she is never a woman to me

Dam her. She is now grown up. A big girl. The way she reacts, the tantrums she throws, the big girl. I am suddenly realizing that the she is now grown up quite a bit. In the sense that now there is a certain sense of maturity that she exhibits that makes her different from the small tiny girl who I could all cuddle up. Sure girls remain girls in that sense that she still wants a hug at night before sleeping and she smells my night suit and says… yay… papa smell. So that’s still a relief. But man she is grown up.

She comes upto her mama’s ears and she can simply whisper something without Jasmine bending. She weighs a ton and I can no longer carry her. I can’t even pull her off the bed. It hurts the shoulders. She had power in her hands and when she and I play slap slap… I get hurt. The last few days I have realized that she is a big girl now.

Jasmine and me were telling her – how you are a big girl and now you need to behave like a big grown up. You have to sit right, cross your legs, no slouching and lying around. Sit on the table but don’t rest your head on your hand while eating. All the parenting is now focused on you are now grown up. Behave like that. Arrrggghhh.

But at the same time I am looking forward to talking to her. That is if she would like to talk to me. I look forward to long conversations on various topics. I look forward to being challenged. I want to get into arguments in which we will be forced to check the veracity of what the other is saying by checking the internet or some of the books that we have. That should be fun. As of now she adds a lot of value to conversations where I am trying to learn about stuff she did in school. Some of the stuff is pretty advanced for me. In fact I wonder why we teach so much to the kids. Most of what we learn is lost on most of the kids. But for the time being, it’s fun learning stuff.

Back to Jispa – Jispa if we don’t argue on some random irrelevant stuff to our life then I don’t think we are talking enough. Did you understand that? Here is one to a big showdown. But yes – after the showdown I expect a huge hug.

Here is a song for you…

football!

Oh man the football world cup is here. One of the things that I really miss by not having cable TV is the Football world cup.

I was in Dubai till I was about 8 years old. The national sport of the Emirates is Football. Of course we immigrants would be crazy about cricket but football was well promoted. And to add  - my brother was great at football and loved playing it. So football was an important sport. Then we came to India and we enrolled ourselves in Don Bosco. Being a catholic school run by priests – the favorite sport they played was – yes you guessed it – football. Football was seen as a more prestigious sport than cricket and the super stars were not the ones in the cricket team but the ones in the football team. This was in spite of the fact that the famous Indian cricketer Ravi Shastri was an aluminous of the school and had led the school to victory in the prestigious Giles shield. Cricket was meant for sissies.

I tried to get into the football team and I think just because I was the brother of a good player – the rector in charge took me in the B team. I practiced for a few days only to fall ill. It was monsoon and I would fall ill every monsoon and so I never did get to play serious football. Though I do think that I would have sucked at it. I liked to play defender and I would see myself charging at the ball and throwing myself at it. I liked to slide and tackle. The muck was so much that you just slide and even if you missed the ball completely and knocked the striker out, nobody really cared. The game was completely on who was ready to get muckier than the other.

So I never did get to play too much football even though I loved the sport. That was a really bad thing and so I naturally moved on to other sports and qualified for basketball. It was a weird reason that I moved to basketball. There was an essay that we had to write in the seventh standard on a sport and I was still hung over the “I grew up abroad thing” and I wrote about playing basketball and baseball, though I never did play the sport. And then… one day we wanted to field a team and a senior came to the classrooms asking or players. I put my hand up. We were called for trials and were taught a few basics of the game. After this they held a small trial where they asked us all to run up dribbling to the net and throw a ball. I remember mine going in for a basket. And boom – I was in the school team. After this we got some better training from one of the seniors who was a basketball fanatic and we improved. We had one guy from US in the school, one Indian whose parents tried to experiment with coming back. He was the only genuine player. I think his name was Sameer. The others were simply in and around him. We played on the full size court and then before the match, we were told that we would be playing on the smaller courts with smaller balls. Junior basketball. We played against the school called Ahmed Sailors they were the reigning champions and were rumored to field over age players. We lost our first game pretty bad. No one really did give us a chance. I don’t remember but we did get a few balls inside. We didn’t even know the rules completely. I remember getting a foul for taking too much time to throw the ball from outside and once for cutting the line while throwing in. It was a disaster!

But it was enough to fool myself that I am a basketball player and I lived that lie enough for the next few years to be amongst the better players around. Enough to be good enough for the interclass teams, which is also not a bad deal in a school that prides itself on sports. As far as football is in consideration – I must have played one or two interclass matches, as a defender. I think I was so bad that I would play in one half and then play in another. Pappu footballer.

