Chak de India!

So Team India wins their inaugural match at the World Cup!

Great start to the tournament. Hope this continues, and who knows - we might have a good shot at winning it all. Of course we were the mighty champs a few decades ago till the Aussies and the Dutch came over and told Pillai n Pargat to go fly a kite. The last time we won the World Cup was in 1975, and since then most laurels, including Olympics (last was in 1980) have eluded us Indians.

Many folks have reason to believe that Kapil Dev and his underdog triumphants in 1983 were responsible for taking away the limelight and shifting the national obsession to Cricket. Not that we are complaining - how else would we find another God called Sachin. But the point is - slowly and steadily, since the 80s, hockey didnt even matter any more. It was just a piece of general knowledge that kids mugged up in school - regarding Hockey being the national sport of India. That was it ! Seriously, guys - how many of us know about Dhyanchand any more? Not the new generation born in the 90's surely.

But I digress. This first win is what counts, and is a great performance by the team. Specially after all the disputes between the team and the federation that happened all these weeks earlier.

But today, I couldn't help but remember this incident a few months back when I was in Pune. The Indian team was at the Balewadi Sports Complex at the city-outskirts, and training under the Spanish coach Brasa. Barely 4-5 kms away from our place, it felt nice reading about them in the papers - Balewadi has surely great facilities. But here's the thing - the team were served Chivda for breakfast!! I'll say this again, lest you missed it - yes, they were served Chivda! And it was a small piece of dispute covered in the local papers.

Now I personally have nothing against the humble Chivda. In fact as a self-respecting (and expanding) Gujju foodie, I place it highly on my light snacking lists. Laxminarayan chivda from Pune is one of the great delicacies that go divinely with ginger tea. But chivda for hockey players? Really? I mean imagine our team fed on a 'healthy' diet of chivdas locking horns with a big, muscular group of 11 Aussies stuffed with Eggs, bacon, milk, sausages and fruits. Sorry, but the match was lost at the dining breakfast table itself!
A piece of the story here.

This gives an idea about how a national team is treated if they happen to be playing any sport other than Cricket.

But well, the 1st win is great, especially against Pak, so its time to rejoice! Bring on the chivda,.. err Champagne (German Sekt, if you please) and pray that this great form continues for few more weeks for the boys. In absence of live-TV, I shall try to remain connected through youtube highlights, if I can find them.

PS: Overheard from a twitter feed, this: 4-1 win to India confirmed! Unless Pak government denies that these 11 players are Pak citizens. Lol. (via @rameshsrivats)

While I was away...

... here's what the world was searching for...


And must say we Indians need some image building exercise in the world..

But hey, before you say either 'Holy shit' or 'We are like this only', the Western world is not spared from convenient stereotyping either. Here's what the world thinks about Les Français!

(Hopefully more would come up in this dormant blog, and it would not be these snippets from the web, but actual words penned down by yours truly)

Movie-inspired tourism

http://windowseatblog.com/2009/02/slumdog-millionaire-travel-India-movie

This article on a prominent travel site did not surprise me a bit. I'd mentioned in the previous posts how there were 'Slum tours' being conducted in Mumbai. This one just reaffirms it and says, '....Mumbai, and particularly its 175-acre shantytown Dharavi, are experiencing a boost in tourism....'

Slumdog Millionare is now in the league of masterpieces like LOTR, The Sound of Music and Casablanca.
* flashes a half unsmile, midway between straightness and sarcasm.

What 26/11 did to tourism, Slumdog is reverting it back equally and more.
I'm wondering what we'd say to this...

Underdog Millionare

Much has been said about Slumdog Millionare already.
My two rupees:

The movie is entertaining, yes. But is it extraordinary enough to sweep the oscars? I don’t think so.
Part of the joy in the movie is in the expectation of what happens next, and you begin rooting for the slumdog as he keeps answering correctly and the viewer is engrossed in unraveling the links himself. That's possibly the biggest achievement of the screenplay. And of course some of the shots of Mumbai, slum-life and the kids are breathtaking. More on this here. However, from a superiority point-of-view, I don’t think the movie should be a huge oscar winner. Even ARR who’s got 2 nominations, has done much more brilliant works compared with the mediocare soundtrack (by ARR standards)

If we discount as creative-leeway, the too many horrific incidents coincidently happening to the same set of 3 kids, the screenplay and portrayal of the slum life was pretty much accurate. However, this seems to be a bit too extreme and would cause a lot of heartburn for proud Indians (like me) in the way the west rejoices at the sights of poverty in the developing world. Believe me, I have even seen ads for ‘Slum Tours’ in Mumbai, promising the curious foreigners a glance into the poverty thats so ingrained in Mumbai-life.
Yes, the movie thrives on stereotyping, but then many good successful movies have done so in the past. So maybe if it wins, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Inscrutable Europeans

Firangs are weird people!
I'm sure half the population of Europe would find ME, the asian, weirder, but as the owner of this conversation I'll just let that point of conflict pass.... :-D

Ya I know, each society has a way of norms, behaviour and lifestyle and blah blah... but puhleese let me have the menial pleasure of ripping apart the ways of some foreigners that I find really surprising or stomach-tickling or both!
With all due respect, they (my clients) are the ones who provide the bread and butter for my employer, which in turn does a (half) decent job of giving me my daily bread.... so...

