An I Day Celebration

A few years ago, we had an old-fashioned Independence Day Picnic? At least I think it was Independence Day since that seems to be the only day in the year when everyone was home.

Food poisoning was one of our concerns. After a few hours in the sun, ordinary potato salad can develop bacteria the size of squirrels. But we did not let the threat of agonizingly painful death prevent us from celebrating the birth of our nation, just as Indians have been doing ever since that historic first August 15th when our Founding Fathers – Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Swami Vivekananda, Kishore Kumar, Mohd. Rafi and Mowgli – learned to spell “Satyagraha”

Step one in planning the picnic was to decide on a menu. Sanjay Kapoor of Khana Khazana had loads of innovative suggestions for unique, imaginative and tasty monsoon meals. So we ignored him. ``If Sanjeev Kapoor comes anywhere near our picnic, he's risking a tandoor seekh to his jabulanis'' was our patriotic motto.

Since we were having a traditional Independence Day picnic, that meant a menu of kababs charred into clumps of carbon, and tandoori chicken so undercooked that when people tried to eat them, they jumped off the plate and ran around the lawn like squirrels.

Bunty was in charge of the cooking, because only Bunty, being a software engineer of the masculine gender, had the ``expertise'' to operate a piece of technology as complex as a tandoori grill.

Remember to be truly traditional, the grill should be constructed of the following materials:

-- 5 percent ``rust-resistant'' steel rods;

-- 50 percent rusted oil drum;

-- 30 percent hardened black grill grunge from food cooked as far back as 1947 (the grunge should never be scraped off, because it is what is actually holding the grill together);

-- 15 percent spiders and lizards living in the grill from when you last used it.

All tandoors use charcoal as fuel, Bunty always starts lighting the fire early (no later than August 1) because charcoal, in accordance with safety regulations, is a mineral that does not burn. The lizards get a huge kick out of watching Bunty attempt to ignite it; the spiders emit hearty laughs and slap themselves on all eight knees. This is why many cooks prefer the modern gas grill, which ignites at the press of a button and burns with a steady, even flame until you put food on it, at which time it runs out of gas.

While Bunty mouthed traditional bad words in chaste Punjabi to the grill, Pinky organized the kids for a fun activity: making old-fashioned boondi ladoos by hand, the way our Dadaji’s generation did.

She used a hand-operated boondi maker, which you can pick up at any store. All you do is put in the ingredients, and start squeezing! It makes no difference what specific ingredients you put in, because -- I speak from bitter experience here -- no matter how long you squeeze them, they will drip through the holes in the bottom and never, ever turn into boondis.

Ladoo makers laugh at the very concept. ``Boondi is not formed by squeezing,'' they point out. ``Boondi is formed by buying from the mitthai shop.'' Our grandparents' generation wasted millions of man-hours trying to produce boondi by hand; this is what caused the Sepoy Mutiny.

When the kids got tired of trying to make boondi ladoos (in approximately 2 minutes), it became time to play some traditional Independence Day games.

One of the most popular was the ``three-legged race.'' All you need is pieces of rope, which you can obtain from the hardware store. Or you can get designer cords from Fabindia boutique. We called the kids outside, had them line up in pairs on the lawn and tied the left ankle of one to the right ankle of another; then shouted ``GO!'' and watched the hilarious antics begin as, one by one, the kids snuck back indoors and resumed trying to locate pornography on the Internet.

Come nightfall, though, everybody was be drawn to the sound of loud, traditional Independence Day music being played on the television with reruns of the movies Lagaan and Mother India.

Then Bunty and his friends, after consuming a number of traditionally fermented beverages, gave up on conventional charcoal-lighting products and escalated to petrol and plastic explosive.

As a spectacular pyrotechnic show lit up the night sky, one began to truly appreciate the patriotic meaning of the words to Saare Jahaan Se Achha, written by Cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma to commemorate the fledgling nation's first tandoori platter:

Saare Jahan Se Achcha;

Yeh Tandoori Murgh Hamaara;

This year we went out for Chinese food.

GOAL Goa !

Party on! ..... A Win-Win situation everytime

I will now attempt, using my extensive vocabulary and professional writing skills, to describe what football was like in the land of Feni:

Talk about a party. I've watched the IPL cricket, the Olympics, and the Pink Chaddi Campaign. Compared to the World Cup, these events in Goa were equivalent to a meeting of the Society for the Prohibition of Feni.

The World Cup caused entire villages to go insane. They also serenaded crowds on the roads with World-Cup-themed songs, including one, called Waka Waka Kaka, declaring that referee Stephane Lannoy was ... OK, I can't tell you this is because of censorship rules, but it was nasty.

And that was support for just one country. There were supporters for the 31 other teams, and their fans were just as enthusiastic, by which I mean crazy. For a month they watched matches being held all over South Africa, and every match ended in a huge party regardless of who won.

Huge television screens projected these matches practically all over Goa, except in the Secretariat where members were busy looking for a replacement Tourism Minister.

We watched the final on the beach in Morjim, where giant TV screens had been set up courtesy of the foreign drug -dealers. There were scores of screaming, singing, dancing face-painted football fans, and I can honestly say it was one of the most exciting sporting events I have ever seen, because some of those drug-dealers girlfriends were topless. You'd go to the bar counter, and you'd turn around, and YOWZA there would be a drug-dealer girlfriend standing right behind you, acting as though she was not basically naked, which she was. I recall going to the bar counter numerous times.

I spent that night on the Morjim beach, swept along by a boisterous river of several million wild happily stoned football fans.

