Disappointments

In 1951, there wasn't a more passionate rivalry in sports than between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. Giants fans hated Dodgers fans. Dodger fans hated Giants fans. Fathers passed it onto sons! In August 1951, the Giants were 13 and a 1/2 games behind the Dodgers. That was considered insurmountable. But, Giants make a comeback and put together a streak unequalled in history, winning 37 out of 44 games and the last 7 in a row to end with a first place tie with the Brooklyn Dodgers. They play a play-off game to see who goes to the world series. The Dodgers had it won, until a guy named Bobby Thompson hit what since has been known as the 'shot heard 'round the world' to win the game 5-4. Russ Hodges, broadcaster immortalised the hit with his famous words, "The Giants win the Pennant!!The Giants win the Pennant!!The Giants win the Pennant!!The Giants win the Pennant!!"

In an episode of Sports Night, not surprisingly titled "The Giants Win the Pennat, The Giants Win the Pennant", Issac Jaffey recalls how he attended the game in 1951. He had been in the press-box standing all through the game for there was no place to sit. Ralph Branca was notorious for taking his time warming up and Issac rushed to the men's room knowing he had time. Except Branca warmed up a lot faster that day. Issac didn't see the home run. 

Only a true sports fan can understand the mammoth disappointment of missing an event like that. Imagine, if you can, being there and yet for some reason not being there for Dhoni's emphatic six off Nuwan Kulasekara to win the World Cup. 

Rain and I

The best things in life, I have come to realize, are always very brief and transitory. The first sips of cold water when thirsty, the brief moments of triumph when you crack a difficult question, the last bits of chocolate in Cornettos ice-cream, the last forty or so seconds in Schubert's Ave Maria. My favorite kind of weather is the 15-20 minutes just before it begins to rain. The sky changes colour faster than at dusk or dawn, the breeze is swift and cool, there is a sense that it could start raining any second, of anticipation or apprehension depending on whether you want it to rain or not. Then, the rains come down and at times, for me, it spoils everything. 

Someone told me today that she thinks that she shares a special relationship with rain as it always rains on her birthday. Come to think of it, I cannot remember any birthday of mine either when it hasn't rained for at least a little bit. And, yet my relationship with rain has always been a turbulent one. I love to watch it rain. I like the sound of it. I like the little splatters it makes on concrete, as a kid I used to pretend they were dancing dwarfs with a life-span of a fraction of a second, one emerging and disappearing immediately, with the next one following on its heels. I love the idea of a raaga like Megh-Malhar or Amritavarshini bringing about rain. Rains, I find provide the best sort of backdrop to a certain kind of writing. Stories need their own weather, just like they need they own music. Dark themes need the night, horror need the chill, the ambiguous ones require cloudy weather. Maybe its a reflection on too many Yash Chopra movies at an impressionable age, but I think love stories need the rain. 

But I hate being in the rain. I hate getting caught in the rain, the grainy dirty feel on my chappals, the splash and the muck and most of all, droplets dripping down my hair to my forehead. I have watched people getting drenched in the rain and enjoying it with feeling ranging from curious amusement to exasperation to distaste to perplexity. Its something I have never understood. My love for rain is that of a homophobe for a friend of the same gender - at an arm's length. Rain foils plans, causes road blocks and gives you a cold. They are meant to be watched from the protection of indoors, preferably if they are of the cats and dogs variety, not the effeminate and persistent Bangalore drizzle. But I still like the monsoons, mostly for those 15-20 minutes before it rains.

Top 5 Screenwriters

No. 5. Salim-Javed

Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar brought screenwriting in limelight like noone before and noone since has done in Indian Cinema. They created the 'Angry Young Man', in my view undoubtedly the most important single phenomenon in Bollywood, gave Amitabh Bachchan his best roles and wrote some of the most entertaining films ever written. Javed Akhtar is supposed to have been adept at dialogue while Salim Khan's forte was complicated plots.

