Fashionophobia

Jessa Crispin on fashion guides:

Instead of alleviating our body fears, however, so many books advising what to wear do nothing but exaggerate them. The entire structure of Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine’s book 'What Not to Wear' is built to help you define your particular version of body dysmorphic disorder. Do you think you have short legs? A big butt? Big arms? There’s a chapter telling you how to dress around each perceived flaw. It’s hard to walk out the door feeling hot and feisty when your entire dressing process has been focused on your main source of anxiety. If I tried to dress to hide all the parts of my body I have ever been self-conscious about, the only thing left to wear would be a hazmat suit.

That's bang on target. Any trend that sets in, should at the least be comfortable. If a dress or a decoration comes into vogue inspite of its lack of comfort, the chances are good that it won't sustain. As pointed out by the writer, any guide that provides a fancy work around to hide what you think is your weakest or ugliest organ just feeds to your anxiety. There's nothing wrong in trying to present yourself beautifully; but it shouldn't come at the cost accepting your body as it is.

Tom Evslin writes on failure:

set only low goals; then you’ll fail even if you meet them.

Brevity is beauty.

Gender Equality

Amit Varma writes:

... more divorces = less women trapped in bad marriages. An increasing divorce rate indicates that women are being empowered with more choices...

But Amit is biased: the increasing divorce rate also frees men trapped in bad marriages who would otherwise have silently put up because of a pseudo moral obligation to hang on to a financially incapable woman. The society would mercilessly foul-mouth an earning man divorcing his home-maker wife even if she's the reason for ruining the marriage. But I believe such cases have always been in the minority and mostly its been men wearing the pants.

Poor Dear

Sharjah has enforced dress code for mannequins. Great. The next logical step would be to allow only men to touch men mannequins & women near women mannequins. And then the minimum distance between those two mannequins. And then the beautiful world of mannequins would be compliant.

Grand Engineering Challenges

Some of the top brains got together to list the top engineering challenges of the 21st century. Most of the challenges are abstract, a view from 50,000 feet without fleshing out any concrete action plans. Here is what they came up with:

1. Make solar energy affordable.
2. Provide energy from fusion.
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods.
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle.
5. Provide access to clean water.
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
7. Advance health informatics.
8. Engineer better medicines.
9. Reverse-engineer the brain.
10. Prevent nuclear terror.
11. Secure cyberspace.
12. Enhance virtual reality.
13. Advance personalized learning.
14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.

Number 9 personally resonates because I recently read Phantoms in the Brain, a popular science book that explains how the brain works, and how we think the brain works. V.S.Ramachandran, the author explains that reverse engineering may not be the answer to understand how our body parts work. For example, if one were to understand how a human stomach works just by reverse engineering, one would have to analyze the food consumed and the drops that come out and with these two samples the scientist would construct a blackbox that will transform food into excretion. But the actual digestive process is thoroughly complex and in now way deducible by looking at a blackbox model. And brain, which is extremely superior and probably the most complex organ in this planet cannot be understood by reverse engineering, in my opinion.

Number 14 piques my curiosity. I have some ideas about what the panel may mean when they say 'engineer the tools for scientific discovery'. They aren't talking about scientific inventions, but scientific discoveries which could range from anything between understanding the genetic make up of human species to unearthing fossils or lost civilizations. Scientific discovery in the field of medicine can enable better living standards and in other fields like archeology or paleontology can offer valuable insights about how the earth came to be what it is today and where it may be headed. But this is something only the rich countries can afford to do while the rest are busy either catching up (like India & China) or go down (central African countries).

Number 11 is a no brainer. By the end of the century computers/internet would have radically transformed the way people live. They would have taken new shapes, forms, acquired immense power, would have great reach and will play a vital role in how the economic engine of countries works. Within my lifetime, I'll probably have my preferences set in a repository which will contain data about how hot my bathing water should be, my video rentals, my cuisine choices, etc. When I check into a hotel, they'll have access to these information and will be able to provide personalized services. Now, with this kind of personal data on the internet, security is something that will strongly touch a common man.

