Sunday, November 08, 2009

The angry young man

Have I suddenly turned more intelligent this weekend, or has the entire world turned more stupid? I seem to find some stupidity in every article that I have been reading.

Here, for instance, is Bobilli Vijay Kumar writing in the sports section of the TOI:

"How many times has Sachin Tendulkar played second fiddle to his emotions on the cricket field? How many times has he allowed his anger to sneak into your sitting room during the course of a match? Probably never.

On Thursday night, in front of a packed stadium in Hyderabad, however, he showed that he was human too: after diving forward to catch Cameron White, off the last ball of Australia's innings, he slammed the ball into the ground and walked away in a huff.

Instantly, you knew that somebody was going to be at the receiving end that night; that something special was cooking in his ageing willow."

It is clear that this Bobilli Vijay Kumar has been fed a staple diet of a particular genre of Hindi movies ( titles such as Deewar, Zanjeer, Sholay come instantly to mind) that glorifies the angry young man. According to this genre, once the spark of anger is lit, as when one’s sister has been molested, no power on earth can stop the said angry young man from extracting his revenge. Single-mindedly and single-handedly he can take on an entire army of thugs and villains who are equipped with guns, grenades and tanks. Yes, his terrible anger is enough to cause him to carry out fantastic feats.

So, when Tendulkar looked angry, Bobilli knew instantly that the Aussies were going to be slaughtered that night. A terrible fate awaited them, for Hell hath no fury like a Sachin angered.

Will someone known to Bobbili ( I am hoping that the theory of six degrees of separation is true and he can be reached) din it into his head that anger is the last emotion a batsman wants to be in the grip of while going out to bat, and is exactly the emotion your opponent wants you to be in the grip of? Losing one’s cool can be a brief and momentary episode, but a good sportsman has to quickly regain his composure. Anger affects one’s concentration and makes him do foolish things. And Sachin has not amassed 17000 runs without knowing this simple truth.

In fact I was so angry with Bobilli for insulting Sachin in this manner that I knew instantly that he was going to be at the receiving end of my post today. Take that, Bobilli.

6 comments:

Ravi KR said...

Mr. Vijay Kumar's dramatic interpretation might have had some impact if India had gone on to win the match...it turned out to be a demoralizing loss and extended into another loss on sunday!!

Balajisblog said...

Raj - I think it the name Vijaykumar that has brought out these comments from you !

Kiran said...

Your insights into simple things in life are profound and at the same time funny! Someday, hope to reach there :)

Raj said...

Ravi, winning/losing had nothing to do with it. That someone can believe that anger can lead to superhuman exploits on the sports field....

Balaji, you may have a point,

Kiran, thanks. Out of the hundreds of things that I read, I blog about one on which a 'profound insight' had accidentally happened.

Anonymous said...

Hi.

Clearly you've turned more stupid this week. My only point here is that howmuchever you pedestalize sachin, he did as a matter of fact, lose his cool. He was angry and there's no reason why you should take it out on a writer just because your little bubble was broken.

What Bobilli has done is give his interpretation of the incident and had you not been deluded enough to think of it as an insult to Sachin, you probably would have seen the point behind the column.

But then you're too stupid to notice anyway.

Hope you become smarter and objective; will help if you plan to write.

T

Raj said...

Ha, the gallant but anonymous Mr T gets angry and rushes to the defence of Bobilli.