LEANDER PAES : THE ETERNAL TORCHBEARER OF INDIAN TENNIS

Indian Tennis owes a lot to Leander Paes who has faithfully served the country with great distinction in this sport for last 2 decades. His game automatically jumps a few notches when he is representing India and he has been associated with some of the greatest moments in Indian tennis history . Before anything congratulations to Leander for winning the French Open 2009 doubles title with Dlouhy, yet another addition to his long list of achievements.

Born in a sporting family Leander started as a child prodigy and was ranked #1 in the world in junior ranking annexing junior US Open & junior Wimbledon. He turned pro in 1991 at a tender age of 18. He had started making waves in Davis Cup helping india reach world gp qualifying winning all his matches against Indonesia & Korea. In 1992 he reached the QF of 1992 Barcelona Olympics doubles with Ramesh Krishnan. More success followed in Davis Cup in 1992-1993 as he helped India reach world group semis defeating fancied teams like Great Britain, Switzerland and France. In the process he defeated many distinguished players like Jeremy Bates, Jakob Hlasek, Arnaud Boetsch all ranked much higher than him and even the legendary Henri Leconte. He also reached 1993 US Open Doubles SF with Sebastian Lareau. He also defeated South African Wayne Ferreira in Davis Cup who was at that time ranked inside top 10 in the world. He had a good run in 1995 when he reached 1995 Australian open doubles QF and vanquished the giant Goran Ivanisevic as India reached Davis Cup world gp QF. 1996 was a golden year in Indian sports as Leander brought home an Olympic Medal after 16 yrs and first individual medal since K D Jadhav in 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It instilled a tremendous sense of self belief and India has never returned empty handed from Olympics after that till date. The Government recognized his accomplishments and he was awarded the highest sporting honour in India the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award’ in 1996. In 1997 he partnered with Mahesh Bhupathi to reach SF at US Open and in 1998 in Semi Finals of Australian, French and US Opens in men’s doubles. In 1998 he also won his maiden ATP TOUR title in Hall of Fame Tennis Championships, Newport, USA and rose to career best ranking #73 in the world after defeating Pete Sampras. In 1999 Leander reached the finals of all 4 grand slams partnering Mahesh and won the French Open and Wimbledon where he also won the Mixed doubles event with Lisa Raymond to complete a grand double. He also became #1 ranked player in the world in doubles.

He has by now won 5 grand slam men’s doubles: 3 with Mahesh and 1each with Martin Damm and Lukas Dlouhy. He has also won 4 mixed doubles titles: twice with Martina Navratilova and also with Lisa Raymond and Cara Black winning 9 Grand Slams at all the venues and just 2 behind Mahesh who has got 11 grand slam titles. His zeal and passion for the game remains as strong as ever as he proves again by winning the just concluded French Open. I wish he brings many more laurels to our country and hopefully another Olympic Medal.

........ON SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Countless words have been spent dissecting the most TOASTED and HATED movie of the season "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE". The movie that romped home with 8 OSCARS, 4 GOLDEN GLOBE, 7 BAFTAS and a host of other international awards and yet derided in India by a few people with variety of brickbats ranging from being an outrageously hyped good movie to the run of the mill fare to being a downrightly bad and boring movie. Interestingly the detractors decrying the hoopla themselves generously devoted too much time and energy to retain their side on the debate that they actually contributed to increase the charm and mysticism of the movie. LOVE ME, HATE ME, BUT DO NOT IGNORE ME mantra was well served in this case and if I were in SM producer's shoes I would be happy that it got more people in theatres to see the merits of movie by themselves.

I think it is a brilliant movie. For one it is very engaging right from the start to the end. I wonder if some people found this boring how do they sit through a lot of our Hindi Films. We make some really good movies but are outdone in volume by no. of sluggishly paced films. Then the ensemble Starcast has performed very well. The performances of CHILDREN are mind blowing and defy description. Kudos to DANNY & LOVLEEN for extracting such performances from them.The leads DEV and FREIDA have given such natural performances it is difficult to envisage it is their debut film. IRRFAN is perhaps our most respected export to the international cinema along with Om Puri and he delivers effortlessly. Anil's performance is the real trump card as he combined his TALENT with his experience of all these years of varied acting to create magic on screen. He has neither looked so charming nor so menacing ever as here before. Another important aspect is beauty of adaptation of novel into the screenplay. Vikas Swarup had written a very good novel and I had read it soon after it hit the stands. I think one should read it once to appreciate the true ability of SIMON BEAUFOY as he made just the perfect changes to make an interesting book filmable and how. Awesome stuff. I dont need to discuss RAHMAN'S music. We all in India know what a marvelous composer he is. I would say that the biggest gift that DANNY gave to Hollywood even greater than the film itself was SHOWCASING the genius of A R RAHMAN to them. And the Hollywood gratefully acknowledged the master by bestowing him with 2 OSCARS. Of Course he should have got it many moons ago but in west they were to their loss ignorant of the great man. Resul also got his place under the sun and It is surely going to benefit the Indian Film Industry a lot that it was a medium for recognition of our actors and technicians. Indeed it is a memory etched for lifetime of the entire Indian cast and crew on the OSCAR CENTERSTAGE receiving the BEST PICTURE OSCAR. Last but not the least I would like to hail DANNY BOYLE the chief creator of the project who rose far above his previous masterpiece TRAINSPOTTING to put it all through to make the most significant movie of his career and sharing its extraordinary fate.


A Movie almost relegated to go directly to DVD with no takers had DESTINY on its side. Like the theme of the movie all the hype and rewards were DESTINED TO BE. THE MOVIE HAD FAR MANY MERITS TO BE IGNORED. It was lapped up and praised by all and sundry in Hollywood. People whose work we adore Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise ,Meryl Streep etc were all seen and heard praising the movie during various telecasts around the Oscars. So when these Masters of cinema think so highly o the film should we not step down from our Mr. Know-all condescending attitude and enjoy the film for its pure cinematic pleasure because that is what it is : a breathtakingly beautiful piece of art and a worthy recipient of all the awards and moolah {world wide gross nearly $400m }. Truly by far the BEST FILM of the year.