When subtle is no longer subtle...

I found myself at a yoga lesson a couple days ago when my Chinese (and hence, supernaturally lithe) friend talked me into it. I don’t believe in yoga, or anything that is as subtle for that matter. If I need to contend that I am putting my body to a grindstone, I have to, well, put my body to a grindstone. So, lifting weights to a point where your arms cry out in pain or running till your lungs deflate are all good, but stretching your hands up over your head and focusing on your “center” – very dubious.

Reason why, since a mandatory second grade class (at a time I don’t recall having bones or joints that would hinder bending and stretching), my only encounter with the popular eastern discipline has been Crichton’s very elaborate account of how it changed his life. Since I agree with him on a lot of things already – writing science is more fun than doing science, it would be wonderful to have dinos back on the planet, computers are for dreaming, not programming — I thought I’d change my mind about yoga. Also, I was excited about any American additions and subtractions I might find (which in the case of food at least, seem to result in something entirely different and quite often more attractive). It’s hard to be creative with yoga apparently (how many ways and forms can you twist two arms, two legs and a torso into anyway?), because, turns out, except for the outfit and the very plush yoga mat, it hasn’t changed much in two decades and 10000 miles :)

I must admit that it was fun, though having put into it the diligence I put in everything else, I have ended up with a sore back and hip, making my daily two-mile run seem like a joke by comparison. And it has left me wondering just how dangerous subtlety can be (here, I resorted to old faithful: the method of thinking where the stretch-yourself-to-the-limit is purely restricted to the mental).

A high school English reading by the very eloquent G.K. Chesterton comes to mind. In “Worship of the Wealthy”, he describes the power of subtle flattery as opposed to blatant adulation. While flamboyance can easily be determined as false, a mild remark extolling a trait that may exist but is not necessarily as exalted as it is made out to be, can be very credible to the receiver, to the point of being dangerously misconceived.

I first noticed the perils associated with artful discretion when I was a newbie to the “American” way; the subtle manner in which professors divulge to a student that he is wrong particularly intrigued me. The student is left with the right answer, no doubt, but the professor has fallen short of stressing just how wrong his initial understanding was. While I am not a huge fan of the blunt “you’re wrong” I often received in response to my carefully crafted answers in Indian high schools (I stopped trying so hard in college ;)), I do think it allowed me to never make the same conceptual mistake again. On the contrary, this polite and gentle manner of evading criticism makes the student hang on to his belief for a dangerously long time, and usually requires three to four refutations, where one point-blank negation would have done the job. It is all good to have the person at the grocery store tell you how sorry she is that they don’t carry jackets (however stupid your assumption was that they do). But when you are discussing transcription factors that regulate the expression of important genes in the human body, a little black and white is in order. In grad school it could mean a hundred failed experiments, in medical school it could make the difference between life and death.

Religion is a topic very close to my heart because it amuses me a great deal; so let me drive home my point by putting it in the context of that holy realm. Despite the fact that most Indians grow up in pious Hindu families that celebrate many a pooja with pomp and splendor and go on a pilgrimage every few years, the younger generations tend to weed out this “belief system” as they grow older and wiser. I have hardly ever seen that happen with Catholicism, however; if you are born into a devout Christian family that goes to church every Sunday, more often than not, you grow up to be a human being that goes to church every Sunday.

Hindus seem to be able to purge themselves of this deep-rooted belief in religion because, quite simply, it is easy to dismiss stone idols of a hundred odd deities and richly dressed goddesses being bathed in milk and oil (note: this is by no means the essence of bonafide Hinduism, but has come to largely represent the religion in Indian society). Christianity, on the other hand becomes ingrained into the very soul, because it comes with no tangible motif to shrug off, no artless ceremony to look at with a skeptical eye, no ornate piece of decoration without a practical basis. The ratio of fanatical vs. moderate believers in Hinduism vs. Christianity speaks volumes. And I do believe, that had I observed enough muslims in my lifetime, I would have come to a very similar conclusion about the idol lacking Islamic faith.

So the next time you bypass a very obviously grease-laden pizza to go for the surreptitiously ranch-dressed salad, by all means, help yourself, but it might be good to remember that while subtlety may appear innocuous in all its tenderness, it is sometimes doing more damage than its loud and forthright cousin.

