Paes Maker?

It's a strange drop volley from India's Davis Cup captain. A superhero based on Leander Paes is reportedly going to feature in a TV cartoon series, who will carry the message of an active and healthy lifestyle to children. I'm not quite convinced Paes has the stature among kids to pull this off (he's no Tendulkar or Dhoni, surely), but the intentions are undoubtedly noble.

Still, it can all get pretty interesting if it turns out that the character is called Ball Boy ("gawky ball-boy turns into shorts-wearing superhero at the call of 'Mine!'") and chest-bumps the evil forces of super-villain Patty Hesh who, along with his roguish henchmen, LightNectarine and BowBrother, manages budding tennis teens into rebellion and weak service actions. Ah, what a smash that would be!

Taught for the Day

Images courtesy HassleFreeClipArt.com

Party's over

If a useful fallout of l'affaire Australia and the Pawar-play is to push for more elegant and quick post-match presentation ceremonies in the subcontinent, then I'd actually credit Martyn and Ponting with having served the game well. "Presentation parties" in the post-match hungamas here usually involve everyone who qualifies as an IP, if not as a VIP. So, you see every ward councillor and his third understudy craning to get their faces in the millions of photo frames (I used to think people like Rajeev Shukla made a living out of appearing on the "dais", such was their ubiquitous presence).

As a consequence. ceremonies went on for ever to the accompaniment of recalcitrant sound equipment (not that cricketers say anything apart from "I got good support from the other end" to commentators with a three-point agenda), and putting on a crude display which in contrast even Joginder movies could boast of better production values. Consider the chaotic 1996 World Cup ceremony in Lahore (an appropriate closing paranthesis to the famous laser-show opening fiasco in Calcutta) - hardly memorable from an aesthetic point of view. In sharp contrast, look at the tidy Wimbledon prize ceremonies or the European Champions Trophy presentations.

It's a whine to say this again, but the Aussies have this one usually right. Post-match ops just feature a representative of the sponsors, the local cricket big-wigs and the players to be felicitated. Here the politician is also the cricket big-wig, and usually has an accompanying votebank to boot, which must be appeased. The result is a greasy and claustrophobic experience.

Pit meets Pitt

The front page news salivation today is that Angerad took a ride in an auto on the roads of Pune. That's bad news for Messrs Kalmadi and Kareer, for now there are two more people complaining about the roads.

Qué?

I don't have a high opinion of socialising (that's why I'm a Page 0.333 personality). That's mainly because of the quality of the "socialisees" and "socialisers". Sometimes, the RJ on a local FM channel is more pleasant to hear. This doesn't quite completely explain the vehemence that has crept into my view of the social world, but suffice to say that I realised I liked humanity but it was the humans that I couldn't get along with (only to later find out that Charles Schulz - and many others - had got there before me when he said "I love mankind. It's the people I can't stand."). Perhaps I will eventually morph into one of those anti-socials who leave online trails of their misanthropism before gunning down shoppers at the local super-market, but it's unlikely - the Inconvenience Principle will prevent that.

However, it is highly convenient to sit and crib about others and that is precisely what I propose to do in this post.

Much of social conversation between two acquaintances who rarely meet each other is usually in the form of asking for status updates. These questions invite corollaries as well. Your entire life comes back to you, as bad nightmares don't, in sharp focus as you brace yourself in anticipation of the questions - what have I been doing ever since I met this chap? (ans: not much that can be revealed in public). Here are the worst questions fairly distributed among different stages of your life:

1. Age 1 to 5 : "Whom do you like more? mummy or daddy?". This probably, as they say, awoke the leviathan within and for the first time, I was aware of a temptation to do something rather nasty to someone with my plastic toy. What makes it worse that they feel compelled to treat you like a kid.

2. Age 13-15: "So Arts? Science? Commerce? Will you be writing IIT?". No, none of the above. I'm considering a career as a failed philosopher.

3. Two years later: "Which college will you apply to? What marks? Which coaching classes?" You must be mistaken, aunty. Defenestration and disembowelment need no schooling. Here, let me demonstrate.

4. 3/4/5 +2 years later: "So! Applying to the US?/Getting married?/Getting promoted/what's your package?" I make a handy profit, but counting the change takes a lot of time. I think I might emigrate - I'm told the guys outside the Eiffel Tower make a killing from the centimes, and the exchange rate is good now.

5. (unspecified years later, if you've provided satisfactory (not correct, mind you) answers to the above): "so when are you giving us the good news" (hopefully soon, the sperm should have reached base yet, wonder what's happened, I'll try calling up and will keep you in the loop) or "doesn't it look just like you?" (yikes! throw away the beauty pageant application, then).

I guess the reason kids come into the world is because their parents have grown tired of the interrogation and are glad to have someone else sit in the black chair, hopefully for the next 50 years.

"The world is full of clichés, and it is more than we can do to roar and rampage against it."

In the name of the "father"

I'm a little uncomfortable that it takes movies like "Rang De Basanti" and "Lage Raho Munnabhai" to spark off a revival of interest in freedom fighters and activism and M.K.Gandhi. Blame it on the way history was taught to entire generations or on lack of interest. The man (not the mythologised "Mahatma") deserves an opinion (whatever the opinion may be) from all of us.

The planet "TLAHUIZCALPANTECUHTLI"¹

Planets and plutons are taking up a lot of news space on our little rock. It may jeopardise harmless plutonic jokes and plutonic malaprops. "User Friendly" suggest an insidious way to stop the mayhem.

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1: Such a god does exist in the Aztec pantheon.