On Rape

In a bestial act, seven men raped a 12-year-old girl child in Kanpur, India. This happened in front of her younger siblings; after the act she was battered to death. A crime well accomplished, but a question lingers. Why? It's a open-ended question, with so many possibilities after that 'why' and before that '?' but that was all I managed to come up with. Again: why? It's a helpless cry; you cry because the event warrants an outburst and the cry is helpless because policemen, who were supposed to maintain the law & order were involved in the gang-rape.

Rapes happen all over the world. But such events can almost certainly never happen in the first world countries. It's the animal inside a man that pits him against a hapless tender female body. In a country like U.S.A, I'm sure that for seven men to have cornered a young girl, all of them need to be certified pedophiles working out a well coordinated plan to commit such a crime. Whereas in countries like India and other poor ones, these are normal guys walking the streets. They might have a history of harassment (lightly dismissed as eve teasing) but the police wouldn't bother to pursue, punish or prune such rogues, because they know the taste of female flesh themselves. I know I run the risk of generalization by blaming the entire police force. Mind you, Indian police is one of the 10 most corrupt police forces in the world. Had there been a survey on how they treat women, they would have been in the top 5. Which is why, on popular public demand, India has women-only police stations - such a shame.

Bloodthirsty hounds in human form, the rapists wouldn't even have a fetish for young girls. They rape because they can. That's how dark it can get in such societies. When they see a door open with a young girl in the absence of strong muscles, they jump on her. We have long tolerated a culture of physically over-powering men reminiscent of hunter-gatherers fighting over a piece of skin. And this toleration arises from a multitude of factors with the top 3 being: the offenders have political clout; they belong to the mafia; even worse, they are the police. For an average Indian middle/lower class to fight any of the three mentioned goons is a high stake game. You should be ready to forgo your life to bring them to the book. Since most of victims are aware of the emotional expenses involved in pursuing the criminals, they just put up with the event and get on with their lives.

How are we to prevent such incidents? Women empowerment? Minimize the segregation between men & women in closed cultures? A clean police force? More stringent punishments?.... There are many more bridges that will close the gap. But the primary driving force will be education. I know that I sound very text-bookish when I say education. I refer to education that produces an expanding mind that understands women's role in the progress of a society, a culturally open mind that doesn't fit womenfolk into roles which their grandmothers performed, a loving mind that addresses the need for women's freedom to express. Such a mind cannot be shaped by school education (though it will help to some extent). For a faster & efficient growth, men need to understand that societies need to be built with both hands.

Insomnia

By the time I hit the bed, she was in the middle of her journey. I slowly moved the hair strands at the back of her neck. Her weight has been oscillating for a while now, a constant flux around her tummy and cheeks. But her neck, which I remember how it was exactly since I met her, has remained the same size.

There are some events, which are of absolutely no significance that have stayed in my mind. I recall an evening when she was talking to our neighbour. Nothing special about the day: neither breezy nor sultry; nothing special about her appearance: neither flashy nor simple; nothing special about her mannerisms: neither forced nor natural. But then, I remember almost every movement she made then, from her shift in balance to hair adjustments, from her lazily elegant leaning on a wall to a semi-brisk walk, from her lullaby of a silence to her cascade-flow words. A happy life, I think is constituted by a collection of such undecorated but memorable, insignificant but worthwhile events.

A Freudian Slip

My wife recently gave a presentation on the book 'Rise & Fall of the Third Chimpanzee' by Jared Diamond. Diamond would argue that if aliens were to figure out earthly animals' sexual fidelities, they would conclude that humans are mildly polygynous - because an average man is slightly taller and broader than a woman of that society. Though not a very convincing point, he would proceed the discussion as to how the species' mate-loyalty can be deduced by the size of the male versus female in that society.

In a slide that discusses this aspect, my wife typed 'Mindly Polygynous' instead of 'Mildly Polygynous' (which now stands corrected) and a friend promptly asked if it was a Freudian Slip and the whole crowd started giggling at me. Just a thought: when it's a man's fidelity that's discussed in a crowd in a somewhat conservative society, it can be treated as a joke; but I'm quite sure that had it been a woman's fidelity questioned in a similar society, the discussion would have assumed serious proportions. If you want to understand the paranoia associated with a woman's loyalty to her partner, read the book, or at least go through the slides which are fairly indicative.