A good fendi imitation has to have near-perfect linings and seams to pass off as a bonafide -- the plaid cannot be slightly askew nor the tint a tad glossy.
In the case of the imitation fendi, toning down might help, in real life situations, however, you’re better off with a little extra sheen, because more often than not, they’re easier to scrape off…

Abraca dubya

I came upon this google bomb that calls Bush an asshole and got to wondering how this country has such skillful bush-whacking web-savvy elites, avid and eloquent bloggers that just happen to hate republicans, refreshingly creative and often hilarious out of the box thinkers and then, Sean Hannity :(

At a predominantly American gathering a couple months back, I was discussing the Da Vinci Code and was trying hard to tone down my enthusiasm for the book (as my innate tendency to get carried away about the things I am passionate about often defies the norms of political and ethical correctness), so as not to set off any anti-christian sparks; turns out, I needn't have worried cos the only sparks I was turning on was animated approval on how un-put-down-able the book was.

A little surprising considering the havoc Dan Brown created with the main stream media (not just Fox, even the most objective of networks, NBC had a dateline program disputing all of Dan Brown's "facts") and I have read many a review in the very-liberal NY Times criticizing the book. Perhaps, the fact that this is Philadelphia, falling into the bracket of the little strip of blue liberal elite along the Northeast (and we must remember that the state it belongs to did vote democratic saving Kerry the embarrassment of losing in a landslide) kind of explains it.

But that doesn’t explain how practically every person I knew with a right to vote in the not-so-liberal mountain state of Colorado (not a whole heck of a lot--- but 100% is a significant fraction even if it means 10 out of 10) voted Democratic. You can argue that not many moneyed, insular republicans are going to practice research and try to cure cancer (albeit unsuccessfully) at a poorly funded state university even if it is in one of the most conservative pockets of the country.

And then I received enlightenment high atop the mountains: Bush-Cheney propaganda signs peeped out of backyards of the affluent, conservative homes (complete with stables and horses and white picket fences!) on that beautiful biking trail by the front ranges of the rockies. Yeah, you truly have to live in a fantasy-land far, far away from the real world to be able to vote for Bush and still be at peace with yourself.

So, I am thanking my lucky stars that even if these God-fearing, feverishly christian, gay-rights-opposing, pro-life, gun-carrying, death-penalty applauders are all over the place, at least I don’t SEE them cos of my life-style choices (or lack thereof). And when I do see them they are conveniently encased in a celluloid box, rendered impenetrable bcos of as much the nitrocellulose as my incomparable love for it.

So while you can see Michael Newdow (I spent many an hour applauding the “under God” underdog my first few months in this country) fighting his war and making his case because the NY and LA Times and CNN are talking about it, what you cannot see is that majority of middle American blue-collar workers are worshipping Bush because he wont allow a man to say “I do” to another man. They don’t make news cos they are the norm, not the exception.
I don’t know why Republicans are cursing the liberal-media bias -- they only benefit from it. Of course the media is biased – only the out-of-whack, out of the mainstream “wrong”doing liberals become news; the media might applaud them, but people have a way of deciding for themselves if their actions are good or bad, they just get their facts from the networks.

However, Hurricane Katrina seems to have done what 9-11 couldn’t do --broken the Bush-magic. Of course it might be cos there is no election year remaining. And now, thank God, we’ll never know.

Even republican loyalists, most notably Trent Lott, and quite a few regular Bush-suck-ups among the media like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan have begun to outcry against the inefficiency of the Bush administration in the Katrina aftermath.

But believe me, they belong to the smarter section of the right-wing. To get the opinion of the truly stupid group of the population, that bestow their faith upon one person and then stick by him no matter what, you turn to Sean Hannity. He’s one of the most genuinely amusing men in America: the blindest of all the blind conservatives I’ve ever seen. I bet if Bush went and jumped in the ocean, he’d follow, no questions asked. In any case, I wasn’t surprised to find that Hannity is still on Dubya’s side. Since he doesn’t have anything to say for him, he’s turned this entire blame game onto the mayor of New Orleans. Limbaugh and Brit Hume have turned on Governor Blanco. And they are all passionately involved in the bickering over whether this is a race thing. Yeah, like that is the issue here. Since they need to turn the focus away from Dubya, they can now turn the flashlight on the African Americans. And they have nicely fallen into the trap, since they never think twice before jumping on the race bandwagon.

