Conundrum

With the FIFA World Cup Fever and all, this one question has always been bugging me. What country in the world would have a scenario like this:

The National Game : Hockey
The Semi-National Hobby: Football
The National Passion: Cricket

We have'nt exactly "excelled" in any of these sports save for some duration in the gone generation. Well, I am not getting into any argument as to how cricket has always stolen everyelse's sunshine. But what I can understand is that there has been a palpable growth in the average Indian's appreiciation of other sports besides Cricket.

Thanks to multiplying satellite sport channels, now sport event in every nook(ad) and corner of the world gets instant and indepth coverage and all a sports fan needs is a flick of the button to switch from soap operas to sport arena! Now my assistant Mr Shinde (avid sports fan & amateur Sports commentator) discusses Ricky Paanting(sic) and Ranaldu(sic) with equal ease. FIFA worldcup is the talk of the town. He may not follow "offside" or "handball" but can surely understand when the "umpire" hands out pila or laal patta. He went on, drawing some interesting parallels between both these games!

The point Im trying to make is that Aam Aadmi is no more driven by cricket alone. Atleast a quarter of our country's populace can safely be called "manic football fans". And when Preity Zinta's secret football fetish occupies the frontpage of a leading newspaper, another quarter of the populace will blindly join this group! We hear Bengal is virtually dancing to Samba, rooting for Brazil, instead of Mohun Bagan for a change. The rest of India is simply content watching the event on TV or at Big-Screen Bars at best, cheering for countries not known otherwise..

This is the conundrum, the ubiquous Indian, and his conspicuous absence in the football arena.

No Rain

The rains might be playing hide 'n seek with we folks in Mumbai knowing very well that the love-hate relationship between us can never end. We cringe on the onset of the monsoon, but we are fretful until it happens. As the mercury rises to newer heights each day, a dark cloud lurks round the corner playfully strike its "million watts smile' on the very folks..and then vanish into thin air, without shedding a single drop the pristine gem of life. Its always been Too much or Too little with the rains and so far the prospect of the latter appears ominous.

As I post these ramblings about the vagaries of monsoon, I remember one of Blind Melon's greatest songs:

"No Rain"
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
and speak my point of view

But it's not sane, It's not sane

I just want some one to say to me
I'll always be there when you wake

Ya know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today
So stay with me and I'll have it made

And I don't understand why I sleep all day
And I start to complain that there's no rain

And all I can do is read a book to stay awake
And it rips my life away, but it's a great escape

escape......escape......escape......

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
ya don't like my point of view

ya think I'm insane
Its not sane......it's not sane

The Three "R"s

One is very familiar with the Three "R"s governing Education- Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. But today, the term is so popular that virtually every field of knowledge under the sun has its own Three "R"s to catch the attention of the persons pursuing it to its core principles/themes. The Net threw up several such 3R's..some of which may be grossly deficient or at times perfunctory in their functioning as Tenets of their respective disciplines. Some of them are outright funny(!) too.

1. Modern Technology (satire): Railing, Writhing amd Recrimination(!)
2. Youth Protection(against abuse): Recognise, Resist and Report.
3. Conserveration: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
4. Against Animal testing: Refine, Reduce and Replace.
5. Parole Re-entry(into community): Risk, Resources and Results(!)

6.Money Management: Review, Revise and Retry(!) ( not good enough for stock market traders)

7.BehaviourManagement: Rules, Rituals and Routines ( is that all?)

8. Collective Bargaining: Raises, Rights and Respect(!) ( note that respect comes last)

9.Capital Budgeting: Resources, Revenue and Rate of Return
10 Drug Addicts recovery: Rehab, Revive and Revitalize

Also came across The Three Rs of Migraine Management, Logistic Consequences,System Dependability.......

Struggling and budding wannabes in various field coin their own Three Rs in thier dissertations/case studies/white papers..to summarize the ocean of knowledge to 3 vital R- words, knowing very well its inutility, except serving as catchy titles for facilitating reader recall ??

So I coin the Three Rs to sum up Life in Mumbai: Rails, Rains and Reels!!!. My soccer crazy neighbour immediately comes up with the Three Rs in the Field of Brazilian Football (pun intended): Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Roberto Carlos..

With the lights out..

Andheri, Mumbai's well known suburb on the west side, suffers from a more unwestern problem, if I may say so, .."Intermittent Power Outage". While the repetitive threats of the SEB for daily 20% power cuts in the Island city proved hoax, off late, the denizens of this suburb have been hit with sudden, frequent and unwarranted power cuts for intervals ranging anywhere between15 mins and 2 Hrs. This, when the mercury has risen over the roof and the monsoon is yet to vent its full fury..

What, with SoccerWC , cricket and tennis going on on the telly, the sport loving suburbia is simply caught unwares with the lights out !! On several occasions my chat sessions have abrubtly ended, to the dismay of the chatmates!

So much of this and now my shopping list looks like this:
UPS
Battery operated Fan
Emergency Light
Genset
Batteries

Mumbai never needed these even a year ago.

"..With the lights out, Its less dangerous
Here we are now, Entertain us"

from "Smells like teen spirit"
Kurt Cobain

So its the usual: Nadal Vs Fedex

Its not suprising to see the World Number One Roger Federer pitted against the King of of clay Rafael Nadal at the French Open Mens Finals on Sunday, a replay of 2005 Roland Garros Semifinals .

Both are Europeans, but possess entirely different games. Fedex has this aggressive, fast and clinical approach to his game., while Rafa is patience, perseverence and hardwork glorified!Fedex is a thorough allrounder..like Bjorn Borg, while Rafa has conquered all the clay under the sun( literally! breaking records while winning more than 55 matches nonstop!!)

There is no denying of Rafa's impeccable & undisputable record against Fedex on clay, but, over the past few months,Fedex's game seems to have improved greatly, after all the claycourt warmups, especially against Rafa. So we hope this sunday will throw up a thriller of a match for us. Fedex wants this trophy to complete his GrandSlam Collection while Rafa will not want to put an end to his winning streak.

I'm not sure who the French crowd will be rooting for but my vote is for Federer Express!


Game; Set; Match, Roger Federer.

Hey Mr Nadal..Try and beat Fedex at Wimbledon, that is, if you show up..!

Vanishing Act

A fews days back, 6 to be precise, I did a long overdue makeover to my blog. Overdue only because nearly all my peerblogs had undergone one or more. So I googled for a template in tune, with the blogground and the blogger's mind and landed upon this: magic paper, which was the perfect match.

I uploaded the template and my blog bore that magic look! I was even handed over some occasional words of praise from fellow bloggers. But, for the past three days, the template fails to load on uploading my blog. Though Im not a techie, I managed to somehow access the same site , I got this:
"The bandwidth limit for this site has been exceeded"

While the template still exists in my blog setings, it never gets uploaded and my blog presents a pretty plain background.

Can some bright mind decode this esoteric enigma to an exoteric riddle and enlighten the dim witted?

Also want a web tool to ward off evil eyes...

PS: HELP!!