Sounds

In the interval from one beat to another, as the sound touches nadir and there is just the past echo, just our bodies reverberating, even in that interval when as if my soul is suspended and I have no consciousness of going anywhere, of being anyone, of living, even then you touch me, pull me into life, kiss me to warmth-- and love.

Lands

Colors. I wonder, auroras, rangolis, blue painted houses, white Greece, the confluence of colors in Kanyakumari. Drab, drab world: where the sky above is grey, and the world below is in suits of black, or white, or somewhere in between. Bright, bright happiness, jumping out of every thread and sign and bustle: people's faces, not simply the sindoor or the jasmine, not the hibiscus or the blue and green mosque, not just the red flag proudly fluttering for all its small triangular size and not just the calendars fluttering in quiet shops with yawning owners and weary business: no, but life itself. Life, life, every shade, every subtlety, every truth.

Holland beats England, T20 WC 2009

It's 13 years now since I have loved the Dutch cricket team: since the time I first saw a bespectacled Bas Zuiderent playing like a bookworm quietly settles in his corner and reads, just getting sucked in the book, the trees, the atmosphere, a Roland Lefevbre, one of the most economical bowlers in one day cricket and one of the best on view in that World Cup, since that time I fell in love with the Dutch team. And they were different from other amateurs: they quietly, wearily but sweetly went about their task as if a teacher gave them a very tough homework and instead of asking another student or cheating or finding out how others did it, they just are plodding along being within themselves, that one day their hard work will bring them out with colors. And it has!

Hats off for a remarkable, deserving victory, their first significant in the highest arena, to the Netherlands; it might be over England, a poor limited-overs specialist, and might be in T20, a great leveller, but nothing can take away from that they won because of their hunger to win. It could lead to recognition for some players, could make the players and the country cricket board more cash rich, and most importantly it could lead to Holland being finally accepted into the English county structure.