Thoughts in general

Continuing the theme of Abhinav's cricket camp, I am writing about the first ever cricket match that Abhinav participated in. It was held in a smallish ground on a matting wicket.  It was to start at 10.30am but rain played a spoilsport and they started almost 45 minutes late.  Abhinav was very excited about his first match and was a bit confused as to what to expect.  He had me do some catching practice as well as fielding practice with him, as his coach had asked him to do.  He wore his entire ensemble at home one to get used to it one more time. It reminded me of my 1st match in the camp.  I remember being very nervous, trying hard to not have sweaty hands and not to fumble.  I remember we batted first and while I don't remember how many runs I scored or  whether I muffed any balls while fielding, I do remember my heartbeat was pretty fast that day.  I am assuming I must have done ok since I don't remember being sent for 1 round of running...

Most people I know are very ambitious - about job, money, fame, big house etc.  There is absolutely nothing wrong.  I seem to be on the other side where I seem to enjoy spending time with family or doing absolutely nothing. One of my hobbies is to spend time with Abhinav.  The 2 hours I get once I am back home from work are the best 2 hours of my life.  Right from making him do his homework, which includes getting mad at him from time to time, to playing with him, teaching him nuances of cricket or football are probably the highlight of my life.  In all of this, I try to stay away from imposing my idea of how to do certain things and make sure that he enjoys the game for what it is - a game.   Beside cricket, Abhinav has developed interest in playing football as well.  I have played football at state level as a goalkeeper and those memories are still fresh in my mind. During those days (1987), I used to go for football practice at my school in...

I think there have been quite a few posts written on it but I seriously feel strongly about a need to drive some sense into the drivers.  Some things I would like to tell the drivers here: Making a right turn does not mean you come into the right lane (blocking oncoming traffic) to make a turn When it says “No Free Left turn”, it precisely means that.  When the light is red, you CANNOT make a left turn.  Please do not expect the guy in front of you to move if the light is red no matter how much you honk. When there is a traffic jam, no amount of honking will get you out of it Please be considerate to pedestrians and don’t stop you car 1 feet from the pedestrians feet, as if you are the king of the road If you pass a car/truck/bus etc on the left, once in a while please expect to get hit as well Just because the lane for oncoming traffic is empty does not mean you start driving in that lane When making a right turn at light, there is only one lane to turn right....

As a young kid, around age of 7 yrs, I used to attend a cricket coaching camp with the Saurashtra Ranji cricketers.  it was split in to 2 sessions - morning and evening. The morning sessions consisted of exercises, sprints, duck walks, frog jumps and some tennis ball practice.  It was strenuous but a lot of fun.  being 7, I seemed to have a lot of energy and loved to participate in this regimen with people who played at the highest domestic level and I used to be in awe of them. In the evening session, we practiced with the leather ball.  Before that, however, we used to master our defensive shots (forward and back foot) with the hanging ball.  The whole point of this article to is to describe all the emotions that I felt when Abhinav started practicing his defense with the hanging ball.   I think the teachers are not as strict nowadays as before and kids have an option to explore things a bit more.  The regimen is not as strenuous and the empha...