well done sonny boy

Who is Sonny Bill Williams. Well. He is the Sachin Tendulkar of New Zealand. If google searches are a metric, this man ranks as the amongst the top 10 from eh country, eclipsing some real hot women stars. Its always the women stars that you need to beat, isn't it? I came across this guy today as i saw, what is to my mind the most inspirational video  that i would have ever seen.

Sonny is a New Zealand rugby player. He is adored and worshipped amongst those who follow rugby. He is also a heavyweight boxer, amongst the top 100 in the world. that would make him by most archetypes an extremely aggressive person, who you wouldn't want to mess with. Imagine Tyson playing Rugby. Now that is a crazy ass kind of personality. Sonny also at the start of his career got into all sorts of trouble - caught making out with a model, pissing in the alleys and drunk driving among other stuff. It seems something happened - a change to Islam and the guy turned. he is now clean, doesn't drink and is a role model for kids.

But that is still not inspiring to me. A lot of people turn around in life. Some thanks to a question of faith and some for some other reasons. People turn. I am not so crazy about seeing people turn. its commendable but NOT that crazy. But When a perceived archetype of a jock shows he is an athlete - that moves me like nothing else.

See the below video. Its really crazy. The New Zealand All Blacks are the most crazy rugby team in the world. feared all over they start their session with a Maori haha that gets them all worked up and puts fear in the hearts of the opposition. This team just finished a world cup campaign where they ended up as the champions. At the end of the match the players who would be at the highest level of their testosterone filled bodies are taking a lap of honour in front of a delirious crowd. A kid try to run in and meet their hero. This kid gets brutally tackled by a security officer. I think he was a bit too serious about his job, but then he is trained to react knowing how crazy and drunk a fan can get. The next thing that happens is that our champion immediately restrains the security officer from doing more harm, takes the kid and shields him in his burly hands. he hugs the kid. Other players too help in keeping the security out of the kids reach. One player pulls out his All Blacks warm cap and puts it on the kid. Thats still humanity and empathy. But what the Sonny proceeds to do next tells us a lot about his mind.

Sonny then still hugging the boy talks a little to him. I think he asks him where his folks are and then escorts him to his folks in the crowd. He doesn't need to do that. That is a human being knowing how to achieve complete closure on the empathy that you show. He knows that the kid had a rough tackle and that the security wouldn't be too cool with him, he takes the boy all the way to the crowd where he hands him over. AND THEN does something that i wouldn't even think of. He spontaneously removes his medal that he received for the world cup and hands it over to the kid. HE GIVES AWAY HIS WORLD CUP MEDAL!

I had a lot of cricket trophies on my table a few years ago. Medals, trophies and other paraphernalia. One day I decided that its stupid. The achievements were nowhere near as good. They came against stupid players with little or no skill. I hardly did anything of note against any thing of quality. So i junked every trophy I had and I junked every certificate i got. Most of them were stupid and nothing but ego feeding, navel gazing crap of no real value. What would i gain by showing off what I had (or rather little) achieved. Nothing. As you grow up the value chain as a corporate professional, you get even more crap to display on your desk. People who think they want your mindshare by simply giving you a certificate of appreciation with your name on it in the hope that you will not throw it. I have met more than one professional who takes a lot of care and effort to display the range of trophies that they have won over the years along with the certificates of meaningless value. Why would they do that? And some of these have been seriously large people in their fields with a lot of achievements that they need not prove to anyone about. So - i threw out a lot of stuff. better to not keep than to keep vanity junk.

But Sonny… Sonny gave away what everyone else will consider an heirloom. It is something that you will hang on your wall for infinity, it is something of real value, it is something that your grandkids will remember and cherish. It is a manifestation of all you have achieved. It is your proof that you were amongst the world’s best! and you just gave it away to a boy who was treated rough? Would you give away something you have worked all your life to achieve… well its not everything you have achieved but it is the physical manifestation of all you have achieved.

I have had the pleasure of working two outstanding individuals. One is Prem and the other is Rajesh. They showed me what true compassion and humility is all about. After those two - this is one thing that I am not likely to forget. This is greatness absolute greatness. A true athlete knows that while the standards of performance he sets out for are for himself, at a fundamental level, he is what he is because of the fans who love him and adore him and want him to succeed. An athlete is nothing without his fans. Respecting your fans is the greatest thing you can do. And what Sonny did was a show of humility and respect - no is above the game but no one is above the collective audience who watches the game. 

dance can be inspiring

Ah. The fun of sitting out with the young kids in office unbeatable. Alos it helps that I don’t really interfere or look over them all the time and let them be what they want to be. Otherwise having a nanny around you is the most irritating thing that one can ever have. Of course it also helps me in a way that I can be a boss and not be bossy. Not bother about what people do whole day. I try not to even know what they have to do. I just sit around them, talk to them on random things and have a good time. I teach them a lot and they teach me a lot.

