alice's peephole

I’ve been reading since I discovered my brother’s Noddy Books and Enid Blyton. After I was done with that I was lucky enough to be introduced to the caustic British humour of P.G.Wodehouse. Some books like 3 Men in a Boat, made me bend over with laughter, while simultaneously gaping in open mouthed awe at the use of the language. But after I was done with these, there came a lull in the books I read. For a few years I found nothing I read held my interest, with (popular) authors like Agatha Christie & Sidney Sheldon leaving me unenthused and uninitiated into the world of ‘grown-up’ reading. Luckily, this phase lasted for only a few years, and this blog is about the books I’ve read since then. I’ve wanted to write this for a long time, but I am always intimidated and overwhelmed by the authors that I would be writing about. I have no literary background, and everything that I say here will boil down to the fact that it is my personal, amateurish, uneducated view. But since it...

3 parties are involved in the staging of an IPL match : The BCCI – IPL, the State Association and the Franchise. The State Association (Maharashtra Cricket Association) had hired us for Venue Management, while IMG had been hired by BCCI – IPL to execute the event. The Franchise  (Sahara Pune Warriors) had a plethora of agencies to do their bidding. Because the 9 th and final match at the Subroto Roy Sahara Stadium was a playoff match, the dynamics completely changed. The Franchise is thrown out of the equation, and their responsibilities are divided between the SA and BCCI. One of the major changes that takes place is the re-branding of the stadium. The stadium was stripped of anything with the Sahara logo, and replaced with IPL branding. While this was not really our responsibility, we did take pleasure in yanking down, with great gusto all that was Sahara’s and with it removed our frustration of the past few weeks. While most of it was easy to deal with, ther...

It was my greatest fear that the stadium lights would go out – plunging the ground into darkness and basically broadcasting this (power) failure to the entire world. I can now safely say that this did not happen. Unfortunately, everything else did. Among the many bombs that had been casually tossed around the South-East basement offices, the first that exploded was the one where a last minute ‘request’ was made to provide baggage handlers to carry the players’ luggage. Seeing the stretch on manpower, my tomboyish, feminist colleague immediately offered to lend a hand. I, failing to come up with a quick excuse, found myself accompanying her in stumbling around under the weight of the heavy kit bags – the sizes of which were comparable only to the size of the heads of their owners. Now I am not one to shy away from attention, but the sudden deluge of comments and flashes from cameras disconcerted even me. I looked out from under the bag to see shocked faces all around me. Some of th...

If I was a gossip columnist, I would be able to water this down/ spice this up for public consumption. If I were famous, I’d write this like an autobiography. Since I am just one of many who are working to organize the Indian Premier League 2012, I really don’t know what to call this one. It’s definitely not the bird’s eye view of things at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium. Maybe it’s the worm’s eye view – the one that didn’t get eaten by the bird anyway. And it’s a not- so-brief narration of the ground realities. Pun intended. When I first saw the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium, hereby referred to as ‘the Stadium’, it was just a work in progress. No, I’m totally lying, it was breathtaking. The imposing structure could be seen from miles away. What was less impressive however, was the teeth-rattling, nerve-shredding village road that led up to it. Gahunje village, the postal address of the Stadium, could be approached through aforementioned road, which wound through Mamurdi village. One...

I think it’s really hard writing about something that brings up a wide spectrum of emotions. It’s like trying to describe your first love. But I'm gonna try anyway. I discovered my first love in Grade 3. Like every day, I was walking across my school ground, when I noticed something that had gone unnoticed for the past 5 years. Hockey practise was in session, and in that moment I was sure I wanted to join. I rushed home that day to talk my parents into letting me play this sport. I don’t remember their response, but I’m sure it was less than lukewarm. My brother had already put my parents through the rigmarole of buying shoes, a stick and ball and dropping him to practise, only to discover a week later, that he was, as suspected, a lazy lump, and hockey could not be played while lying curled up in bed. Anyway, I managed to convince my parents into letting me join. The coach had been my mom’s student, and an Olympian. She recognized that I was quite energetic and fast, so she m...

A few people have read my blog and asked me why I don’t become a writer. When I told them I can’t write unless I’m inspired, they have shrugged it off as an unsatisfactory answer. Well here is proof that I can churn out absolute bull, which will put even Christopher Paolini and Yann Martel to shame. I entered a CREATIVE writing contest in Fergusson once, for want of better things to do on a Wednesday afternoon. The topic was “ A digital mouse meets a real mouse”. So I decided to go all out on the creativity. I really thought I deserved extra points for that. If you dare, and have nothing better to do in the next 10 – 20 minutes, depending on your speed of reading, then scroll down. Since I am shameless enough to post this and torture you with the read, I beg you to go ahead and criticize and comment to your heart’s content, and basically exact revenge on me. A Digital Mouse meets a Real Mouse It is brown, hairy and scouts around in damp corners. I will not call it smelly, but I...

I once saw a beautiful girl- of about 11. Light eyes in total contrast to her dark sun-burned skin. She had bleached golden brown unkempt hair and a petite figure. She was high up on a tight rope, balancing 3 pots on her head. A safety harness was conspicuous only by its absence. She looked afraid- not of falling, but of making a mistake. She would pay dearly for that. Recently, I took a tour to a few of the smaller cities of Maharashtra- to conduct a hunt for a cricket commentator. The first stop was Nasik. As we sat in the audition hall the night before the event, I was afraid that the next day would see the 200 seating capacity hall only half full. And we did. But none of us went back disappointed that day. Our victory wasn’t in numbers; it was in the talent and passion we encountered. There were more than a few girls who auditioned. They were either brave enough to venture into such a male dominated profession because they knew no fear or they were taken up by Mandira. I don’t ...