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By:

Amey Chitale

28 October 2024 at 5:29:02 am

Bumrah: Turning Pressure Into Poetry

The victorious strategist wins first and then goes to battle Mumbai: Two years ago in Barbados, the scars of India’s crushing ODI World Cup final defeat still lingered and the drought of ICC titles weighed heavily. India had seized control in the middle overs, only to see it slip under Heinrich Klaasen’s fierce assault. With South Africa needing 30 off 30 balls and their in-form batter at the crease, momentum appeared lost. That was when he stepped in to halt the Proteas’ surge. His spells...

Bumrah: Turning Pressure Into Poetry

The victorious strategist wins first and then goes to battle Mumbai: Two years ago in Barbados, the scars of India’s crushing ODI World Cup final defeat still lingered and the drought of ICC titles weighed heavily. India had seized control in the middle overs, only to see it slip under Heinrich Klaasen’s fierce assault. With South Africa needing 30 off 30 balls and their in-form batter at the crease, momentum appeared lost. That was when he stepped in to halt the Proteas’ surge. His spells in the 16th and 18th overs slowed the chase and turned the tide. While Suryakumar Yadav’s spectacular boundary catch grabbed the headlines, his economy of 4.5 and two crucial wickets quietly shifted the balance. India’s fightback was shaped not just at the boundary but through the calm precision of his bowling. Two years later, India were defending a towering 255 at the Wankhede Stadium. Yet, as often happens with big totals, complacency crept in and the game began to slip away. Bethell’s ferocious hitting had nearly turned the contest in England’s favour. Once again, the captain turned to his trusted lieutenant—Mr Reliable. Summoned in the 16th and 18th overs, he delivered with precision. With the asking rate nearing 14, he conceded just 14 runs. Brutal yorkers speared at the batter’s legs, leaving little room to manoeuvre. It was a masterclass in control under pressure, steadying India’s grip on the game. He stayed cool under pressure, handling the storm without surrendering psychologically. While Sanju Samson’s brilliance and Axar Patel’s composure grabbed the headlines, it was again his quiet mastery that helped India regain momentum. Over the years, he has embodied consistency and resilience, thriving when others faltered. Fame and glamour were never his pursuit, yet his presence has often proved decisive—felt in every crunch moment and crucial spell. He is not just a match-winner but a craftsman of control, a bowler who bends the game’s rhythm to his will. Among Greatest Indeed, Jasprit Bumrah ranks among cricket’s greatest fast bowlers—the unsung hero of Barbados and Wankhede, turning pressure into poetry with the ball. His spells are more than memorable moments; they are calculated interventions delivered at the precise juncture where pressure, timing and psychology shape the contest. Not merely a frontline warrior, he is a tactical commander, orchestrating the battle with precision and authority. Sun Tzu, in The Art of War , reminds us: “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” The finest generals do not merely attack soldiers; they dismantle strategy. Jasprit Bumrah does exactly that—targeting the batter’s confidence, disrupting the innings’ rhythm and shrinking the time for the chase. At crucial moments, he punctures momentum with precision. Sun Tzu wrote that supreme excellence lies in winning without prolonged battle. Bumrah’s spells are not about dramatic collapses but strategic strangulation. Sustained pressure erodes decision-making and forces errors. His bowling values control over spectacle.   Shivaji Maharaj’s military brilliance lay in using limited resources with strategic precision. His campaigns relied on small, decisive strikes delivered at unexpected moments. With only four overs at his disposal, Jasprit Bumrah turns risk into opportunity—his very presence carrying the aura that, once deployed, the battle will shift. Turning Risks Just as Shivaji Maharaj’s triumphs relied on trusted commanders, India’s victories here hinged on Bumrah’s quiet precision. He was not merely a bowler in the lineup but the commander whose interventions reshaped the contest. A deeper lesson lies in these performances. In an age that glorifies speed and instant success, Bumrah’s craft reminds us that true mastery rests on preparation, clarity and composure under pressure. Success—whether in sport or life—is rarely one dramatic act but the result of discipline and the courage to step forward when the moment matters most. Sun Tzu wrote, “The victorious strategist wins first and then goes to battle.” Bumrah’s spells reflect that philosophy. His impact lies not in sudden collapses but in calculated control, where each delivery serves a larger plan. Cricket fields and historic battlefields may seem worlds apart, yet their strategies often mirror each other. Batters’ blazing strokes may dominate highlight reels, but the quiet control of bowlers like Bumrah often decides a match. He does not simply bowl; he reshapes the battlefield.