And Hannity’s argument is that everyone is politicizing this. The federal government didn’t do its job and Bush sat on his ass at the ranch two days after the hurricane hit. If that is not the most important political issue in history, I don’t know what is. Probably Clinton’s having sex with Lewinsky cos hundreds of people died of shock after that..

But this cannot be explained away by tangible interpretations or logical arguments. Maher is not exaggerating when he says ‘Bush works in mysterious ways’. It must take something akin to a god-devotee relationship for people to still be on Bush’s side --- they probably think he can spout wings and fly or walk on water; I’d sure like to see him do that in New Orleans….

Keeping the eye on the ball (Part 2 of ∞)

I've said before -- incidentally, in a nostalgic post-Pete phase when I hadn’t warmed to Roger yet – that all Federer seems to have to do to play impeccable tennis is to keep his eye on the ball, and since there is no better way of saying it, I will say it again and probably a zillion more times to come.

The first set yesterday was a “perfect” set in many ways. There were very few errors from either player, if at all, and the only reason Roger won it was cos he had the edge on his service games, what with a remarkable first serve percentage and the relentlessness with which he attacked the all-time returner’s returns. Most serve and volley players lose out on getting back at the returner, probably because of the extreme confidence they have in the unreturnability of their serves, and frankly, are visibly baffled when someone like Agassi can smash them right back. But Federer takes no chances, and being the amazing returner he himself is, helps him anticipate that the ball is making a trip back.

That said, if not for Agassi’s bad first serve percentage Roger may not have won this match. Not because Agassi is the better player (by no stretch of the imagination), but Roger seems so flabbergasted when he loses a set that he takes a while to regain composure. I realize he is used to winning in straights (an unbelievable record of losing just two sets now in 23 straight finals) but he should realize that it does fall within the bounds of human credibility that he will occasionally need to take a match to a fourth set.

Of course, he is not quite as invincible on a hard court as he is on grass, but even so he didn’t seem as vulnerable against Andy at the Open last year. Granted, Andy is no Andre. A ton of difference comes with that last syllable. But Roger needs to realize that his opponents have raised their games to match up to his, so he has to have his answers to their answers as well. In the ever-eloquent Chandler’s words, “The messer has become the messee”.

Agassi needs a standing ovation for his performance. He played an incredible match for any top-seeded player, but considering the odds stacked against him, he was pure magic. Which makes me wonder if Federer could have beat Agassi in his prime (though some might argue that this is Agassi’s prime — I don’t think he’s ever played better; he’s certainly never returned Pete’s serves as well as he did Federer’s), Sampras notwithstanding. Since Federer seems to be playing a net-rushing game, Federer and Agassi might have been an incredible treat to watch.

Which brings me to my next point — why IS Roger net-rushing so much? Isn’t his biggest advantage that he can play baseline as well as chip’n’charge and while serving and volleying IS the thing to do at the big W, hard courts have always favored players that can stay behind (Pete’s record speaks volumes)? Agassi took advantage and attacked him on all his net points.

In any case, bigger picture: Federer has proved yet again that he can do it again and again and again. When he needed to elevate his game, he did. When you can serve at 75% and get all your first serves in at the most trying moments in a match you have to be a little more than just human. Even the great Pistol Pete offered a few double faults in a tight corner…

That said, I have a tip for Johnny Mac: some times it’s all right to just let it go! Granted, when he is complimenting Federer, his voice is gushing with barely concealed awe, but when he is sounding off and spurting sarcasm, he is doing it in the same unrelenting way that is so becoming of McEnroe. I understand how unforgivable it is to watch the flawlessness that is Roger Federer falter, because I am probably as fanatically obsessed with his shot-making as he is, but harping on every little error (however unbelievable) robs you off some of the pure ecstasy ONLY seeing Roger glide on a tennis court can provide. For instance, glossing over his 75% first serves in (an incredible accomplishment when you are playing in so tight a match against so fearsome an opponent) and going on and on about a backhand slice that went an inch wide took away some of the magic from the beautiful orchestration only two maestros like Roger and Andre can produce (yeah, sometimes you want to see it from both sides of the court!).