Crowning Achievement: Sholay. The Seven Samurai meets the spaghetti westerns meets Mera Gaon Mera Desh. I cannot think of another movie with a larger canvas, yet not being stretched or boring at any point.

No. 4. Ernest Lehman

Lehmann is best known for his musicals (The King and I, Westside Story, The Sound of Music) but his body of work also includes some very fine comedies (Sabrina, Hello Dolly), satires (Sweet Smell of Success), thrillers (North by Northwest, Family Plot, Black Sunday) and one of the finest dramas ever written (Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf).

Crowning Achievment: The King and I.

No. 3. Woody Allen

His body of work is huge and ranges from farce to fake documetary to tragicomedy to serious drama. Allen is  possibly the most important American filmmaker we have had. His range of influences are extremely diverse be it Swedish Cinema, Jewish neurosis, Russian Literature, Psychology, Philosophy, Jazz and many others. Aside from writing some of the most cerebral and neurotic humor, Allen combines it with a depth of feeling and poignant self mockery, often achieving a balance which makes his films funny as well as heartbreakingly tragic at the same time.

Crowning Achievement: Annie Hall. I am partial to the gloomier Manhattan but Annie Hall is where he writes his best. The lines remain comic yet there is a somber and serious feel to the proceedings. The fourth wall is broken at the right moments where we empathise with what Allen feels. Annie Hall is also one of the finest female characters ever written.

No. 2. Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin is without doubt the best screenwriter of this generation. Noone has written dialogue better than Sorkin. His writing is fast, engaging, smart, and funny in a dry way and fits in perfectly with long time collaborator Thomas Schlamme's walk and talk routine. Sorkin is also one of the rare writers to move effortlessly from theater (A Few Good Men) to film (Malice, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network) to television (Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60). Clearly resentful at being labelled by the right as unpatriotic Hollywood Liberals, his writing echoes a strong sense of Americana one would associate with the likes of Frank Capra coupled with the rapid pace dialogue reminiscent of Cary Grant and James Stewart in the 30s screwball comedies. His screenwriting involves a lot of verbal sparring, flirtatious banter and references to obscure trivia making him the most literate writer around.

Crowning Achievement: The West Wing. It's a fast paced, gripping, serious yet funny White House drama. What more do you need?

No. 1. Billy Wilder

Wilder wrote each and every one of his films. And he did it consistently for over 40 years. Consequently, his body of work is unparalleled in American Cinema (with the exception of Woody Allen). Wilder's films were minimalistic and precise, and while his pictures were intimate and unpretentious, what stood out was his writing. Wilder wrote sour, bitter comedies and harsh, morally compromising dramas. It was a sharp and refreshing contrast from Hollywood's sappy sweetness. His films were bitter, acerbic and cynical but they also came with  a sad sort of hope and tentative love. Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Stalag 17, Ace in the Hole, Some like it Hot, Sabrina, The Lost Weekend, Witness for the Prosecution. Need I say more?

Crowning Achievement: Sunset Boulevard. While I enjoyed Double Indemnity almost as much, Sunset Boulevard is the more polished product. Wilder was unique in that he made movies on many diverse subjects, but it is fitting that his crowning glory remains one dealing with Hollywood itself.

Gloom in Poetry

I read Bereft by Robert Frost after a long time today. I had been in love with this poem since the time I read an excerpt from it in an Erich Segal novel in my early teens. It is dark, weirdly rhythmic despite a very odd rhyming scheme, it is about loneliness, and even more so about the fear that comes with that loneliness.

Bereft

Where had I heard this wind before

Change like this to a deeper roar?

What would it take my standing there for,

Holding open a restive door,

Looking down hill to a frothy shore?

Summer was past and the day was past.

Sombre clouds in the west were massed.

Out on the porch's sagging floor,

Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,

Blindly striking at my knee and missed.

Something sinister in the tone

Told me my secret my be known:

Word I was in the house alone

Somehow must have gotten abroad,

Word I was in my life alone,

Word I had no one left but God. 