Today they were sitting and watching videos and I generally asked them what they were watching and they showed me the videos of ABCD movie. They first made me watch the Bezubaan video from ABCD and then Bezubaan phir se from ABCD 2.

Here watch the first video

You must watch the video to progress further on this blog!

We then got talking about the movie and the dance moves and how difficult it would have been to choreograph the moves. These days with the reality shows coming up on Tv with some amazing dance moves, there are so many dance studios mushrooming in the country. Now dancing and teaching dance is a respectable profession.  To my mind when I was growing up I don’t think one could tell a parent that one was going to dance for a living, unless one was a classical dancer. I am a hip hop dancer – ya sure – now can you get your accounts paper cleared. Sure . A lot of kids just must have grown up to dance and then bury their ambitions or passions in math books. Today thanks to the Karan Johar movies, having a sangeet function in the marriage is a must and in this marriage function all the near and dear come and dance to steps. These are carefully choreographed for maximum effect. People (a lot of people) come together for their friends or cousins wedding and spend time practicing their moves. This gives rise to a demand for choreographers who possibly might be able to make a decent level of income. I would surely assume that a lot of them from far humbler backgrounds. I saw a few and I thought this is a great thing for India. Jobs gets created in ways that we don’t imagine. Jasmine’s maid from her old house had a daughter who loved to dance. She then grew up watching these dance moves on TV. Now she teaches dance for a living. That’s great. That’s a step up!

Then these guys told me to search for Dharmesh sir on youtube. What? Just search for Dharmesh sir. What follows is one of the most inspirational audition clips that I have ever seen. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. WATCH IT NOW.

As a teacher, as a boss, to see this clip is something extraordinary. Now when you see Dharmesh sir, do you think you have seen him somewhere? The first video has this Dharmesh sir leading the dance in a movie. If there is a great story of Indian media opening

 up possibilities then this is it! If there a story of triumph then this is it. I was really moved by this video. This is Dharmesh sir teaching his wards – doing well and then trying to do it himself! Whoah! From Baroda. Saala full emotional kar diya

pasta at the movies

We had a long weekend this time and we got a chance to catch up with the new Avengers movie. It was quite a disappointment. The story went berserk and the action went even weirder. Well what do you do when you have Hulk on your avengers team. The guy is out of control and indestructible. You can nuke him or shoot him or anything else. Anything you do only makes him madder! But what the hell. A movie that I could finally discuss with my daughter. She too thought it was a bit over the top. Then I tried to explain to her what the artificial intelligence they show is and how the basis of AI in the movie is in reality. It’s quite interesting how clued in good quality fiction writing is. They can take an idea from reality and close make it work with the story. Basically take the most simplest of future gazing and take it to its ultimate mess. Even hulk and the others were all products of the nuclear age where you needed to be radiated to  have super human powers.

Talking about radiation, when men discovered radioactive substances we went berserk. We thought that this is cool new scientific stuff and therefore lets sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We put radium in toothpastes and even in water. In fact we sold a canister which contained radioactive substances mean to radiate the water before we drank it. Obviously people drank this to die! Don’t believe me – try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator. The revigator was the big thing in the 1920’s.

But forget that… yesterday I got Jispa to watch the movie ‘for a few dollars more’ with me. this was the movie I had loved to watch. It was a cult with the guys and Clint Eastwood was the ultimate cool hero with a billion dollars of attitude. This was Jispa’s first western and as I explained to her – it was her first Spaghetti western. These were called so as they were western movie produced with American actors but largely meant for the Italian market. They were shot without sound and then the lines were in Italian. The English versions were an afterthought. Released in 1965, these movies had an indelible impact on the movie loving public. And of course a ton of filmmakers. These westerns in their plot were inspired by the Japanese – especially Kurosawa and his band of films. We in india got inspired and made a few movies. One was a decent hit called Khotey Sikkey, which starred Firoze Khan in the lead and directed by Narendra Bedi. Narendra Bedi was the brother of my mom’s best friend and that’s why I knew some of this past story. It seems they all around the same time watched these westerns and decided to make movies. Narendra Bedi made Khotey Sikkey but the movie that created the maximum impact was – what else – Sholay. Sholay while being an absolute super grosser and a great movie – it still to my mind was a well made rip off. It seems to me that the villain in ‘for a few dollars more’ was an inspiration in many ways for Gabbar. The hairdo, the built, the beard, the laughter, the madness, the brooding – everything seemed so Gabbar in the movie. A la Gabbar, this guy too smashes insects on his hand, while brooding over. While I knew Sholay was inspired, watching this movie took a little sheen that I had in my head for Sholay. Of course Sholay was well picturised, they had some amazing dialogues, love story, music, everything… but still, it was copied.

