Back !

I am back after a gap of 4 days - 4 days of a complete break from cricket - no blogs, no visits to Cricinfo, no thinking about strategies and team compositions. I was not away on a holiday nor was I studying for an exam or extraordinarily busy with work. I was not moving to a new house and was not weary of cricket either.

So why the break ? While in the shower 5 days ago, I was reflecting on what I usually spend my time doing - I figured I spend a fair amount of time reflecting on the game - besides the half an hour I spend blogging everyday and another half surfing the web for news. This here in the United States Of Ignorant Cricketless America not back home where I spend a good deal of time watching matches of varying interests and intensity as well.

And so I thought - what if I decide to take a complete break from cricket for some time ?? I remember during school and college years my parents used to advice me to keep my cricket craze in perspective lest it should hamper my academics. Well I very rarely did it back then. Now however since I felt the need and the urge from within I decided to give it a shot. What would I do with all the time that I did not spend on cricket ? Would I utilize it in some productive work ? Would I waste it away ? Would I discover some new interest or try out some other activity I had never done before ??

I decided to carry out this experiment for 4 days. I noted 3 primary reasons for this exercise:
1. To test my ability to control and conquer myself
2. To be ready for the big India-Pakistan series refreshed
3. To simply carry out and analyse a personal experiment

It was not as hard as I thought it would be. Never did I feel an irresistible temptation to go to good old Cricinfo to check out the latest news - maybe helped by the fact that there were some pretty uninteresting matches going on all around the World. Of course I did read the headlines on Times Of India - I was not going to go out of my way to keep these out - and at times I did drift into thinking about them - the selection of Yuvraj over Kaif in the Indian Test Team being the main tempter. But soon enough I was able to realise it and shut out my thoughts. Also the stray thought of whether Rahul Dravid will scale the heights he did last season did try to enter the mind while walking through the snow but these were similarly dispelled. I accidentally did once land up onto Will's Corridor Of Uncertainty (a very good cricket blog I read regularly) out of habit but moved away within a second as I remembered my resolve.

So I did to a great degree succeed in what I set out to do. So what did I do with the time I saved ? Nothing much !!! I spent a lot more time than I do following tennis - I saw the Dubai Open - a superb match between Federer and Agassi - and little more of work. Although I do not think my net productivity was very greatly increased. So in that respect it didn't really help. Although I realised I can in fact survive without cricket and can indeed think and talk about other topics - something which several people doubted (me included).

Overall I would say yes I can very well survive and conquer myself and that makes me feel good. But I don't think there is too much that I am gaining by it. So I would end by quoting 2 lines from a very famous Hindi song:

"Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi Shikava To Nahin
Tere Bina Zindagi Bhi Lekin Zindagi Nahin"