games and players

last night .. it was really late .... and i happened to catch a match between federer and ancic on TV
it was re-run of the seminfinal of Rotterdam open
i had seem whole of last year federer play like a man possessed...i dont know if anyone shares my opinion ...
the way he was able to manufacture shots from nowhere ... in the hitherto mechanical world of men's tennis...
i went from admiration to furstration of seeing this brilliance too often..
and whole of australian open i was waiting for someone to beat fedrer and thank god someone did...
this match last night was again reminiscent of same federer form but was good to see ancic play his game in between federer's sparks of brilliance.

there were only superlatives galore from commentrators for both players....
what remains somehow imprinted in mind are federer backhand passing shots....
on one shot federer was forced wide on the backhand and he nailed the return shot deep in the tiny corner of ancic forehand....
that made me think that player of this class dont play only on the physical court..
but in their mind courts..... every shot's every variation is imprinted like code in programming
and they are out there just executing it...
the hours of coding... debugging .... testing... ..on practice courts..
for long i had the theory that federer sold his soul to devil for this amazing game in return..
now new twist.... maybe he is perfect tennis machine ..!!!!
only flaw in the theory is that he can cry at grand slams after winning...

begining

this is my second time around with blogging experiment..
though i titled it words are all i have got...
but as it turned out ... even words deserted me for sometime....
last few days, reading blogs all around....and then devouring creative works of other people..
it seems words have deigned to pay me a visit...

as i write the most powerful memory is the movie i saw last night
it was JULES ET JIM by Francois Truffaut
i had only heard of this great french director ... and never seen his works..
dhaka, as it happens to be heaven of pirated DVDs, is now growing its fangs from kitsch to classics
thats a boon for person like me...
i had picked the movie not knowing much about it....
and it turned out to be an inspiration beyond words...

the characters are so driven by destiny ... ..
laid back yet driven by their passions with languid landscapes in the background
one thing that strikes me as oddity in the world of literature...
is that women characters get away with liberties they take in their passion..
be it madame bovary or be it catherine in this movie...
their tresspassings in the fields of morality is their due...
as the jules says..... she has to be treated like a queen...
i am yet to come across a male character who has got similar stature in the same field
( maybe i am ignorant fool too ...)
Truffaut found this book in the second hand book store and felt compelled to make a movie...
i had the same feeling when i was reading NAMESAKE
( which i paid the premium price for in a premium bookstore)...
but i guess Meera Nair pipped me to the post there... ( as if i had a chance)
i think credit is due to Jhumpa Lahiri for inspiring a vivid pictures of her story in the minds of readers.

now i have become bit of a Truffaut fan and will be hunting for more of his works...
and he seems to be a prolific filmmaker... with virtually a movie a year and sometimes 2-3 releases in the same year.

links to some of his works :
http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/truffaut.html

now i have got some more directors like fellini and ingmar bergman lined up ...