My love for poetry began as a kid with Robert Frost. 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' remains till date one of my favorite poems. Stopping by the woods was the beginning of my love-affair with dark poetry laced with cold imagery. Yet, all was not dark and morose. Some of the happiest memories of my boyhood years revolve around enjoying the pleasures of masterpieces by Lewis Carrol, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash and our very own Sukumar Ray. But even in this genre, my favorites remain the macabre 'Macavity the Mystery Cat' by Eliot or the quiet, funny reflections in poetry by Roald Dahl and Ogden Nash. Sonnets 18 and 116 of William Shakespeare led me to love poetry. In the meantime, I tried my hand at writing some of my own, mostly self-indulgent attempts at unrequited love poetry, sad and morose, though in this case, more so by the circumstances of my inspiration than a taste for gloom. Through adolescence and if I may term it so, early adult life, I have often turned to poetry for inspiration (Whitman), beauty of language and the power of metaphor (Donne, Herbert) simplicity (Jonson), quiet reflection and rhyme (Seth) escapism (Nash, Lear) or the sheer beauty of words (Neruda). And while the uplifting and inspiring works of Whitman or the drama in Donne's works have at various times blown away and enchanted me, more often than not I turn to poetry for gloom, subtlety and irony, which is were Frost, Daruwalla and to some extent, Vikram Seth give rich dividends. 

Top 5 Supporting Acts

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; 
Am an attendant lord, one that will do 
To swell a progress, start a scene or two 
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, 
Deferential, glad to be of use, 
Politic, cautious, and meticulous; 
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; 
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— 
Almost, at times, the Fool. 

- T S Eliot

No. 5 Jude Law for The Talented Mr. Ripley, Wilde, A.I., Sherlock Holmes, Road to Perdition, Gattaca - I have always liked Jude Law. He is handsome, has a wide range and is a fine actor. Yet, for some reason, he is yet to carry a big film on his own and is most comfortable playing second fiddle to other actors, which admittedly he does often to perfection.

No. 4 Amitabh Bachchan in Anand - Rajesh Khanna was at the peak of his powers and nothing could have conceivably stolen the thunder from him in essaying the eponymous role which gave him the sufficient scope for his histrionics. Yet, at some point mid-way we realise that the movie is actually revolving around the unfashionably depicted quiet, intense, idealistic Dr. Bhaskar Bannerjee. Rajesh Khanna is everything you can expect as the effervescent, over the top, dying cancer patient but it is the Amitabh's portrayal of the physician's frustration and the friend's pain that touch us the most.

No. 3 Derek Fowlds in Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister - In what was both Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne's career defining roles, Derek Fowlds stars as Bernard Woolley. He is the most conscientious character in the show and usually must juggle his loyalties to the minister and the principal secretary often leading to very interesting situations. This show involved many amusing series long-winded lines from both Eddington and particularly Hawthorne which would usually end with a one-liner from Fowlds which would be the funniest.

No. 2 Rahul Dravid for the last decade and a half - From his first steps in test cricket when he scored a 95 to co-debutant Ganguly's 131, Dravid has made it a business to do a great job only to be overshadowed by someone else. His supporting acts include among others, the 180 in Kolkata in 2001, his two highest one day scores and the distinction of being involved in the maximum number of century partnerships with Tendulkar. As someone who prefers to remain in shadows himself, I have always felt a sense of kinship and fondness for Dravid and perhaps that is why he remains my favorite cricketer. 

No. 1 James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story - This movie stars Kate Hepburn in a role written for her and intended to relaunch her after she was branded as 'box office poison' and Cary Grant at his handsome best. Yet, it is Jimmy Stewart, not a big name when he cast after Spencer Tracy, Hepburn's first choice turned down the role, who steals the show as Macauley Connors, the rapidly-talking, middle-class writer turned tabloid reporter bristling with every contact with the idle rich. His hiccoughing drunken bit with Cary Grant and 'holocausts and hearth-fires' bit with Kate Hepburn are absolute gems.


