Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
How the Commonwealth Games began
The road to large viewership has a shortcut called 'notoriety'. It is because of all the notoriety hungama that I watched the opening ceremony of the XIX Commonwealth games. Though I knew that I would not be shown the dirty players' rooms, or the absence of the volunteers on the telly (least of all on DD), I was curious to see how it would turn out. And I was pleasantly surprised for the 1st hour. The CWG ceremony started off with a percussion mela with drums from Manipur, Chenda from Kerala, Punjabi Dhol and more from other parts of India. The din was terrific and it also showed that drums don't just beat in Africa. A wonderfully choreographed sequence!
Ofcourse, there was the 'Aerostat' - a huge helium filled balloon, which turned into a Bodhi tree backdrop for a showcase of the Indian classical dances. There was mehendi done on cloth by children, a yoga piece, an Indian Railways tableau with coaches of bangles, loudspeakers, Bollywood, cycles and sugarcane juicing machines, puppets hanging from the balloon, snake charmers with their 'been' etc etc. In short it was overkill. The ceremony sold and resold every famous Indian export.
The crowd was jubilant and applauded each sentence delivered by prince Charles and the others. I may have done the same, probably from relief that the stadium isn't collapsing over my head.
Meanwhile, on TV, DD seemed to be on an earning spree. I caught ads of the Indian Railways, RBI, ONGC and what not!
Anyways, now that its begun, we can breathe freely only after it ends. Lets just hope that we have a nice games. And that we get out of this with our honour intact.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
After the World Cup!!!
Life returns to normal as the Uruguayans and Germans digest their grilled octopus and Africans dream of grilled Suarez. A wonderful world cup - with all superstars falling flat on their faces, Uruguayans coming out in the top 4 and a hugely blamed ball. And now there is nothing to do but wait out four years.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Of Mandira Bedi and TOI
The last thing I want to read in a delicious football-world-cup-sports page is Mandira Bedi regurgitating stale prose. Mandira Bedi! Thats like Jane Goodall writing about winning in "So you think you can dance?" ... or like Rabri Devi telling you how to pucker up your lips like Angelina Jolie...or like...wat? You say you get the drift eh? I say good. And whats with Mandira's reviews of matches which are days old? Even I update my blog more...hehe....
The Times Of India should clean up its act now...atleast on the first page banner! Their banner about Jabulani was spelt as Jubalani in various places. And yes, Jabulani is what it is...I am more careful than a national newspaper, thank you.
The Times Of India should clean up its act now...atleast on the first page banner! Their banner about Jabulani was spelt as Jubalani in various places. And yes, Jabulani is what it is...I am more careful than a national newspaper, thank you.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
FIFA World Cup!!!
Right now the best thing that has happened is that Uruguay drew against France, in what was a pretty rough match. France should not have to resort to pushing and shoving to get anywhere! The match (being unfairly called the "most boring" in the media) had Uruguay defending their goal well. And for a person like me who watches football for the footballers, Diego Forlan with his cute curly hair made it fun to watch the match.
And unarguably the best match to watch was the Argentina-Nigeria clash. The Argentines almost seem to play out a slow and deliberate ballet on the ground...nice positioning and strategy and great team work. And when Lionel Messi took charge of the ball, blazing a trail to the goal, it was a real treat to the eyes. Dimunitive and super fast he is a magician with the ball. The Argentina-Nigeria match had almost no foul play if we don't count how Messi was tripped up everytime he got near the goal. Compared to that France really left a bad taste in the mouth.
This week we have a heady mix of football with F1 racing. Yesterday my husband kept track of the qualifiers for the Canadian GP on his mobile phone while watching Argentina win. I must admit he was having a hard time. Too much pressure on him!! :-D
And unarguably the best match to watch was the Argentina-Nigeria clash. The Argentines almost seem to play out a slow and deliberate ballet on the ground...nice positioning and strategy and great team work. And when Lionel Messi took charge of the ball, blazing a trail to the goal, it was a real treat to the eyes. Dimunitive and super fast he is a magician with the ball. The Argentina-Nigeria match had almost no foul play if we don't count how Messi was tripped up everytime he got near the goal. Compared to that France really left a bad taste in the mouth.
This week we have a heady mix of football with F1 racing. Yesterday my husband kept track of the qualifiers for the Canadian GP on his mobile phone while watching Argentina win. I must admit he was having a hard time. Too much pressure on him!! :-D
Sunday, April 11, 2010
April 11th 2010
Its been a week and 2 days since she has been with us. We have a routine for her now -- we take her out to the balcony as soon as we are up, change her play pen, dust the crumbs, refill the water dish and take her in when we can't have an eye out for her. Then she is left to her devices the entire day till we come back from work. Wonder whether she gets bored of being alone. Wonder if birds can go crazy from solitude.