Smoke Signals

Let me do a minor dissection of a piece from Wall Street Journal:

About 40% of countries still allow smoking in hospitals and schools, according to the WHO report. Additionally, only 5% of the world's population lives in countries with comprehensive national bans on tobacco advertising and promotion. Services to treat tobacco dependence are fully available in only nine countries.

Yet tobacco tax revenues are more than 4,000 times greater than spending on tobacco control in middle-income countries and more than 9,000 times greater in lower-income countries, the WHO says.

When the report says that 40% of the countries allow smoking in hospitals & schools, it fails to mention exactly what percentage of the population have the freedom to smoke in such places. I'm quite sure that those countries all are rich or poor. The rich think of smoking anywhere they want as a symbol of freedom and the poor don't care. Usually the middle-world countries like India & China which assign secondary preferences for personal freedom don't encourage such stupidities. There is no point in keeping a hospital sterile when the patients become passive smokers. Schools are cat-on-the-wall places where kids who're susceptible to peer pressure or who try to look smart & cool pick up the habit.

5% of the world's population lives in countries with comprehensive national bans on tobacco advertising and promotion. Now we're talking about population, which I think is a more concrete and useful figure compared to the % of countries where the actual number of smokers is hidden. I wonder if the lack of advertisements has any effect at all. Well, in a country like India where movie/cricket stars are demigods, their smoking may cause a considerable impact. But I still think the major driver here is your neighbor/friend/colleague/mate. When they stand next to you smoking, the chances are high that you either pick up the habit (given that you're vulnerable) or resume (how many times smokers quit) or increase your frequency (just for the sake of company). Moreover, there are alternatives when it comes to marketing: most of the alcohol beverage brands available in India advertise their.... yeah.. their music CDs.

Yet tobacco tax revenues are more than 4,000 times greater than spending on tobacco control... The writer again glosses over and fails to provide concrete numbers through which an educated reader can gain some insights. How much does a country spend on tobacco control? In middle-income countries, which is where I guess India & China would comfortably fall under, the fund allocated to combat such public menaces would line the pockets of bureaucrats and only a ludicrous amount would come into the fore. What kinds of techniques are used to fight tobacco? Billboards, radio/TV advertisements, short films... Do the government officials actually care about these messages reaching its intended audince? I'm not surprised at all that the tax revenues paid by cigarette manufacturers are thousand-fold the budget to fight smoke. This is the only way how it could be and the way the writer puts it hardly shocks me.

Fighting tobacco, comparable to quitting drugs or alcohol, involves a good deal of will and strong encouragement & support from family. I also believe that the formative years between 13 and 21 will heavily decide the course of one's personal traits. As for the WSJ piece, there are a few numbers & names thrown here and there, but not much food for thought.

The.Moral.Science

In a piece that starts softly, wavers a little bit but then progresses strongly and ends with a bang, Frank Furedi writes:

The slippage between a scientific fact and moral exhortation is accomplished with remarkable ease in a world where people lack the confidence to speak in the language of right and wrong. But turning science into an arbiter of policy and behaviour only serves to confuse matters. Science can provide facts about the way the world works, but it cannot say very much about what it all means and what we should do about it. Yes, the search for truth requires scientific experimentation and the discovery of new facts; but it also demands answers about the meaning of those facts, and those answers can only be clarified through moral, philosophical investigation and debate.

Frank brilliantly argues how under-informed, misguided people are trying to replace moral & religious authorities with a shadow of science. In most cases, I try to be a man driven by reason and science is a wonderful tool that helps me wade through the multitude of options available on a daily basis ranging from the trivial like the brand of tooth paste to weighty issues like child psychology.