Honorory Mentions: Lord Emsworth in the Blandings Castle stories by P G Wodehouse, Iftekar in his various roles as the gentlemanly police officer in the 1970s, Naseer and Om Puri as the cops(witches) in Maqbool, Claude Rains in Casablanca, V P Menon for his role in integration of independent India, Deepak Tijori for his inhaler-sniffing-real-brains-behind-the-plot role in Khiladi, Naseeruddin Shah in Ardh Satya.

The Flamboyant Eleven

Recently, there has been a spate of articles on different kinds of World 11s on Cricinfo. Aside from the usual, there have been some fairly interesting elevens chosen by Ram Guha and Ian Chappell. Cricketers are dour characters, compared to others sportsmen like footballers and tennis players. So, I thought I would come up with a list of the most flamboyant cricketers, crickets who were not only swashbucklers on the field, but lived life on the edge off it and captured public imagination like few others did.

Herschelle Gibbs - When in form, Gibbs was the most exciting South African batsman to watch post their reinstatement in international cricket. He had natural flair, was a sweet timer of the ball, not afraid to take the aerial route as evidenced by his six-hitting spree in the 2007 World-cup and at his best playing in the cover region. He was never a favorite of the coaches- not fond of net practice and believing in playing more by instinct than anything else. Off the field, he often courted controversy, being hauled for smoking marijuana and making racist comments and most notoriously, for being involved in the match-fixing scandal. As it turned out, he was not very reliable as a fixer, either, scoring a matchwinning 74 in the game he was supposed to throw.

Geoff  Boycott - Many would dispute this choice for Boycott was anything but an exciting cricketer on field, known for his soporific batting. Yet, off field he remained an extremely unpopular and controversial figure for England's most accomplished batsman of the era, uncompromising in the way he played his cricket. He was known for his bad running between the wickets and his tendency to scream at his partner like a virago during mix-ups, getting a lot of his partners run out during his time. He went on a self imposed exile for a few years, while at the peak of his powers, probably due to being overlooked for English captaincy. Later in his career, he excused himself from fielding in a test match in India citing illness as the reason but was out playing golf while his teammates were still on field, later claiming he went to the golf course to get some fresh air on medical advice! Finally, he was banned for organizing a rebel tour to South African which ended his career. After retirement, he developed a successful career as a commentator, opinionated and often caustic. In his late life, he also revealed a Rhett Butler side to him, claiming he was being sued for assault by his former girlfriend as he refused to marry her, for he was 'not the marrying kind.'

Viv Richards - King Viv, widely acknowledged as the most destructive batsman ever to have played the game and probably the best player of ferocious fast bowling. Like Gavaskar, he never wore the helmet even while facing the like of Lillee, Thomson, Imran, Hadlee or the famed qaurtet of his own side. The word 'swagger' has not been used to describe anything more aptly as Richards' presence at the crease. He looked relaxed, with a ready smile and a general air of disdain. He was at times a fairly interesting character off the field; his affair and love-child with Neena Gupta are stuff of folklore but the incident that stands out for me is Richards scoring three ducks as a 16 year old in a domestic match. He was out for a duck in the first innings but refused to leave the field causing a mini-riot that he had to be recalled and scored another duck. He came back in the second innings and was out again for naught.

Brian Lara - Lara was the most stylish and easily one of the two best batsmen of his generation. Unlike Sachin, he was much more flashy with an extremely attractive back-lift and had the capacity to attack for extended periods of time. Where Richards was brutal, Lara used to dazzle and there was an air of performance about his batting. Off the field, he was often controversial with his love-child with a journalist, problems with authority and tiffs with the cricket board over sponsorship contracts.

MAK Pataudi - Tiger Pataudi was a prince - handsome and an attractive stroke maker, son of  probably an even more accomplished batsman whose early death made him a Nawab at the age of 11, a one-eyed aristocrat who was then the youngest captain ever, married to the most glamorous actress of his age; everything about him had an air of romance which is exactly what the star-starved Indian fans needed in the 1960s. He was a very good batsman and would have been a great one but for the loss of one eye and led a weak team with a lot of pride.