Even the background score by RD was heavily inspired by the movie, the shots, the wide angle landscapes, the signature tune. I had taken Jispa to watch Sholay and when this movie was being played, I kept reminding Jispa of the similarities.

You can see the amazing title sequence here which sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jispa and I were having fun with the background score and the tones of attitude the movie oozed.  The full movie had hardly anything that made sense. Everything was just a lead up for a large dollop of attitude to be served up. Of course as teen boys in our time, we loved it. Jispa enjoyed it but couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was about. She found the shoe scene particularly dumb. Which Shoe scene? Oh dear – see this scene, where the two heroes face off against one another. One is obviously trying to better the other! And who of the two is really the Big Boss! And you really have to be a teen age boy to get the real fun kick behind putting sand on another’s shoe. It’s so stupid that’s it so much full of attitude. Complete spaghetti with sand!

Inspirational irreverence

v-inu wouldn’t care two hoots about commenting directly on blog but is a regular reader. He reads almost everything but gets tuned off when I chatter philosophically or moralistically or any other callys.

Here is a video he sent for Jispa



The lyrics are as under
An Effervescing Elephant
with tiny eyes and great big trunk
once whispered to the tiny ear
the ear of one inferior
that by next June he'd die, oh yeah!
because the tiger would roam.
The little one said: "Oh my goodness I must stay at home!
and every time I hear a growl
I'll know the tiger's on the prowl
and I'll be really safe, you know
the elephant he told me so."
Everyone was nervy, oh yeah!
and the message was spread
to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus who wallowed in the mud and chewed his spicy hippo-plankton food and tended to ignore the word preferring to survey a herd of stupid water bison, oh yeah!
And all the jungle took fright,
and ran around for all the day and the night but all in vain, because, you see, the tiger came and said: "Who me?!
You know, I wouldn't hurt not one of you.
I'd much prefer something to chew
and you're all to scant." oh yeah!
He ate the Elephant

He also writes that “This is by Syd Barrett - one of the founders of Pink Floyd. Teachers wouldn't exactly prefer him as a role model for a kid.”

Well I guess so, but she can take all the inspiration she can get.

PS: she seems to be doing well with Lester for the elocution competition but I guess its not as funny as the original Crocodile's toothache. This one has a limited set of emotions and does not allow for sharp contrasts. Am I making sense? Atleast to me ... I think.

While we are on the topic, I would rate the above equally inspirational for Jispa as this link here http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

role on

Wonder of wonders, its the summer vacations and yesterday (Sunday) the swimming pool was empty barring a couple of energized souls. Wonder why. Vacations are normally such a bad time that one can get a clear lane. Last week I almost crashed into another person. The club also does not allow guests into the pool in the vacations for the same reason. Too crowded. But yesterday was an aberration, or was it? Then it dawned upon me – it has to be the IPL. The IPL season two has launched giving the kids the reason to stay home during the vacations and watch cricket non stop. The Economic times today talks about lower ratings for the IPL as compared to last year. Well the ground level reality is that people are following it. Let’s see how it pans over the length of the competition.
But on the other hand these developments are hardly encouraging. We are building a nation of sport fans. I have a huge axe to grind against their ilk. I hate their lot. A lot of these sport fans are die hard fans who don’t miss a game and analyse it no end. They have opinions and attitude. It’s a pity that their pot bellies match up their swollen heads. I find it ridiculous that the majority of these do not play a game themselves and are hopelessly out of shape. They do not understand the technicalities of a game (they always claim to though), they sit on their butt all day and scream obscenities. I overhear kids in trains discussing the latest football match in Europe, or the cricket game but I never overhear anyone discussing the match they played on the field. I would want IPL to be a role model for a million kids to take the field and play, not sit in and scream. You cannot be a sports fan if you do not attempt to play the game. Play it, understand it and apply it. But for heaven sake don’t be an arm chair expert. I have no patience for it. But then the problem is the parent, he is the role model instead of the cricketer.
Jispa had been going for gymnastics and yesterday at daadi-house I kept gymnastics on TV. Instantly she started jumping around doing cart wheels. Wow that’s a cool. Role models are important in kid’s lives. If you see someone at the pinnacle of the sport you are inspired to emulate. You have goals in your mind. I think this cuts across all age groups. I think my problem right now at work is that I have no role model. Sure there are a lot of role models in a lot of small things that I definitely look at and benchmark. But somehow it’s not adding up. How do I push my craft.