But an extreme insistence on science in every walk of life (anatomically comfortable sexual position, your TV viewing angle shouldn't exceed 30 degrees, sun screen lotion with an SPF of 12.5.....) makes decision-making robotically boring. As humans with free will (don't we?) the fun comes with owning responsibilities for our actions. By thoroughly turning towards scientific proofs/experiments we deny ourselves in breathing a fresh whiff of air.

On Celebrity Break-Ups

Celebrity marriages are celebrity marriages. But this is special: Eddie Murphy & Tracey Edmonds who tied the knot on a island just two weeks back are busy untying it. Two weeks is by any standards a honeymoon phase. You can't even have gotten over your sexual appetite before you say 'enough' (Well, its Murphy's fifth, so I guess he's seen enough). What I find amusing about these break-ups are the sugar sprinkled words they use: 'irreconcilable differences', 'decided to remain friends', 'with admiration for one another'. To suppress bitterness & to ooze magnanimity, you need PR guys.

On Jallikattu

Jallikattu, a festival that coincides with Tamil new year (today), which involves taming a bull that runs wild through the narrow streets of villages filled with men who've satiated themselves with cheap liquor has been temporarily suspended by the supreme court citing safety (and other pragmatic reasons) and the state government with all its intentions of being the vanguard of a supreme culture (and in the banner of continuing the tradition) has filed a petition to review the situation.

There was a time, when the young woman of the house didn't have much say as to her choice of partner, and the father would deem a young man capable of taming a wild bull fit for his daughter. This is not a far fetched idea as there weren't many other means of evaluating the life-earning skills of a man. It wasn't just brute force (to discipline the animal), but the process also involved timing (when to get hold of the bull, when to let go of it), positioning (attack from a vantage point), sense of safety (how well/less bruised he is once done), reflex (avoid those sharp horns & U-turns) and maturity (an crude analysis of the bull's thought process and how best it can be contained in the running field). So, if someone is successful at getting the animal to its knees, by a very rough estimate, he is considered capable of wading his family through tough times - a mark of physical & mental strength.

But what does all of this have to do today? In an age of tractors, fertilizers and electric pumps and in a time when grooms are chosen based on their bank balances, why bother running after an intoxicated bull whose tail has been adorned with fire crackers? Oh yes! Its called 'our mighty culture & tradition'. I saw this guy on TV who has shaved his head as a mark of protest for not allowing him to display his valour. He said that if the supreme court doesn't give a favorable response, he'll shave his head again. Now, in all probability, he'll remain a healthy bachelor!

Dreaming of a Painless Future

V.S.Ramachandran in his lucid and accessible book 'Phantoms in the Brain' writes:

As with most nature/nurture debates, asking which is the more important variable is meaningless - despite extravagant claims to the contrary in the IQ literature. (Indeed, the question is no more meaningful than asking whether the wetness of water results mainly from the hydrogen molecules or from the oxygen molecules that constitute H2O!). But the good news is that by doing the right kinds of experiments, you can begin to tease them apart, investigate how they interact and eventually help develop new treatments for phantom pain. It seems extraordinary even to contemplate the possibility that you could use a visual illusion to eliminate pain, but bear in mind that pain itself is an illusion - constructed entirely in your brain like any other sensory experience. Using one illusion to erase another doesn't seem very surprising after all.

Phantom limbs, for those who don't know what it is, are imaginary limbs that continue to exist in the mind in spite of a specific limb being amputated. Strangely, some of those who have phantom limbs feel extra-ordinary physical pain in those limbs. Sounds crazy from a common sense perspective to realize that someone who doesn't have an arm is boggled down by unimaginable pain in that arm. As neuroscience has put the spotlight on, the pain is very real and V.S.Ramachandran, a leading neuroscientist has developed a gimmick of a solution which involves a mirror through which the patient can see his/her phantom limb to get rid of it and eventually the pain born out of it.

I didn't know until I read this book that physical pain is an illusion constructed in the brain. I've read before that there are no pain receptors in the brain (which is why those who contemplate suicide try to shoot themselves in their brains). But this fact makes sense from an evolutionary vantage point - pain is the brain's way of instructing the animal: guard your body & keep it safe so that you remain fit enough to pass on your genes. Just for a crazy split-second, I thought: if the wiring in your brain is screwed up where you don't feel pain anymore, wouldn't that be cool?