Imran Khan - Imran at his peak could take the pitch out of equation, bowling full and swinging both the new and the old ball at a ferocious pace. Possibly the best all-rounder since Sir Gary Sobers, this speaks volumes for he played in the era of Botham, Hadlee and Kapil. He was an inspirational captain for Pakistan, always leading by example but could also be a divisive figure with his equation with Javed Miandad and his controversial speech on winning the World Cup. Off the field, there have been many faces of Imran, a regular in the London partying scene in his youth to a philanthropist to what would many would regard, as a failed politician.

Ian Botham - Sir Beefy is the ideal candidate for this team. He was, according to Mike Selvey, a double-O cricketer with a license to thrill. Botham was already a legend before he made his international debut. As a teenager, he had been hit by an Andy Roberts bouncer. Where others would have retired hurt, he spat out his broken teeth and won the match for Somerset. He was a man of extremes, who could be best in the world on his day but constantly in trouble over smoking marijuana, public spats with Imran Khan, Peter Roebuck and Ian Chappell and extra-marital affairs.

Godfrey Evans - Among the finest keepers the game has seen, Evans was the first to make tumbling while taking a catch fashionable. According to Herbert Strudwick, he sometimes made simple catches look difficult, yet made the nearly impossible look easy and was one of the rare keepers to fling themselves infront of the wicket to take the bat-pad catches. He was an interesting charcter off the field too, always full of energy, settling down with a drink for an evening at the piano after a hard day's play.

Shane Warne - Warne was the coolest cricketer of his generation, a rockstar. For someone who just takes a couple of steps to wicket and bowls, he could bring a surprising theatrical element to his bowling - getting the crowd behind him, sledging, playing mind-games and plotting the fall of batsmen. Be it his first Ashes ball, the traumatising of Daryl Cullinan or his ominous observations about Gibbs' tendency to throw the ball much too quickly after catching it, Warne was coolness, personified. Off the field, he always kept himself in news with his text-messages, smoking, declarations of yet another mystery ball or ruminations on John Buchanan.

Shoaib Akhtar - At worst, he couldn't really do much apart from hitting a teammate with a bat, allegedly slapping the coach, getting caught for ball-tampering and talking in a weird accent. At his average, he could turn in an odd fiery spell for Kolkata Knightriders and maybe, beat Salman Khan in a race. At his best, he left Dravid and Tendulkar dumbfounded and turned in the most exciting run up I have ever seen.

Dennis Lillee - Considered by many as 'the complete bowler,' Lillee combined talent with showmanship. He scarily fast and an exponent of swing and cut. His career almost ended when his back break down, yet he returned after months of physiotherapy and a remodelled action to becomes one the best ever seen. He also took time off from all this to get an aluminium bat made, kick Miandad and almost cause Gavaskar to stage a walk-out.

A Bit on Fry and Laurie

A Bit of Fry and Laurie is my favorite comedy sketch show of all time, even eclipsing the likes of Monty Python's Flying Circus for me. Nobody can do comedy like the Brits, and this show was typically English, with quirky and odd humor, clever wordplay, sexual innuendos and laced with references to British politics. The show often had Hugh Laurie playing a musical instrument and singing a hilarious number with it, with Stephen Fry taking upon himself to provide some perfectly idiotic choreography as accompaniment, which were a complete riot. Another quirky aspect of the show was the use of some nonsensical phrases supposedly from Strom, a Central European language invented by Stephen Fry! According to Wikipedia, it "comprises nonsensical single-syllable words often meaning different things in the same sentence, even shorter words that can only be expressed in over a full sentence in English, and vulgar faux amis." The most popular Strom phrase was 'soupy twist' uttered at the end of most episodes by both the actors, which in all probability meant 'cheers.'