Firangs have a way of doing EVERYTHING systematically. Thats a good thing, considering that they usually end up doing a quality job. (especially engineering and sports!) But 'systematically' usually has an after-effect of turning into 'boringly one thing at a time'!

Try getting towards a salesman here when he is attending another customer, and all you'll get is a big IGNORE! Of course you'll have to wait till he is over with the current person that has occupied all his limited attention.
Try telling a foreigner about 2-3 different things simultaneously, and you can be damn sure his processor will hang! Good-ol' multitasking - I dont think its exists in the foreign dictionary.

And they in no comparable ways can get closer to us desis in terms of money-management, cash-optimization! (I'll tell you what it means... by an example)

A friend of mine in Amsterdam had the following interaction with his client. (he was offered the luxury of being given a lift to office by the client Project lead (PL))
Friend: Hey, I'll wait at the R-square and you can pick me up from there.
PL: Okie, what time you'd be there?
Friend: Oh, just gimme a miss-call on my cell just when you leave, and I'll be there in 5 mins.
PL: What is a miss-call? why would I give you a 'miss-call'?
Friend: Oh, its when you give me a call and I don't pick it... Just to let me know that you are on your way.
PL: (confused) But why would I not pick the phone if you call me?
Friend: (aaaaaaahhhhh !!!!!)

Once at a shop I managed to cough up a bill of 5 euros and 18 cents. I paid the cashier a 10 bucks crispy note and wished I wouldn't be stralled with a handful of loose change of cents. Then I realized I had 20 cents with me that might save me (and her) some bit of trouble. So I handed that to her with a new 5 euros note and asked for the 10 rupee note back. That did it! Her system totally crashed! Firstly because she had already entered 10 in her cash registers, and secondly bcos she totally lost track of the transactions that we were mutually were into! (whatever happened to math classes in junior school?)

And of course there is this vast cultural difference - which a desi is duly subjected to, from the moment he/she enters phoren land. Be it the Public Displays of Affection, or the way senior citizens are treated (bad, really bad), or the way individuality and professionalism is rooted here, or the way they eat, drink and party - everything is oh-so different here!
A greet to everyone you meet - its the norm. Its really a good thing to have around - politeness and 'assumed' nicety, but after a while when you see everyone speaking the same thing artificially, EVERYDAY, it can get to your nerves.
(Prakash seems to think on simlar lines) :-)

A friend of mine who had recently moved in with her husband to Stuttgart was asked by her landlady whether the guy was her husband or boyfriend! (ya, I know live-in relationships are slowly picking up in India too, but a question like this?)

Another friend of mine had this conversation: (oh so typical :-))
Foreigner: Are you married or single?
Friend: Single :-)
Foreigner: Do you have children?
Imagine this being spoken in India. Something like this would send the person on a minor heart attack!

On a serious, more factual note:
Europeans have been at the crux of the Industrial revolution. They have been the foremost in science, technology, the arts and monarchy. They are responsible for all the development around the world (and also responsible for all the backwardness due to colonization - thats the irony) Such a small continent, so beautiful to the eyes, divided in small small pieces of nationalities, each speaking a different language, each weirder than the other! Europe is one its kinda continent (ok, ok - we don't have many continents anyways)
The funny part is - most of the nations have ended up fighting each other throughout the centuries and still have remained the most developed and rich nations. Except beautiful Switzerland which hasn't fought wars, probably explained by Scott 'Dilbert' Adams' theory that cooler nations have had lesser battles, ha ha.. Maybe while the whole world was busy killing the world, the Swiss were too busy freezing their chocolate covered nuts! lolz!

But all things apart.... there are hundreds of things we Indians could learn from these goras, of course! (too big a discussion - might take a whole new post and a very hopeful mood for that, maybe for later :-) )
Prakash and me both are seeing the ways of foreign land (in separate continents), and that is naturally accompanied by a mental comparison between that place and our very own motherland.... so be it! :-D

Peace.
And, Jai Hind!