The author mentions that in some cultures women don't experience any pain during labour. With these women as inspiration, you rewire your circuit such that the pain receptors are out of the brain's normal functioning (I don't think the medical technology is yet there, but let me just hypothesize). You're a cop operating on a risky route; you bust gang and in the process you get shot on your shoulders. You don't feel any pain but you can see blood gushing out of you. With a cool head, you wrap a piece of cloth or get whatever first-aid possible. Call an ambulance, explain your situation and give them your location. Of course, there's a lot of exaggeration involved in that scenario, but I hope the point is clear.

And then I got back from my reverie. My knowledge of physiology, brain's response to a biological crisis & human immunity is just damn flimsy. But wishful thinking never hurt anyone.

You, I & Bad Journalism

From a fine piece by a Samanth Subramanian for The New Republic

The truth, of course, is that in India, and in every other large nation in the world, there can be found many shades of gray between the black of one statement and the white of its exact opposite. The grays aren't hard to find, but spotting them might involve the terrific discomfort of occasionally taking off those designer sunglasses and squinting, for a while, into the sun.

Every day a reporter talks rapidly on a very pressing issue as if it might change the economic/political/social landscape of the country immediately. Once the fake storm dies, there is no follow-up. As the writer points out, there are pieces daily that flood our news papers and magazines that fail to offer a shred of insight. But blaming the media doesn't take us anywhere. They are just treading a time-tested model: like the movies, give them something hot for now. When the news cools down, jump on to the next hot thing. Journalism in India, like in most other places has become a act of throwing bone to the dog. Is the dog really hungry? Is it selective in its intake? Does it avoid junk food?

Fair & Hard

1) One of the letters to the 'The Hindu' states that Bucknor should have been awarded the man of the match as he played better than players from both the teams. Funny & sad. But isn't it already late when it comes to reaping the fruits of technology to ensure fairness in a game? How long does the ICC plan to burden the shoulders of umpires? Occasional errors are acceptable; but match-swinging series of decisions result in frustration & loss of morale for a team.

2) No doubt that the Australian team is better than the second best team by miles. By the end of the fifth day of the second test match, they lost something invaluable which the West Indies team of the late 70s still enjoy - respect. It's understandable when a batsman holds his ground in case of a negligible deflection. Michael Clarke CUT the ball towards slips and he stood there for the umpire's decision. Again, Clarke would have been 100% damn confident when he took that half-volley catch to dismiss Ganguly. To put the spotlight on a player like Michael Clarke, you need some one like Steve Waugh. Instead by defending him, Ponting has sunk low.

3) Walking. I believe that a batsman is not morally compelled to walk towards pavilion if he knows that he's out. Because there are a number of times when an umpire wrongfully adjudges and the batsman anyway has to walk out and I perceive this as a sort of 'moral compensation'. When Symonds decided to stay, his team was in doldrums and it was in good spirit that he hanged on to bail out his team. Obviously, this can't be a gentleman's game anymore and though we were colonized by the English people, the only thing that's English about today's cricket is 'Tea Break' at the end of second session.

4) Racism is a subjective issue. How does calling one a monkey inferior and hurting that abusing him or his family with as many unprintable four-letter words? Symonds being an aboriginal of Australia with his thick lips and wheatish complexion can take the remarks to be accusatory of his race. But was it Harbhajan's intention? Did Harbhajan actually try to insult Symond's race or was he trying to rebut remarks from another Australian player? Was it a planned verbal assualt or a mere spur-of-the-moment retaliation? Of course, in a different world, the word 'monkey' may have emotionally destabilized Symonds and make him perform lesser than his abilities.

5) I very strongly feel that batsmen should be allowed to express their disapproval when they're wrongfully given out. They're human beings and when umpires are allowed to make incorrect decisions, the human being on the other side should be allowed to vent his disappointment. Umpires are not gods and the ICC is still wallowing in a 19th century reverence imparted on these guys. With the increasing applications of technology, we can have one umpire to call no-balls and the rest can be taken care by the third umpire. And the next generation will replace him with a robot.

