Nirupama Sanjeev thread.....

[sameerph]

Yes, Jay's daily notes is what got me to excited towards challanger and futures level tennis and following Indian players in such detail thereafter in this forum. Prior to that I only used to follow grand slams and India's davis cup matches. I also remember in those early days of forum it was so difficult to get any kind of news about results, forget live scores. Jay was indeed the pioneer who ignited tennis passion in so many of us in this forum.

[jayakris]

Nirupama Sanjeev's interview on YouTube

Watch the specific part where it opens, you will all be in for a pleasant surprise.

Big props to Dhruv, BSharma, PKB, Jay, Sameer, Jaydeep, Rajiv and several of forum members who have gone way beyond than just fans, to try to make a difference in our own way. As Mukund mentioned in one of his recent interviews, some of the followers are way more qualified than the players themselves at times in their respective fields - so it speaks volumes of the passion and the big heart to put in effort to fix things while never expecting anything in return (and even intentionally staying away from attention/limelight).

Just thought I'd share that wonderful snippet from Nirupama Sanjeev on Jay and TennisIndia.org/Sports-India.com

Thanks for all the kind words, Vishnu. Sorry, I saw this thread only a little late. Was caught up in what the virus was doing, and getting stuck on that thread...

It was nice to see Niru talking about those days. She is a very straight-talking person, and I always liked that about her. She visited us once and had dinner with us too. Yes, I remember totally shocking her once, at a challenger in some small place in Spain or something. I had called thr tournament director right after her match was done (of course, no score updates anywhere), and he said "oh, she just walked in". That was the first time I talked to her, and she couldn't believe that somebody wanted to even know her scores. Those days all these players used to think that nobody cared about what they were doing.

Please come more often to the forum, at least after tennis restarts. It actually feels great for those like me to know that fans like you are staying in close touch with the players. Due to a lot of work (too many PhD students) during the past few years, I have not kept up contacts with the players much.

[jayakris]

You young guys do not even know what a life-saver it was. I was a sports junkie as a kid and participated in sports quizzes and so on. My brother and I used to race when the newspaper came and we would turn it over to the last page and fight over who would get it. Then, when I came to this country, no news at all. Then, Jay started his website and we would get all the information from there. But, there was no forum to discuss. I did it via email with Jay! I am very grateful for the service he provided before this website was set up and even now single-handedly doing the bulk of the work with some aid with respect to coronavirus. Sometimes I think Jay missed his real calling. He is, no doubt, a fabulous professor and it perhaps pays more and provides stability. But, he would have been an award-winning journalist. As Niru said, I had no idea how he got the results. He would call the tournament office (at that time, cellphones were perhaps not that rampant). At times, he would perhaps get the phone number of the tournament office from some ATP or ITF office. And, then perhaps the tournament office gave Niru's number or whatever. He was relentless. I am forever grateful to the great Jay.

Thanks prasen for saying all that. Yes, I remember those days in late 90s of getting up in the morning and spending hours on emails (and getting faxes from some of the tournament directors because I called and asked for scores and stuff like that)... Lots of fun.

It is interesting that you mentioned journalism. I was asked by my students at some point if I would change areas of interest in academics and would want to do some other topic than Civil engineering or Transportation systems. My answer was that I couldn't think of any. But I said if I ever tried for any other career itself, it would be as a sports journalist. I had always thought that if I were to get totally bored with academics, I would just go to India and get the help of my old tennis reporter buddies like Kamesh Srinivasan and S. Kannan, to apply for a job as a newspaper reporter for tennis. But now I am a bit past the Indian retirement age of 55 for those things ...

Another thing I'd try doing would be music. I am actually a classical Karnatic singer (I think I have never mentioned it in sports-india at all, iirc). I used to do some concerts and all that at one time. I really loved doing vocals for debut dance programs and things like that. When Harsh Mankad won the Manchester challenger in 2006, I was actually at Sacramento, CA, doing vocals for a dance program that afternoon. Harsh was surprised why I wasn't calling and celebrating with him, and I had to explain to him that I was in another domain of my existence, though the orchestra with me was wondering what I was doing on my laptop in the middle of practice ... But I generally stopped doing much of singing several years ago, out of lack of time.

But like you dabble into politics now, we all need breaks, away from academics.

[jayakris]

Jay was indeed the pioneer who ignited tennis passion in so many of us in this forum.

Thanks, Sameer. I am trying to ignite a passion in everybody with Coronavirus these days. No real sports, so watching test results is the only sport we have!

[knarayen]

Thanks, jay, for those days in the 80s and 90s, and yes into the 00 and 10 and 20!!

those were the days when there was no tv coverage, live or replay, you lived and died by jays reporting and live scoring. I lost
count of how many matches jay reported on, how he kept track, it was a source of great mystery and astonishment to me as to how he did all of that and still maintained his teaching and research load at the University. Hats off to you jay and many thanks for which we may never be able to repay.