Question: How happy were they?Answer: They were so happy, foreigners were actually hugging Indians.

"Enjoy this!" I shouted to my friend, as we were being hugged. "Tomorrow they'll despise us again!"

My point is that for excitement and atmosphere and a general United Nations of craziness, there is no sporting event that approaches the World Cup

Scoring a goal in football is not as easy as say, hitting a sixer in cricket. It's really very very difficult, one might say almost impossible since everything favours the defence. So the offensive players usually have to do something magical just to get off a half-decent kick. That is why, when a goal is scored, they tend to be brilliant. Especially World Cup goals are so priceless, the tension preceding them is often nail-biting and adrenalin-pumpingly unbearable, leading to a cataclysmic moment — GOOOOOOALLL!!!!

The final this year was between the Netherlands and Paul the Octopus— much to the surprise of the Mimi the parrot. The Netherlands was heavily favored, but Paul won, and the whole of Spain went berserk.

And no one seemed interested in the Santosh Trophy... I wonder why ?

India can win a World Cup? and Octopuses can fly !!!!

The World Cup tournament was due to start, and all over India sports fans were asking the question: "The World Cup? Is Sania Mirza playing?"

No, you clowns, it's football or soccer, and it happens to be the most popular sport in the world as determined by both the humongous numbers of sports fans as well as rioting in the stadiums. Some countries shut down entirely during the World Cup. Granted, our country shuts down for pretty much any excuse, including a full moon. But the World Cup really is a major international event — except, of course, in America, where it generates about the same amount of public enthusiasm and interest as reruns of Manoj Kumar movies.

I truly believe that, even though many Indians say they hate football, if they gave it a fair chance — if they took the time to actually watch a World Cup match or two — they would still hate football. I don't know why this is so, but apparently it's not going to change. I've given up arguing with guys who tell me how boring football is, but will happily spend five days watching a cricket test match in which 95 percent of the action consists of bowlers rubbing their groin with the ball and suggestive jargon such as “two fine legs, between a slip and a gully” from the commentators.

"So what," I hear many cricket fans scoffing. "Football still sucks. Nobody ever scores and the players are a bunch of weiners with ‘60’s hairstyles and names like 'Kaka' and wimps who fall down writhing in fake agony every time they come into contact with an opposing player or stray pollen."

Yes, they do dive. Not to single out any one player, but I hear that Oscar Director for “Slumdog” has offered a role in his next film to Keita for his award winning performance on the field.

I personally find the diving to be one of the more entertaining aspects of football, which is a wonderfully theatrical sport. But don't be fooled by the theatrics: Footballers are amazing athletes, this sport requires extraordinary toughness and stamina — and, at the international level, unbelievable skill.

I first played football in school, where we had 30 players per side and could kick the ball for an entire year without scoring a goal. This was in the '60s and our football matches consisted of guys standing around the field in our house colours having philosophical discussions about topics such as girls. Every now and then the ball might roll past; if it got close enough, you might try to kick it to one of the guys wearing a similar house colour, but you would never consider actually running after it. The goal-keeps did nothing at all; they just stood there picking their noses.

After school, football and I parted ways for several decades. Then, in 2006, with Indian television covering the world cup live, my friends and I, bought 40 cases of beer and partied right through to the finals. The world cup matches were also quite good. I believe the winner was either Italy or France. It’s still hazy.

This year I watched about half the games (those which aired during my waking hours), and stayed up agonizingly for the semis and the final, and it became abundantly clear that India needs to address the following if we ever hope to be competitive in world football.

1. Find, import, build, buy, grow or steal some footballers. It is blatantly obvious that our front line cannot compete with the world-class talent of European and South American teams. We don't have anybody who is fast or strong…… Baichung Bhutia is our only striker. When your midfielder is a guy named Climax Lawrence you need to rethink your strategy, and whatever happened to I.M.Vijayan?

2. Somebody go down to Spain and get a Spanish coach, then get our kids into football jerseys with a big Indian tri-colour plastered to the front of it. At the same time maybe it's time to shut the Pakistan border as we have plenty of cricket players…I think.

Playing football is immensely popular amongst kids so it's not like they aren't being exposed to it. In this country, football is still seen mainly as a game played by kids and unemployed youth who eventually outgrow it and take up traditional Indian sports such as minority bashing and eve teasing.

We all know that football will never be anything more than the fourth sport in this country and people will point to this as to why we cannot qualify for a World Cup let alone win one. This is total B.S.; fourth or fifth place still means you can get lakhs of viewers, especially with the right kinds of cheerleaders and Bollywood celebs in attendance.

Of course it will never be as popular as cricket or politics, but just consider the 1.2 billion plus Indian population as opposed to some of the countries who are in the World Cup with less than 10 % of that population, Uruguay’s population is less than 1%.

The way I see it even if only one-in-ten thousand kids are interested, India would have more talent than any other country to select from.

Indian football should be investing in youth programs. With the internet, satellite TV etc it's about time we start getting some good football in this country on TV because our kids know how to watch TV and play video games which is the first step to getting interested and eventually good.

I'm convinced that if the World Cup was every year India would be more competitive because this country does get into it for big events. It's just hard to follow Indian football which is so amateurish it’s like watching the equivalent of a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I would like to watch good football it's just hard to find an Indian team to root for.

But most importantly we need a coach who can teach our players to act because it's very obvious that if you can't grab your leg in abject pain and agony when a guy slides 3 metres away from you, you'll never compete on the big stage.