Sunday 27 November 2011

life in slow motion..

        Anyone who sits at home and while watching the match on their TVs, says "this looks so easy!",should actually take the trouble of visiting a stadium when a test is in progress .Had they been among the crowd and actually seen Fidel Edwards steaming in and digging the ball short,and VVS at the other end nonchalantly pull-flicking it through  mid wicket, they would have come to appreciate a touch more, the amount of skill and precision required to play the game at the highest level and in its toughest format.It is this feeling, this awareness, that only live action can bring, that was awakened within me after a friend convinced me to watch a bit of the last test between India and the West Indes at the Wankhede.I was surprised at the invitation because i had never been to watch a test and somehow had never felt inclined to do so.But i took the chance to erase one more item from my (quite long)never-done-before list and tagged along.And i didn't regret it one bit.It is an experience i would recommend to all those who have played the game, and here i unashamedly admit that there will be quite a few of us who ,like me, never felt inclined.Not just because it is perhaps the best exhibition of the game we love, but because it gives us an idea of how things that appear so simple are in reality extremely difficult.
        We will never get an idea of how fast is fast until we sit in the stands at ground level , perpendicular to the pitch and watch a quick bowler bowl.(A better view is probably inside the batsman's head ;i am curious to see its 'colour' as the bowler nears the crease.)  But it all  looks deceptively simple on TV.We think nothing of the fact that Tendulkar and Dravid can play a short  ball just on off stump down to fine leg with deft wristwork.It looks easy and so it must be.And this is how we think when we are dissatisfied with our lot and look at other peoples lives .We see only the results, and the apparent ease with which they are achieved.we look at their lives longingly and think" if only i had it made ,like they do".We see only the TV view, not live action from inside their heads.This is why everyone must watch a test match live, at least once in their lives, and go home knowing that everyone plays in the real world, and no one does well easily,for there would not be any sense of achievement if it was so.No one lives slow motion, TV lives.The grass is as green as you make it on any side.