Prof

[jayakris]

it was a source of great mystery and astonishment to me as to how he did all of that and still maintained his teaching and research load at the University.

Haha... I also wonder sometimes. I somehow produced some 10 PhD graduates from 1996 through 2006 when I was doing this, and 9 of them ended up as faculty around the world too - I have no idea how, looking back. But I could've written probably 20 extra papers but for the Tennisindia work during those years. It's okay, all the things I wanted to publish did get published. Just didn't manage to milk the same research for extra papers (that say nothing substantially more ) like usually done in the academic game! My promotion to full professor got delayed too -- not because of the record but because I would miss the deadline to submit the dossier every year, normally right when the US Open would be happening. You know my priorities ... But no real damage in the end, looking back. Sometimes we all do things we want to do and just decide to be happy doing it. Sort of the bhagavadgita way. No need to worry about all the cost-benefits, or about what comes out of it. Sometimes even good things come out of it!

[That last line is plagiarism from one of my U.Texas professors/mentors, the late great Robert Herman, the co-inventor of Big Bang theory, who loved what a couple of us Indian students wrote on his office board and would never erase it - "kaRmaNyEvAthikArastE, mA phalEshu kadAchan" and "satyamEva jayatE"... But that is all another story, and we are way off-topic here]

[prasen9]

Thanks, jay, for those days in the 80s and 90s, and yes into the 00 and 10 and 20!!

those were the days when there was no tv coverage, live or replay, you lived and died by jays reporting and live scoring. I lost
count of how many matches jay reported on, how he kept track, it was a source of great mystery and astonishment to me as to how he did all of that and still maintained his teaching and research load at the University. Hats off to you jay and many thanks for which we may never be able to repay.

Prof

'80s? Jay was reporting via email then? I came to the U.S. in 1993 and the first browsers came into life in the '90s.

[PKBasu]

May I belatedly add my voice of gratitude to Jay for creating this forum when such fora were not even possible. I was a crazy sports fan, but became an even crazier one because of Jay.

[knarayen]

Thanks, jay, for those days in the 80s and 90s, and yes into the 00 and 10 and 20!!

those were the days when there was no tv coverage, live or replay, you lived and died by jays reporting and live scoring. I lost
count of how many matches jay reported on, how he kept track, it was a source of great mystery and astonishment to me as to how he did all of that and still maintained his teaching and research load at the University. Hats off to you jay and many thanks for which we may never be able to repay.

Prof

'80s? Jay was reporting via email then? I came to the U.S. in 1993 and the first browsers came into life in the '90s.

Yes email. We were getting scores via an email list I think...sheesh that was long ago!!

[prasen9]

Wow!

[jayakris]

No, no, I was not sending the emails in the 80s ... Al Gore hadn't invented the internet by then ... I did use to be active in what was USENET in the late 80s, and among the earliest few people in touch with India through ERNET and NCST Mumbai (anybody remembers shakti.ernet.in, the server?) ... I was also probably the first one to send info on the tied test on electronic medium in the US within a minute of it happening in 1986 September. Ravi Shastri unable to pull it off though not out. I heard the match commentary on short wave radio, and emailed a bunch of Indian friends. None of them believed me, of course. Those days, people thought that a tie was never going to happen in a test match, as it had last happened in 1960...

[Sin Hombre]

+1 for Jay.

Also always funny to see how things come full circle. Shortwave, a long forgotten technology, made a comeback in my domain in recent years.

[prasen9]

Cricket commentary used to be on irc chat. And a whole bunch of other channels. rec.sport.cricket was the go-to place.

[But, Jay, would you please move all this to some other thread than Niru's from when it diverged? Thanks.]

[kujo]

No, no, I was not sending the emails in the 80s ... Al Gore hadn't invented the internet by then ... I did use to be active in what was USENET in the late 80s, and among the earliest few people in touch with India through ERNET and NCST Mumbai (anybody remembers shakti.ernet.in, the server?) ... I was also probably the first one to send info on the tied test on electronic medium in the US within a minute of it happening in 1986 September. Ravi Shastri unable to pull it off though not out. I heard the match commentary on short wave radio, and emailed a bunch of Indian friends. None of them believed me, of course. Those days, people thought that a tie was never going to happen in a test match, as it had last happened in 1960...

Was it Shakti? I thought sangam.ernet.in hosted in Mumbai.
Also emails were sent with pretty much the UUCP route to Sangam ( in the email address) - using the "!" symbol right?

[kujo]

Oh Yes, my thanks to Jay as well.
Made me a sports journalist for a week - did an interview of Urpi ( Sania Mirza's coach) a loooong time back!!

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