That said, Roger really needs to remember that he is not playing at Wimbledon when he slices that backhand like that… The ball is not going to bounce the way it does on grass. Though I must say his backhand returns almost went back to their flawless perfection in the tiebreak, where he won points off them and in the fourth set when he had that awesome backhand crosscourt winner. Tiebreak sealed and leading a comfortable 3-0 in the decider, having regained his composure, and more importantly, McEnroe’s patronage, Federer was back on track :)

The match ended with Johnny Mac (now firmly on the champion’s side) saying, Noone has ever hit a tennis ball as well as Federer. And that is probably the only way to justify Andre’s loss after so laudable a performance. Anyone less would have fallen prey….

[I’ve noticed something about Roger (backhand overheads and versatile forehands apart) --- he never thanks anyone personal in his thank you speeches, except the customary thanks to the organization, sponsors and fans. No girlfriend, no coach, no mother nor father…
Probably cos he depends on no one but himself for his wins…
Can there BE a more invincible human being?]

New Rule!

(Maher Style :))

Yeah, this is my very own US Open Series here….
New Rule: People should quit questioning if Federer is the best tennis player to ever walk the earth. He IS!

The only thing the commentators had against Federer today was that he usually has double the winners as errors and today he didn’t. The moment they start comparing a player to himself you know it’s cos there’s no one else to compare him to.

That said, all credit to Hewitt who played a sensational match today (especially that 9-deuce game which he eventually won) to make a pretty laudable match-up against the grand slam man….

Ok, for all those Federer skeptics still remaining (no more than a very resistant 5%, I bet), Roger offered too many reasons this match to not believe he’s pure genius:

Trying to get out of a break point in the first set where he showcased a volley, a drop, a forehand winner and a backhand slice all in the span of a minute between points… Paraphrasing McEnroe --- Ok, I showed you this shot and this one. Let me now show you this :)

The 21 shot rally when Hewitt had a set point in the second set.. Predictably that ended with Lleyton missing a forehand winner and Federer went on to win that game after saving 3 set points…

He came back from 15-40 at least twice on his serve, incredibly brushing off any whiff of a chance Lleyton had to get back into the match.

An effortless 7-0 in the tiebreak!! And with Hewitt in top form, no less.. Has ANYone ever done that at that stage in a grand slam, between two top seeds?

Mute point. Roger’s done a lot no one has ever done…

The Incredibles!

What an absolutely stunning match between Blake and Agassi !!!!!!!!!!!!
Men's tennis is so full of incredibles....And Agassi so deserves his due for the unbelievable fighter he is, even I am going to give it to him...If he can do to Federer what he did to Blake, we can expect one of the greatest US Open finals in history....
I am hoping that happens after we see another phenomenon between David and Roger tomorrow...Andy's mojo loss is now beginning to make sense...Neither he nor little Lleyton can give Roger anything to worry about...But the 35-year old veteran just might...

Can't wait...

He IS for real !

I did something this weekend that a human being should almost never do. In an irrevocable entwining of fantasy and reality, I went and watched Roger Federer “in flesh and blood” at Flushing meadows.

The good news is I have attained the so-called nirvana that all those old sages got by being one with God, the bad news is, now I know he exists outside of my uncorrupted little silver screen world…



Photograph: Roger: Bring it on! [Courtesy of Vidy, the lens-crafter] They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and quite honestly I’d rather ramble a thousand odd --- reason why I don’t usually post pictures on my blog --- but since Federer has defied every rule ever made in history, I will make the exception :)

Disclaimer: I have never been able to enunciate the supernatural; I still have about five unfinished essays about Sampras in his prime with no hope of ever completing them and my attempt to capture the magic of New York is still wanting in many respects.

But I decided that the only way I can refrain from sighing every time I think back to Sunday or smiling at strangers on the train because I am thinking about Roger’s backhand lob was to put down my thoughts on celluloid even if I only get to convey a third of what I feel, and believe me, that will be a job well done.

Despite the fact that I checked usopen.org and weather.com at the rate of a million hits per minute in the few days preceding D-day, and all but obtained the players’ medical records, I couldn’t believe my eyes when Roger walked onto court. You can hardly blame me; for one, I never believed he was human, and for another, the last two times I attempted to watch infallibility close up, I ended up either conceding to the huge screen on the USTA grounds or glowering at a smug black board that declared the match I had traveled a thousand miles for was a walkover.

