Gerald D'Cunha

M y son was watching the last night’s India vs. England ODI. He called me to watch the presentation ceremony. That’s when I learnt what had actually happened! My son is a massive fan of Virart Kohli. I am particularly happy for that… Call me selfish or call me over-optimistic about one’s children, it’s okay… Let me reason out as to why young-ones – leave alone my own 24-year-old – yes, let me reason out as to why young-ones, today, need an icon like Virat Kohli, the present Indian Captain in all three formats of cricket… 1.       FOR BEING FAITHFUL TO HIS CHILDHOOD PASSION FOR CRICKET. I find a few young -ones remaining steadfast to their passions. Be it studies, sports, music, acting,  business, politics, writing, teaching, social work, even relationship,  whatever… young ones get distracted very fast, these days… they get carried away by changing fads… the commitment, integrity, dedication, a long-term vision… and, above all, the...

T oday, when my wife and I went to watch the 2 pm show of the Hindi movie, ‘M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story’, there were only two tickets left… the last two in the first row! So, we had no option but to grab them. We wanted to watch the movie. We did it… Felt as though we were watching the match standing around the boundary lines of a stadium! On my right sat a boy – may be a 9 or 10 year old… next to him sat his younger sister… and next to the girl sat the young mother. I was so happy watching the boy and the girl jumping. I am an emotional fool, and I easily get choked while watching intense scenes. A couple of times, it happened in this movie, too… The boy next to me could sense that I was choked with emotions… He leaned forward and twisted his little head in my direction as if to ask me: “Uncle, are you crying?” What was there to cry in this Dhoni bio-pic? Every Indian cricketer - barring perhaps a few like Tiger Pataudi, Sourav Ganguly and a few more – the...

Pic.: Chetna Shetty I n one of THE DAWN CLUB debating sessions, the topic was cricket craze. A young boy blasted, without quoting George Bernard Shaw, “A famous man had said, cricket is a game played by eleven fools and watched by eleven-thousand fools.” “Whoever had said that,” thundered another young-man “was the biggest fool!” Today, like billions of ‘fools’,  all over the world, I, too, stayed at home to watch the India-Australia World Cup Semifinals. Right from the first over of Indian innings, my heart was telling me, “You fool, you should have gone to work!” After the fall of seventh wicket, I switched the TV off… Ashwin, a 12 th -standard (ISC) cricket-fool had his last Board paper, today, at noon. At around 11, I saw his FB status. “Angry… Ind-Aus Semifinals… And I am supposed to write my last Accounts paper today!” In the evening Ashwin called me to say that the paper was good. “Are you still angry?” I teased him. “Not at all, si...