No Planet For Normal Men

After watching bits and pieces of a few matches from March Madness (or The NCAA 2008 Men's Basketball Championship), I see this : Any time a close match gets over, after a cursory shot of the winning team celebrating, the camera quickly pans to a guy from the losing team who either has his covered in a towel, is looking at the basket in disbelief or openly crying on his coach's shoulder.

The single biggest problem that many Indians in the Bay Area have is that there are "Indians everywhere". This sentiment is usually expressed while gorging on Roti-Dal in an Indian restaurant.

That guy, who just changed lanes without a turn light and squeezed his car inches before the one behind, has a "Caution: Baby on Board" sticker.

Talking the talk : Criticizing all and sundry on Global Warming.
Walking the walk : Buying a cloth bag for $0.50 instead of sheepishly picking a gazillion free plastic bags.
Current score : Talk leads Walk by a few billions.

Every time an American/European fails to spot, say Bangladesh, in a map, people snicker. When given an opportunity to spot Burkina Faso in the same map, aforesaid people scratch their head.

QED.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

The Five Lights

is a crowded place in Kodamabakkam. But what is more relevant now is that they are about to go out in Melbourne this weekend.

Can you empathize with the feeling of

- being run over by a container truck that was coming downhill while you were cycling uphill on hearing Mika's sudden retirement after a disastrous 2001 season (in spain, where he was leading by ~30 seconds, his car just died on him in the last lap - a singulary good enough reason to retire, imho)



- having to watch "Snakes on a plane" over the "Godfather" because that was the only movie available in the DVD store when DC was announced as the lead driver for Mclaren?

- watching Laxman walk in to bat against Australia with the balance hopelessly tilted against India knowing in your heart of hearts that something spectacular is going to happen when Kimi joined Mclaren ?

- being hit with a Maai-geri, Yoko-ke-agi, Yoko-ke-komi, Mawashi-geri and rounded off with a Ushiro-geri, all in quick succession, when watching MS rack up victory after victory with his super-performing-car and team orders in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 respectively ?

- seeing Scorsese sit out yet another year in the audience when some random guy walked up to collect the Best Director's oscar when Kimi get tantalizingly close to the 2003 C'ship only to miss out in the last race ?

- elation watching MGR belt the crap out of Nambiar singing "Naan aaNai ittal" when watching MS getting his butt kicked in 2005 ?

- jubiliation when Aamir Khan hit a last-ball-six against the british in "Lagaan" while watching MS getting his butt kicked two years in a row ?

- relief watching Tom Hanks overcome that monster wave in "Castaway" for not having to hear MS give a patronising "I retire on my own terms and as a winner"

- being a recently-defected KGB agent in a meeting at Langley, when shifting loyalties to Ferrari in 2007 after a tumultous 8-years with McLaren

- having switched queues, only to find the older queue moving super-fast and the new one standing still when Hamilton was becoming what Kimi should have become

- Knowing what comes next when any team took the field against the Australians in a world cup final as Kimi entered the last race having only a mathematical possibility of winning the championship

- Knowing clearly well that Gandalf was dead, but still hoping against hope for him to make some sort of a comeback in TTT or ROTK when checking f1.com's live timing in the middle of a fun trip only to see Kimi second, Alonso third and Hamilton outside the points ?

- absolute disbelief at realizing Verbal Kint was Keyser Soze when the computer was shut-down forecefully by your friends because it was check-out time at the hotel and you were being a insensitive idiot for spoiling a pleasant weekend with this ?

- being super-imaginative like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost running through their escape plan to beat armies of zombies in 'Shaun of the dead' while creating outrageous scenarios where Kimi would just flip out of the race due to some whacko reliability issue as always ?

- solace like Truman Burbank as he walks out of the set, never to go through the same hell-hole ever again, when receiving that call which said Kimi was the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion ?

- genuine satisfaction a mastercard ad with the "Priceless" tagline gives while being happy for 7 years of sticking to your guns defending Kimi against friends and anonymous strangers and not having to jump on the MS bandwagon

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...