6) In a world crying for more 20-20, this test match proves how wonderful it is to watch a finely carved test century. If we're to lose this format, the oncoming generations will never know the taste of gourmet only fast-food.

Filler Post, Apologies

I promised (to myself) that I will update this site at least once per week. A little more than a week has passed and I've managed to break my promise by not even managing to have the first post on date. That's very much like me, but the good thing is that I started working on a piece and have left it midway - due to lack of time and content/research involved. But I hope to have it by next Monday. I think it's always better to have a complete piece than a half-baked one.

Just to fill my byte quota: I'm currently reading a couple of books 1) Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by the American scholar Jared Diamond. Brilliantly written - entertaining, informative and fascinating all at the same time. 2) How to Read Better and Faster by Norman Lewis, results are already showing up and my tortoise paced reading has been kicked in the butt. The next one sitting in line is The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie. I read about 50 pages and I'm under the impression that this could be an Indian One Hundred Years of Solitude. Rushdie has already expressed his admiration for titans like Marquez and Grass and his exposition of surrealism is just fabulous.

I've seen two wonderful movies and haven't written reviews yet, because I want to do justice to them by writing full length reviews. They're Spike Jonze's Adaptation and Inarritu's Amorres Perros. Adaptation is just brilliant screenwriting which are further emphasized by some top notch acting by Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. Inarritu's debut work is impressive but not terrific. He resorts to some traditional/cliched directorial techniques here, but his spark is undeniable.

I dragged my wife with me to the viewings of those two movies. She has seen movies at the rate of 1/year before we were married feels like her life is on a movie-spree and wonders how I can still be sane and have a normal social life. She wasn't quite impressed by Adaptation (may be it's a woman thing to not appreciate cine-creativity *^!#) but she has taken a liking for Inarittu. Having seen Babel, she has expressed her interest in viewing 21 Grams, his middle piece.

I'm also wondering if I should post a lot of Twitter like blogs on ScreenAct.... blogs that just run for a few lines and whenever time, inclination and writing energy meet, I can go for a big one. We'll see how this space evolves. If you're going to keep a tab on this blog, please hold on to your patience. This may take a while, but when I settle into a pattern, I should keep the current.

Perils of Time

Some of my earlier posts are so embarrassing that I wouldn't regret if I trashed my blog now. But to keep the experiment going, to check if the posts I make these days are worth reading, say after 18 months, I leave them untouched.

A Room With a View

"One-third of the real estate on your face is allotted to your nose" she said. He looked at her with a blank expression. He has done that on many occasions, when she had made a very biting remark or took a mild-mannered dig at him. And then he slowly stretched his lips as if he thought she would be pleased at some form of acknowledgement for her statement. She asked "is anybody out there with a camera? wipe that smirk off your face.... I want something interesting to eat." It was as though she was keeping the length of her teeth in check by constant chewing and biting; she ate something for every three breath in-takes. (Okay, that was an exaggeration. She just likes to try new cuisines often and resents a routine course at the food table).

She has an avid interest in reading and finished books at the pace of currency counter. He reads at the pace of a tortoise, wouldn't go into deep analysis of anything he reads and would fall asleep if he read three consecutive pages without any images. Her social graces were refined - knows what to wear, how to say and when to leave. His social blunders were, at best, pardonable. He dresses as if he has a deep distaste for harmonizing colours. Though he is mature enough to know that honesty is not the best policy, he sometimes utters discomforting truths in the middle of a party. Her fine sense of humour complements his twisted sense of ... well, let's call it something close to humour.

But when they were alone in their small little home their differences dissolved. They discuss a movie. Go shopping. (Look at the price tags and return empty-handed). Experiment in the kitchen and dissect in the dining table. Fought fights that only brought them closer. And thus they lived happily ever after.

