Someday, today will be nostalgia

Experience is undervalued and overrated. In the old model of leadership, you had to be a part of the inner circle or a loyalist to have leadership handed over to you on a silver platter.  But today’s world of start ups and 20- something billionaires has caused us to re-organise our thinking. After KKR’s recent triumph in the IPL, voices are clamouring for Gambhir to be made captain of the team. One wonders if the same voices would have spoken up if KKR lost the final. For all his luck and ability, MS Dhoni is coming up short when it comes to leadership in tests. It must be noted that even he usurped the captaincy from numerous other contenders and players who considered themselves to be more experienced. One match, one magical innings or one series triumph doesn’t make a leader. Nor does losing one series or having a bad run.  In all of the rush, one forgets that leadership is a state of mind, a way of being and not a matter of age or experience .

The BCCI should be handed an award for double acting. In a pugnacious bid to deflect attention from all the evils it commits, a onetime bonus payment was made to past cricketers. That India’s first world cup winning hero Kapil Dev wasn’t invited for the proceeding reeks of double standards. Now that the circus has left our television screens, it would be a good time for some introspection. For all the fun and nearly two months of evenings that figured how to spend themselves, the league is increasingly flirting with fantasy. Coming at a time when Indian cricket is at its lowest nadir, it served as the perfect smokescreen. The acrimonious series losses in Australia and England have seemingly been forgotten. As the past few years have shown, IPL stars remain just that, IPL stars, with very few having made the transition to the ultimate arena. Real cricket isn’t played with cheerleaders cheering you on and it lasts much longer than 3 hours. Moral conduct seems to have do...

Virat Kohli must have woken up with a premonition that the world was ending real soon Any other reason which could explain the ferocity of Tuesday’s trailblazer would be deemed unworthy of an innings that seemed to crashland from some parallel universe. But if you dig a little deeper, the collective over joyousness didn’t stem from the innings itself, but what was surmounted to reach that point of no return. The scoreboard is a liar It speaks eloquently of results but not the fight or the heartbreak. The scoreboard since India’s English summer that was dubiously replicated in the Australian summer showed huge defeat margins. But the fan didn’t just grieve for the losses. He grieved for the nature of the losses. There was no fight to reminiscence about, no intent to find solace in. The scoreboard didn’t speak of the nihilism that followed those disastrous outings. The excuses won’t set you free VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid know a thing or two about conquerin...

In a freewheeling conversation with a colleague not too long ago, she regaled me with a storytelling class she attended. Instead of subjecting herself to the vagaries of life – which undoubtedly offered many reasons to put off taking the class, even making the idea sound almost sacrilegious, she gently assuaged the voice that was seeking to thwart her plans. In other words, she gave ‘backup’ the finger. What is backup? Backup is security, money in the bank, ancestral property, more money in the bank, paid vacation, a paid sabbatical, retirement, to name a few. Backup entails waiting for life to make time for that elusive storytelling class. Backup is critical and not be undervalued. But the problem with it is it’s never enough. Here’s what is needed in significant amounts – humility.To accept that your current job will precipitate early onset Alzheimer’s, that your marriage is a farce (if you’re headed for divorce, it would do you good to divide your backup by half ), ...