She is growing and becoming more and more vicious. She practically would have had the top of my index finger in her mouth if she had a sharper beak. So I try not to touch her more than necessary. She's learnt to pick food off the ground and eat insects with particular relish. And today she learnt to balance herself on the rim of the water bowl and washed her face!
But it really breaks our heart to see her staring up at the other sparrows who can fly. We feel said and pained, but is she consumed by self pity like we humans are? She tries to resist us with all her strength and does not realise that we are trying to help her. Maybe God does things which are good for us and we keep fighting against it!
Its been a week and 2 days since she has been with us. We have a routine for her now -- we take her out to the balcony as soon as we are up, change her play pen, dust the crumbs, refill the water dish and take her in when we can't have an eye out for her. Then she is left to her devices the entire day till we come back from work. Wonder whether she gets bored of being alone. Wonder if birds can go crazy from solitude.
She is growing and becoming more and more vicious. She practically would have had the top of my index finger in her mouth if she had a sharper beak. So I try not to touch her more than necessary. She's learnt to pick food off the ground and eat insects with particular relish. And today she learnt to balance herself on the rim of the water bowl and washed her face!
But it really breaks our heart to see her staring up at the other sparrows who can fly. We feel said and pained, but is she consumed by self pity like we humans are? She tries to resist us with all her strength and does not realise that we are trying to help her. Maybe God does things which are good for us and we keep fighting against it!
Friday, April 2, 2010
April 2nd 2010
We have been having common house sparrows nest in our home, ever since we moved in 2 years ago. We are not, what you would call “sparrow activists”. We just don’t mind them having a home in our home. They nest in our bedroom ventilator and our living room ventilator. They dirty the house during their mating season and their kids are all over our house 2-3 months later. Its natural to have dried grass, broken eggs, sparrow droppings and adventurous infant sparrows decorate our floor during the nesting season. This is the first mating season of this year and we had the first sparrow baby of the year drop down this weekend. As we do each time, we promptly put the baby sparrow back in its nest. We came back in the evening and my foot brushed against something soft lying on the ground and there she was again. We fed her some water and food and put her back. But this little sparrow seemed to have a death wish. She has come out of her nest and dropped into our bedroom more than six times now. And every time she lands on the marble floor, she is unable to keep her balance. In the normal course, sparrows land on the marble flooring, slip and propel themselves up with their wings. This little girl is not able to do that. We find her on her back, with her legs in the air, struggling to right herself. When this happened more times than it has with other babies, we decided to examine her and found that she did not have any wings. There was a small stub on one side instead of a wing and on the other, there isn’t even that. She is almost as big as her mom and ready to move out of her nest, which is why she is so tenacious in jumping out. She leaps high and wide and lands on her head everytime –but just doesn’t give up. She is a fighter.
I have been encountering birds and squirrels since childhood, but have never come across any baby that didn’t have fully formed limbs. Our house is very close to not one, but two mobile telephone towers. We have read about sparrow eggs being threatened due to mobile phone tower radiation. Could our little baby sparrow be a victim of it too?
We have been having common house sparrows nest in our home, ever since we moved in 2 years ago. We are not, what you would call “sparrow activists”. We just don’t mind them having a home in our home. They nest in our bedroom ventilator and our living room ventilator. They dirty the house during their mating season and their kids are all over our house 2-3 months later. Its natural to have dried grass, broken eggs, sparrow droppings and adventurous infant sparrows decorate our floor during the nesting season. This is the first mating season of this year and we had the first sparrow baby of the year drop down this weekend. As we do each time, we promptly put the baby sparrow back in its nest. We came back in the evening and my foot brushed against something soft lying on the ground and there she was again. We fed her some water and food and put her back. But this little sparrow seemed to have a death wish. She has come out of her nest and dropped into our bedroom more than six times now. And every time she lands on the marble floor, she is unable to keep her balance. In the normal course, sparrows land on the marble flooring, slip and propel themselves up with their wings. This little girl is not able to do that. We find her on her back, with her legs in the air, struggling to right herself. When this happened more times than it has with other babies, we decided to examine her and found that she did not have any wings. There was a small stub on one side instead of a wing and on the other, there isn’t even that. She is almost as big as her mom and ready to move out of her nest, which is why she is so tenacious in jumping out. She leaps high and wide and lands on her head everytime –but just doesn’t give up. She is a fighter.
I have been encountering birds and squirrels since childhood, but have never come across any baby that didn’t have fully formed limbs. Our house is very close to not one, but two mobile telephone towers. We have read about sparrow eggs being threatened due to mobile phone tower radiation. Could our little baby sparrow be a victim of it too?
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