacy of the other chair! Remember life is a vicious circle and at the end of a day one is surely going to be paid back in the same coin that one has spent. A chair provides one with a certain set of powers but its the “respect” which one craves for dearly. But this craving cannot be satisfied with vicious actions. It’s not something which can be begged or asked for. It can neither be snatched nor be looted. A person gets only that much respect as much he spends on others. The one and only way to get respect is to give respect. In any other case one is surely going to be doomed. So, one must use the set powers attached to his/her chair wisely and respectfully because,

हम ही हम हैं तो क्या हम हैं

तुम ही तुम हो तो क्या तुम हो !