A tale of two cities

Johannesberg VS New Delhi                               

I am fond of comparisons, and the events around the world keep providing me the fodder to continue drawing parallels. And as the appellation very much indicates this blog is also not going to be any different.

All the sport aficionados would be quite familiar with the two mascots that are motifs of  the two major sports events for the year 2010.
If you are acquainted with Zakumi and are clueless about Shera, it is slightly flustering but predictable.
Zakumi is a cheerful and sporty leopard who is official Mascot of the 2010 FIFA World Cup,  and Shera is our very own Royal Bengal Tiger, it is the embodiment of everything that is royal, brave and fierce. If Shera is not as popular as Zakumi, its not the fault of the royalty but the Government of India which has not done enough to make it the face of India for Commonwealth Games 2010.

What I have found quite interesting here is that both the countries are a part of commonwealth, they both have their official mascots from the cat family, but the analogy culminates here. Johannesberg has put up a world class show, it is the first African country to have hosted it, and is apparently doing quite some justice to it. If one goes through the website of the hosting city , one cannot help being impressed with the painstaking, diligent and ostentatious preparations. The so called third world never ceases to bewilder the west on and off the field, be it beijing or johannesberg.

But as always there are exceptions to the rules : New Delhi, If one stays in the capital one can see witness it for self, its a lot of brouhaha and no real action, news feeds are awash with their aspersion of the substructure and arrangements. For a city that has an additional responsibility of averting all possible terror attacks it is obviously not doing the needful.

As i write this post, there still remain ninety seven days for the show down, lets see if the sorcerers of Delhi can give us a spectacle.

I remain, India's sincerely
Suyasha

A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it's better to be thoroughly sure

My allegiance to beer is complete, I was myself not conscious of this till the last weekend. The whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday were invested to the service of the drink which is a bliss to so many. I have come so far as to believe that fermentation might have been even a greater discovery than fire. Here goes the chronicle :

For Germans football and beer are conjoined, its impossible to imagine a football match without beer mugs to give it company, so when the FIFA world cup time table came up,  with it also emanated the arrangements for viewing the match on a big screen with big beer mugs. All the quotas were checked and rechecked and finally 900 litres of beer was secured to be imported from Germany... I know its..... WOW !!!

But as always there was a Caveat...as I am a widely acknowledged proverbial Pech Vogel, the import was hardly going to be a smooth affair. i completed the formalities of a duty free import and was fervently awaiting the cargo arrival notice. The ship was caught in the "Doldrums" i should have apprehended that (with the kind of jeopardizes and contingencies I am accustomed to, this should not have ideally come as a surprise). So the task which normally takes four working days to complete was to be accomplished in 12 hours. It took every iota of patience at my disposal, and every good word in my limited vocabulary to get the barrels delivered at my door step ( Please read door step as Office), @ 12:30 in the night.
I am no alcohol drinker, and have never been inclined to try it either, but when the barrels were being transported to the storage, one of them developed a leak, and spill on my hands, as a reflex I wiped it off my shirt, and LO !!! I was actually stinking of beer, it took a lot of washing and cleaning to get the rid off the odor. Finally I retired home with the satisfaction of a job well done.

The next day I was ostensibly dozing off in my German class, the overcast sky was not helping the situation either, when I got an invitation to attend a party of a youth brigade, it was one of those situation where saying no is impolite, so I agreed, which further extended my stint with beer.

Sunday was the Day of the Germany Vs Australia match, for which I had undertaken so much of theatrics, I thought I very much deserved to be there, and spent the final evening of my weekend yet again surrounded by "beer mugs and Prosts and Saluds".

For a person who doesn't drink beer I apparently contribute a lot to the Beer Industry.......just to give you all an idea, have attached a pic with the barrels :)

For the love of beer I have attached a small proverb, its from Russia with love:

the Church is near,
but the road is icy,
The bar is far away,
but i will walk carefully.

Cheers !
Suyasha

Tale of a God bestriding like a colossus and of a guilty ferret with shifty beady eyes

I had taken a sabbatical from blogging for quite some time, due to work related commitments, and it was indeed very gratifying when a lot of people asked me when was i going to write next :)

Two things caught my attention over the last fortnight, both different contexts but deploring a common thing - A weak national leadership. The first was the press conference held by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and the second was the comment made by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi on the former Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. From the first PM to this one nothing has changed much for India. My corollary is that both of these men have constantly been described in pejorative terms as meek , timid and myopic and quixotic respectively.

Since there is nothing that we can do about the past, lets take up the present.

Dr. Manmohan singh's conference was one befalling which he could have used to silence his censurers. But instead of quelling the irksome correspondents, he continued his monotonous speech and abstained from answering tough questions, the ones that he answered were of course brimming with over used hackneyed phrases.

I bore the torture as much as my patience would allow, and then my thoughts drifted to an interview that I had read a couple of years ago. It was published in the TIME magazine with the then Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the impression of the journalists was quite a read, the gaze described was that of a man who says i am in command, talking to him is chilling as if the Russian winters are not enough for the foreign press. He gives an evident impression of a man who effortlessly exudes power. He is petite but that factor is easily overcome by his consummate confidence. and makes no effort to placate the press.

I find the comparison between the two premiers quite relevant: both the nations are vast ( russia expands over 11 time zones)they both have their respective share of problems, both have to be most of the time at the receiving end of world politics, but the Russian premier knows the rules of the game better and refuses to be auxiallary subject to the powers at home or abroad, and the less said about the Indian PM, the better. In the whole press conference the only time he appeared chirpy was when the subject of Rahul Gandhi being made the Prime Minister came up,he is a man who is a pawn in his own country and is only making his stature ludicrous abroad.

I am only hoping for a day when the TIME magazine publishes such an article about an Indian Prime Minister.

I also came across a widely popular joke, which summarizes the entire article:

Putin and Bush are fishing on the Volga River. After half an hour Bush complains, "Vladimir, I'm getting bitten like crazy by mosquitoes, but I haven't seen a single one bothering you."
Putin: "They know better than that."

Liebe Grüße
Suyasha