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. 

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.

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.

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