Bollywood’s Annus Mirabilis

Author Pratik Majumdar’s latest book argues that 1975 transformed Bollywood in ways memory has flattened.


Sadly, whenever we go into a flashback to 1975, all discussions boil down to Sholay, a milestone in the history of Indian cinema and perhaps also, across world cinema. “Sadly” because, few are aware that 1975 can be defined as the Golden Year of Bollywood cinema. Did you know that not less than 80 full-length feature films were released across theatres in India and some of them were big hits too? Few might have kept a count but film buff and author Pratik Majumdar reminds us of these milestones that mark the history of Bollywood.


Watching films has been Majumdar’s passion and he has been actively pursuing it from the time he was ten or eleven. A couple of years ago, Pratik decided to record his passion for cinema, especially Bollywood. The result is in the 197-page extensively researched book published by Hatchette-India last year. The book is titled 1975 – The Year That Transformed Bollywood with a colourful collage for a cover with an image from Sholay dominating the cover. 


The most outstanding quality of Pratik’s selection of around 30 feature films in the study is the underlining of the fact that Sholay might have been the best but this in no way signifies that other good films that hit the box office in a big way or landed on the wayside had not released in theatres.   


The most important function of Bollywood – its cinema and the people who inhabit the film industry is its ability to act as an interface between traditions of Indian society and disturbing modern or Western intrusions into it. The Hindi film is a means of giving cultural meaning to Western structures superimposed on society, demystifying some of the culturally unacceptable modern structures now in vogue and ritually neutralizing elements of the modern world that must be accepted for sheer survival. Are Western intrusions into the Hindi mainstream film ethos really disturbing? 


Not really, because the emphasis is not on the inner struggle between modernity and tradition. Nor is it on any deep ambivalence towards the West. The function of the Hindi film according to Shyam Benegal is to externalize an inner psychological conflict and handle the inner passion generated by social and political processes as problems created by events and persons outside. These events and persons are both ideal types and representatives of different aspects of a fragmented self. These fragments are separately controlled.


Bollywood seeks to sustain this control by sharpening the focuses of these differences - the hero and the anti-hero, the heroine and the anti-heroine, the large-hearted father-in-law and the middle-aged don. Hindi cinema does this because integration of these separate fragments into a unified whole would highlight the gray elements of characterization that it does not wish to adhere to. The cinematic influences of a foreign culture cannot uproot the cultural roots of a nation dotted with a largely illiterate mass population nurtured on a steady and generous diet of mythology, folklore, theatre, folk arts, music, all of which are reflected, represented, interpreted, distorted and questioned in and by popular cinema.


Pratik sheds light on films lesser-known than Sholay that were released the same year. Those films that were mainstream but had distinctive individual traits of the director are – Feroz Khan’s stylish Dharmatma, Shyam Benegal’s innocent filmization of Habib Tanvir’s famous play Charandas Chor, Rajshri’s super-duper hit Geet Gata Chal, Randhir Kapoor-directed Dharam Karam which is perhaps the first film in which the director directed his illustrious father Raj Kapoor, Brij Sadanah’s Chori Mera Kaam, three films of Gulzar, Shakti Samanta’s Amanush, Basu Chatterjee’s Chhoti Si Baat and many more.


There are five analytical essays also which sheds light on special areas of Bollywood cinema such as ‘The Impact of the 1975 Emergency on the Hindi film industry.’ Majumdar’s writing style is fluid, completely devoid of technical jargon and academic theorizing which enhances the book’s readability.


An outstanding feature is his dissection of  Jai Santoshi Maa, which was released the same year. This film led to a kind of mass hysteria among Indian women throughout the country trapping most of them in a fiery fervour of rituals, fasting and prayers for 16 consecutive Fridays to seek her blessings through fulfillment of their vows. Interestingly, it is this film which created this Goddess which did not really exist before. Thanks to the film, the worship in temples dedicated entirely to Santoshi Maa sprung up right across India and women still pay obeisance to her.


This is a must-read book for everyone interested in cinema with special focus on Bollywood cinema.


(The author is a film scholar. Views personal.)

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