The double act of Fry and Laurie, in fact is not limited to this show but they have collaborated most brilliantly in prominent works like Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster and Peter's Friends and innumerable lesser known radio and TV programmes. Both Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie go back to Cambridge Footlights which has produced some of the finest British comic figures in the last 40 years, be it Douglas Adams, John Cleese,  Eric Idle, Emma Thompson or more recently, John Oliver. 

Both Fry and Laurie were born in the late 1950s. Fry overcame a felony  as a minor and three months in prison to come to Cambridge and majored in English Literature, immediately taking to theater and joining the Footlights. at the insistence of his friend Hugh Laurie. Laurie followed in his Olympic Gold medal winner father's footsteps and was a promising oarsman in high school and college, earning his Blue while at Cambridge before a bout of glandular fever nipped his athletic career in the bud. He then tried his hand at acting, joining the Footlights. He was introduced to Stephen Fry by his college girlfriend, a certain Emma Thompson. In 1981, Laurie served as the President of the Footlights, with Emma Thompson serving as vice president.

The first break for Fry and Laurie, and in fact, Emma Thompson, too, was when their annual revue at Cambridge, The Cellar Tapes won the Perrier Comedy Award. This gave them some publicity and led to the television adaptation of the revue. This showed led to a contract with Granada TV for all three to collaborate with Ben Elton in There's Nothing to Worry About, later called Alfresco. (which was a response to BBC's highly successful Rowan Atkinson starring Not the Nine O'clock News, written by among others, Richard Curtis) By this time, Fry and Laurie's double act had gained popularity and BBC offered them their own two man show The Crystal Cube which was soon shelved and later their most celebrated show A Bit of Fry and Laurie. In the meantime, they essayed various roles in Black Adder, another excellent comedy series from the 80s which Ben Elton co-wrote with the other set of twin comic collaborators, that of Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis from the Oxford Revue and were regulars as a comedy double act on Channel 4's Friday Night Live.

Their next big break was an television adaptation of several of PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster stories and novels. Both Fry and Laurie are ardent Wodehouse fans and this is evident in their portrayal of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, respectively. While Fry seems perfect in the role of the impassive, supercilious, cunning butler, it is Hugh Laurie's quirky protrayal of Bertie as a well-meaning but complete twit with an air of optimistic carelessness that stands out. 

Thereafter, both Fry and Lauries went on achieve a lot of individual success, continuing to come together only for a few comedy acts, like reprising their earlier roles in the one off installments of Blackadder. Stephen Fry ventured into different roles on TV ranging from playing a game-show host (Qi) to documentaries (The Secret Life of Manic Depressive) to producing the legal drama, Kingdom. His also dabbled in films, playing various suporting roles. However, his most significant roles were in Peter's Friends (co-starring Hugh Laurie) and Wilde, in which he played Oscar Wilde in a much acclaimed role. Hugh Laurie, on the other hand, portrayed primarily supporting roles in films like the Emma Thompson written and starring Sense and Sensibility and the Stuart Little films. He played the lead in Ben Elton's Maybe Baby. However, his finest role remains that of Dr. House in the American TV show, a nacissistic anti-hero inspired from Sherlock Holmes. Both have written reasonably succesful books and have also tied their hand at direction.

Though Fry and Laurie have not collaborated in any substantial way in the past fifteen years, the remain the best of friends. Fry was the best man to Hugh Laurie's wedding and is the godfather to all of Laurie's children. They have both continued to acknowledge each other for their support and inspiration. 'M'colleague' is how they refer to each other and their books are usually dedicated to the other or acknowledge their contribution. A couple of days ago, I read that Stephen Fry has been signed on to play the role of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's elder and suposedly more brillaint brother in the second part of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes trilogy. Fry seems to fit the description of Mycroft as a large and stout man, astute yet lethargic. It is all the more fitting that his younger partner has been portraying a one of the finest character inspired from Sherlock Holmes for the last six years.

Even though Stephen Fry and Hugh Lauri haven't worked together in a long time, both have expressed a desite to renew their partnership at some time. Here's hoping it happens. Soupy twist!