The recent movie Chak De! India was a huge hit. Chak De! India is the story of the poorly performing Indian women’s hockey team that goes on to win the Hockey world cup because of the efforts of the new coach.
I watched the movie. Although it was fairly good, it still had all the traits of a movie that tries to be popular by projecting the characters and their achievements as super-human, and of course by adding cheesy dialogues that appeal to the crowds. I gave it no more credit that I would a populist, commercial movie. Sure it was good entertainment, but not up to the hype that surrounded it.
Strange as it may seem, the women’s hockey team actually started winning matches a few weeks after the movie released (or people started noticing them). The men’s hockey team then went on to win the Asia Cup 2007. I was a little skeptical at the time, and thought that the media would hand all the credit for the players’ prowess to the movie. Sure enough, that did happen. But then the team itself went on record saying that they won the match only because of the movie. Ha!
And now India won the first Twenty20 Cricket world cup. The same story repeats again.
This is not a bad thing to happen. After all, they’re winning and that’s good. But I’m somehow unsettled. I don’t get it.
reviews
Whew… what a match it was! Ever so close. At any instant — until the very last ball — it was impossible to tell which way the match would go. But here we are… we won the first freakin’ Twenty20 World Cup!
The joy of the people in this country knows no bounds. Everyone was screaming hoarse until we all lost our voices. 
Three cheers to the winning team…!
sports
Q: How do you get rid of Musharraf as army Chief?
A: Elect him as Prime Minister President
PS – He will resign after he is elected.
duh
politics
France has openly threatened Iran with war. Apparently, France cannot stand Iran proceeding with its nuclear programme. France has had a history of helping Iraq, another Islamic nation, get on the nuclear track. But still, France is one of the “good” guys, remember? They tell us that is the reason for the war. And we believe them. I wonder how long it will be before they have definite intelligence reports of hidden WMDs in Iran.
It surprises me how, to this very day, even the most “civilized” nations continue to take to an abomination such as war. These very people who speak of freedom and human rights proceed to contradict themselves when it comes to action, while still using the cloak of words in order to pretend that they are actually the “good” side.
I realize that this must have been exactly the reaction that people would have had to war at any time in the past. For some unknown reason, we tend to believe that we are in the best times ever — that never in the past has life been so good, that never has humanity been in a more conscious state. But is that really true? The sad reality is that no one has lived long enough to draw parallels between events in the remote past, and today’s situation. And we tend not to learn from the past when the lessons are not convenient for us.
politics
It has been raining like crazy over the past couple of evenings. I’ve never seen anything like it before — buckets and buckets of water. It is as if someone forgot to turn off the taps up there in heaven.
There is no way Bangalore can take this well. The bitumen on all roads is going to get washed away. Traffic snarls, inundated houses, flooded roads – all the works.
Not to mention the auto rickshaws. One drop of rain from the sky, and the auto drivers demand one and a half times the normal fare. The ridiculous part, of course, is that people agree to it. Needless to say, I’m much better than them. I waited for an auto this morning for thirty minutes, and then decided to come back home and work from home!
I can only wish that the deluge would stop. But the weather reports seem to indicate that this wil continue for a week. 
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