Wimbledon Thoughts

It's difficult to figure out, for tennis naivetes like me, which aspect of Federer's game elevates him over his opponents. Gasquet, who was pure brilliance in sending Roddick off the tournament in the quarter-finals seemed to be pretty pedestrian in his performace against the No.1 in the semi-finals. This is where Nadal helps me; for without a player of his caliber, I wonder if Federer would ever put his full potential on display. Yesterday, the centre court at Wimbledon hosted a visual feast, which was served relentlessly by the top two players in the world where even after gorging in for more than three hours, everybody asked for a little more.

Though Roger & Rafael are now becoming a predictable pair at the big finals, the joy of watching them in action hasn't abated. The growth of Nadal on grass is particularly impressive - he's proving to be the only person who can make Federer sweat for his title (speaking figuratively, of course - he rarely perspires). Federer usually keeps delivering the ball to the opponent's backhand before he goes for the winner, so that in the rare event of a match entering the fifth set, the other guy's shoulders start drooping. Nadal, whose shoulder power is well known (I'm not saying he flaunts his flesh) didn't easily succumb, though I have a faint feeling that when he started grunting to answer Federer's returns, his precision was beginning to erode.

After three magnificent sets of top-class competitive tennis, Federer found himself in a situation one would rarely believe - down by four games to zero on a grass court. His frustration increased when most of Nadal's challenges to official calls resulted in Nadal's favour. He took longer strides to take the hard ones; and after smashing or slicing the tough one, he would send the ball directly into the nets or out of the court. Though he lost the set 6-2, I wouldn't call it tame. Federer must have decided to save his energy for a fresh set rather than continue to battle without any competitive edge. Nadal wasn't bad in the final set; it's just that Federer came back roaring. There was the precision of a Rolex gear (oh, the Swiss!) in dispatching the ball to the unreachable corners of the court.

Some might call Federer's resort to his service strength as un-gentlemanly. I don't listen to them. Whenever he was lagging, he punched the ball which would just swish past Nadal like a Ferrari. At the end of the match, he had 20+ aces to Nadal's one - which is another testimony to Federer's skill to position himself to reach for a service. Both players played some spectacular passing shots, cross-courts, slices and drop-shots (Federer's trademark topspinner was missing). Most of the time the younger player was a bit more aggressive in trying to reach every ball he thought was reachable, the senior, when he saw that a ball was out of his reach, judiciously didn't spend a franction of a calorie trying to get near that ball.

Both Nadal & Federer started the match chasing one of Bjorn Borg's records - it was the Lord & Master who equaled Borg's record of five successive victories at the Wimbledon. Federer said that Nadal deserved to win the match as much as himself and joked that he was able to conquer the Spanish bull when he's still young and before Federer's too old. The French title still eludes the man; observing Nadal's maturity as a player, it's going to be more difficult, not only for Federer, but for any player to beat Nadal on clay. There are some places where Nadal can't be tamed; for everywhere else, there's Federer.

*

The women's singles championship match turned out to be a damp squib. Marion Bartoli's gritty victory over Justine Henin's gracious tennis in the semi-finals promised an interesting clash with Venus Williams. The young French girl was probably too nervous to let the big event sink into her; there was a big competency gap in the way Venus and Marion played. So many unforced errors and their inability to convert ample chances into winners makes one brood for some consistent players at the top level in the womens professional tennis. There are so many from Serbia, Russia and other eastern European countries but their glory seems to be short-lived. With the exception of Henin, most of the women play a very erratic game (that includes the No.2 Sharapova).

Thank You

Today, I'm feeling grateful. What a journey it has been!! From a cynic, to a cautious pessimist to a guarded optimist and the road hasn't been exactly rosy. I'm grateful for the thorns. Grateful, for what I am, what I have, what I haven't, what I've been, what I've been through, what I've lost, what I've gained, my friends, parents, acquaintances and colleagues. What? No, I'm not from Betelguese. I'm not an out-of-work actor. I am not Ford Prefect. Still, the humanity seems to be mostly harmless to me.

I'm grateful just because whenever I feel grateful, with nothing in particular to attribute that gratefulness to, I feel peaceful and I'm grateful for that peace, which in turn... well, you get the benign circle.

-- Originally written on November 2, 2004 for LJ.