chaotic order

Jottings - Slice of life - 443 ( Nomadland - Director Chloe Zhao’s rich, meaningful, and visually beautiful meditation on life. Nominated in six categories for the 2021 Academy awards) ( Note - Keeping in mind the possibility that readers may not have seen this movie yet, I have deliberately avoided writing too much about the story, except for laying out the bare contours required to set the context of this essay) The word Nomad is derived from the Greek root “Nomas” — a wandering shepherd, someone who lives their life in seasonal patterns, never grazing the same pasture, but moving on in search of fresh verdure, meaning, and sustenance. To a nomad, life is not a destination, but a ceaseless journey without any permanent possessions, except the bare minimum to live. In Indian religious literature, there is an equivalent, and more beautiful sounding word, to describe this fluid state of living. It is “Parivrajaka” — the wandering ascetic mendicant; the bird that is ever on the mo

Jottings - Slice of life - 440 ( The sublime art of Sunil Gavaskar - A celebration of fifty years in Cricket) If the cricketing bat was a painting brush, then Sunil Gavaskar was its Rembrandt - a master of technique and discipline. If Cricket itself was a philosophy, then he was its Buddha - a combination of stoic serenity and unparalleled fluidity. It is fifty years since the great cricketing master strode to the field for his first game, a game he was born to play, a game upon which he would leave such an indelible mark that ( paraphrasing Einstein’s eulogy to Gandhi) “generations to come will scarcely believe that such a man in flesh and blood ever played the game of cricket”. In my opinion, there is no greater cricketing spectacle in history than watching the short, young Gavaskar, with no head protection, bat and gloves in hand, confidently stride to the middle, nonchalantly signaling to the umpire to validate his guard of the leg stump and doing so in a single attempt; and