My first thoughts:

He is so tiny!
I don’t think this was a result of the seats high-up in the stands (the only ones you can get if you wait till the day they actually announce the schedule so you can be a 100% sure that Roger is going play the session; believe me, the finals is the only round you can positively predict Federer’s presence on court). Roger’s miniscule ---- he’s all of 6-foot-1, but he has a really small frame and I can understand now why he looks so tiny against the likes of the safins and roddicks out there, which goes to show just how much he relies on his mental toughness and mind game. His teeny little figure merely reinforced my picture of Roger -- a guy defying destiny, mortality and the whole world ---- so inexplicably small and alone in his insuperability…

He is so incredibly cute!!
Cute is hardly an adjective one would use to describe a guy that goes about demolishing everything in his way to the crown and with such effortless ease, but Roger Federer is incredibly cute. Right from his mannerisms --- twirling the racket, twiddling with the strings, pushing his head band back --- to giving opponents their due, smiling at Andy’s self-deprecating humor and accepting that he sometimes amazes himself with his own game, he is one of most endearing players on the tour.

It’s a whole lot tougher than it looks.
If you thought that backhand slice he creates from a ball that looks like it’s nowhere near where he is, and assumed the television just made it look impossible, nope! Incredible as it sounds, the television makes it look easier than it is. At the real Arthur Ashe, the sideline is too far in and the net is just too high! Even knowing it was Federer, I had my heart in my mouth for every carefully orchestrated backhand pass and every baseline shot to make it. But knowing Federer, it almost always did…
I think Mark Hodgkinson said it best when he said Roger makes tennis “easy on the eye”. It’s not just that he goes after every point and every ball and gets it, but he makes it look so easy. No bellowing, no puffing, no smashing the racket on the ground, he even moves silently. And you hardly ever see him contesting a call or glowering at the linesman, because, very simply, he can do without that point. He’s got enough to win, and then some.

He is human… He doesn’t look quite as invincible when he is a live Roger. Seeing him in flesh and blood added a dimension of vulnerability to the eventual champion that I wasn’t expecting to see: he can miss shots, he can slip up a little and bang his racket against his leg, and FYI, he breathes.

He’s still as infallible as it gets. Down 1-4 in the tiebreak, he bounced right back and won the next six points, bagging the second set in the way only Federer can. It’s true that tennis legends most often find themselves in tight situations and the mark of a great player is to slowly and surely play his way out of it. But IMO nooone does it with as much versatility as Roger does. He doesn’t just spring up and fire an ace; he seems to have an answer for everything --- amazing return of impossible serves, incredible backhand passes to reach seemingly unreachable shots, forehand and backhand volleys before they become off-center, and everything in between. Nobody says it better than the eloquent Andy Roddick did after Wimbledon, “Maybe I'll just punch him or something.” Quite possibly, that is the only way to ‘beat’ Roger.

[As an objective fan, I do acknowledge that Roger is playing a little below his robot-like precision this Open, and I can’t help but wonder if he has subconsciously lowered the bar to bridge the gap. There were shots he’d usually never miss and unforced errors that are so unlike him. He’s even showing emotion on court and he conceded a set to Kiefer today. And quite honestly, his match-up against the absolutely incredible but sadly under-rated Nalbandian scares me a little. But the fact that in the case of Roger the question only goes so far as wondering whether he is going to lose a set or be broken on his serve, says a lot about the level of his game].

Needless to say, I caused many a viewer some disconcertion by running down every five minutes to watch him close-up and making sure it was the real deal and was responsible for about half the “Go Roger” screams that rang out in the stadium. Not that he needed any of it. I sometimes wonder what he feels about these lesser mortals whose only taste of the supernatural is to watch one in action and cheer him on because the mere thought of contributing decibels makes them feel part of invincibility in some inexplicable way.

I can’t imagine how it must feel to have his peers say time and time again “I gave it my best but he was just too good for me.”

Or to hit that backhand pass knowing that it is going to sail past an opponent and think, “Well, that’s why I am number one”.

I wonder how it must feel to walk in to a court time and time again, almost knowing that this is just a step in the way of holding up that trophy he is going to eventually carry home.

It was one of the most amazing days of my life, watching Roger from a few thousand yards away; I’m richer by a wonderful experience, a picture of me with an icon (pun unintended) of the greatest tennis player ever and this profound ecstasy that comes only with seeing true genius, that is not going to go away in a long time…

I wish I could have touched him though, if only to make sure he wasn’t made of barbed wire and concrete….