Leander Paes thread...

[PKBasu]

I presume Leander didn't get too many runs...

[rajitghosh]

Did he bat only or he bowled also?

[prasen9]

Maybe at some point, Leander will be like the old grandpa who always comes to these meetings/parties and talks a lot and everyone feels why this guy will not go away. But, hey, it is his life. Go Leander. Keep playing. Until you cannot qualify.

[Sanjay]

It is amazing that he is fit enough to play GSs at age 47.

[jayakris]

Maybe at some point, Leander will be like the old grandpa who always comes to these meetings/parties and talks a lot and everyone feels why this guy will not go away. But, hey, it is his life. Go Leander. Keep playing. Until you cannot qualify.

Good to see Lee having fun... Yeah, like the old grandpa who earned his right to tell stories and annoy people, who actually would enjoy the grandpa but would be saying they are annoyed because they wished they could do the things the grandpa says he did.

Like my grandpa who used to talk ad nauseam about being the greatest footballer in South India (just his opinion) when he was doing medical school in Tamil Nadu in the 1920s and was the full stop defender (some single defender position that doesn't exist in football anymore, he claimed) ... About how he never drank liquor even when his British professor threatened to kick him out if he didn't drink at a party. About stealing and selling coconuts from his uncle's property in Kerala to finance his medical education. About being the only state-appointed doctor at Sabarimala temple in the 1940s when it was truly in the forest and actual tigers walked around his house! Etc... I admired Grandpa and actually liked to hear his stories, though I used to say I was annoyed by that ...

The older generation always has unbelievable stories. Leander certainly has some of the most amazing things to talk about. Playing 25 doubles sets in 54 hours at Wimbledon is by itself a story that would make me faint. But I followed every set when he was doing that in 1999, getting IV drip and finally getting two titles, so it is true...

I bet he got out caught at slips for a duck as he tried a crouching Australian formation while receiving, expecting a ball to his AD side and lunging and flashing with his bat

[prasen9]

Absolutely. You know we love him. At least most of the original sinners who were involved from the beginning or near the beginning of this forum.

Thanks for sharing your grandpa's stories. Personal stories make the best reading. The human brain is built to love stories especially personal/ancestral stories of the past. Maybe he hit the tennis shot with Irfan. Increasingly with the advent of T20s, the tennis shot is in vogue in cricket.

[jayakris]

Well, our hero is now in TMC. Apparently he wants to remove divisions on caste and religion lines.



I found some of the comments below the PTI tweet interesting. He couldn't manage even the division in a group of two people (Indian Express), but Lee aspires to remove the divisions in the society? --- That is what some people are talking about. Tough to argue the validity of that argument

[prasen9]

Not possible to do. At the core of any division is human greed. That is in our DNA and has evolved via genetic selection. We are also social animals. Greed is not the only thing. But as long as greed remains, we will always have people finding some excuse to create tribes and have them vs other. If you remove caste, it will be religion, if you remove religion, it will be class/economic, etc. That does not mean we should not try. We should try to minimize these things to the extent possible. But, making such blanket statements with impossible goals is perhaps better avoided.

[Sanjay]

Not possible to do. At the core of any division is human greed. That is in our DNA and has evolved via genetic selection. We are also social animals. Greed is not the only thing. But as long as greed remains, we will always have people finding some excuse to create tribes and have them vs other. If you remove caste, it will be religion, if you remove religion, it will be class/economic, etc. That does not mean we should not try. We should try to minimize these things to the extent possible. But, making such blanket statements with impossible goals is perhaps better avoided.

Agreed. Greed and ego are basic human qualities and as long as those exist, humans will continue to look for ways to show that they are better than the other guy. No religion has managed to get people to change completely, though some make tall claims.

I am surprised at Lee's move. Of all parties, he picked the TMC?

[rajitghosh]

Not possible to do. At the core of any division is human greed. That is in our DNA and has evolved via genetic selection. We are also social animals. Greed is not the only thing. But as long as greed remains, we will always have people finding some excuse to create tribes and have them vs other. If you remove caste, it will be religion, if you remove religion, it will be class/economic, etc. That does not mean we should not try. We should try to minimize these things to the extent possible. But, making such blanket statements with impossible goals is perhaps better avoided.

Agreed. Greed and ego are basic human qualities and as long as those exist, humans will continue to look for ways to show that they are better than the other guy. No religion has managed to get people to change completely, though some make tall claims.

I am surprised at Lee's move. Of all parties, he picked the TMC?

His father and Derek O'Brein are part of the Dalhousie Institute Club in Calcutta and are part of the management. Vece Paes used to run a tennis coaching school there. So connection is very strong. No susrprises.

[rajitghosh]

Not sure if any of you have see the documentary Break Point on Zee 5. It is on the Lee-Hesh soap opera and what led to their split. It implicitly blames Rico Piperno though Lee's volatile nature also seems to be a major contributor. There is a point in the documentary where Lee admits that Naresh Kumar had predicted long ago that the partnership would not last.

[prasen9]

I am surprised at Lee's move. Of all parties, he picked the TMC?

Assuming he wanted to run in Kolkata, his hometown, this may be a pragmatic choice assuming his values. He, perhaps, did not want to join the religious fundamentalists. The left is in shambles. Or maybe his values did not align with the left either. So, this is sort of the default choice.

[S_K_S]

Please vote to get Leander into the Tennis Hall of Fame https://vote.tennisfame.com/

[arjun2761]

Encourage folks to go and vote! Leander is currently leading the fan vote al though I don’t know how much weight it has.

Just checked that finishing first in the fan vote gets him 3% bonus in the votes from the regular voters. So he will need 72% instead of the 75% needed to get in.

[Omkara]

Does he deserve it? Or is the cutoff so low?