My next stint with football was in intercorportae matches. As in cricket; its not about skill set but more to do with being young and energetic – basically fit enough to run around. Once while I was in Star TV I played one day for their team in a seven a side match. I quickly realized that the game. There was no offside. Which is a great game changer as far as football is considered. All you have to do is hang around the goal. In effect you need attack and then defense. You don’t need a midfield. Seven a side matches are played on smaller grounds and have kick ins from the outside line. We had one champion striker. So I rallied the team to ensure he gets the ball, from any angle. My role in the team was to kick the ball to him. I kept giving him high lobs for him to convert. We won our matches on the first day but my kicking style along with my bakwaas shoes ensured I was with a broken toe nail by the end of the day. So the next day I wasn’t there and we lost. From what I heard of the guys – I thought we lost on strategy more than anything else.

Other football matches I played in were other corporate matches. Again the only reason I might be taken in was because I was fit enough to run / kick. These used to be played during the monsoon and the grounds used to be full of muck. I used to keep falling all the time. You try and kick the ball and whoosh – you are staring at the sky.  It was a terrible ordeal. Till one day I decided to buy football studs. Then on my life improved dramatically, but I think I only played one tournament before my knee gave way and I don’t have the courage to play anymore.

Talking about football studs – my brother played in the school team and hence had studs. But that was another story altogether. In 1984/85 India was a ridiculously poor country and the football studs were made of wood. Yes. These were called wooden studs and were nailed to the shoes. If you were rich would you buy rubber studs.  My poor brother must have had quite an ordeal coming in from Dubai and then wearing wooden studs for the game. I think I have worn them on one occasion and yes – they were painful. Especially since the nails would pass through the insoles thanks to the extensive use. Many years later one sports salesman at a store told me that they looked like wood but were actually made of hard leather. Whatever. The nails were iron for sure.

So now I have a pair of studs in my cupboard that serve no real purpose. I don’t know what to do with them. I hate to throw them away but I know I will never be able to use them. Will have to throw them for sure. Sigh. And as far as the world cup is concerned. I will have to see the updates on google and figure. What else?

Just for the record – I have always loved the German football team.

a good proposition

One of the things the country is going gaga over is the current PM. Great. He does seem to be making all the right noises and is promising an administration that works. Only time will tell what will actually happen. In any case – my vote was going for his party for a very simple selfish reason. A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that all of them are equally bad, but at least the right winged BJP when in power started the amazing road project called the golden quadrilateral. Thanks to this at least we got some great arterial roads linking the country. When Jasmine and I bought our second home, we were completely short of cash and therefore we needed a vacation we resorted to driving holidays to save time. I used to always tell Jasmine to go on a driving holiday. For many years she steadfastly refused. But I guess the lure of saving so much money was too much to refuse and she agreed. Then we were hooked and we went to places as far as Hampi or Udaipur in our car for a vacation. So my vote was clear. I get my road and you get your vote.

This time the route of the Congress has been complete. With less than 50 seats they are not in a position to even be the head of the opposition. This has the supporters going gaga. Public memory is notoriously short. 10 years ago when congress won without a PM candidate everyone expected the Italian born Sonia to take the post. When she gave the mantle to the affable Manmohan Singh, people thought it’s a wonderful thing. He was the toast of the nation and everything he did was awesome and path breaking. Especially his honesty. His wife was interviewed and was asked about the rising cooking gas prices. She knew the price and was hopeful they don’t rise. The PM’s life was simple enough that his wife was hands on in the managing the household on simple budgets. Ten years hence the poor guy was pilloried in media and on jokes and was seen as an honest man but who couldn’t speak or say anything against the high command. Let’s see what Modi has to offer. Right now he is living the PR dream.

So coming back – everyone seems to enjoying the amazing mandate that the PM got. A complete destruction of the opposition. Now here is where I turn turncoat (is that a double negative) but yes, now I am lamenting the lack of an opposition. The joker in the pack in this election was the AAP party. Born out of an opposition to corruption, this party contested the Delhi assembly polls to come in with a slim mandate and became the ruling party. After that the media turned on him and he started doing the wrong things to be in the limelight. Possibly he was doing a great job on basic governance but his last stand was to sit in a dharna outside the parliament. The CM doing a dharna in his own state. That was kind of weird. He lost some support in his own backyard. Then he contested the National elections in 400+ seats only to win 4. He hardly even made a dent as a party spoiler.

All over the AAP was lampooned. Which is possibly a fait thing but still his value to the country as a mad crazy opposition was too valuable to loose. He seems governed by his own agenda. He seems to be anti everything, he seems to be directed by his own mad passion for opposing. He is the classical opposition and for a democracy to thrive we need him. So now I would love to be with him.

While browsing around – I came to this site www.prop4rev.com. A bunch of young film makers set out to document the opposition to corruption movement and ended up following and documenting the start of the AAP party. They didn’t realize the goldmine they were onto. And they shot a real load of footage. Post which they needed money for postproduction. Here is their video

Now I normally don’t open my purse strings for charity. I don’t even donate to any party. My charity is limited to those around me. In the past I used to give for some social cause but that too is something I have stopped. I rather help people I know, touch and feel. But this seemed too good and close to my heart to resist.

Young kids deciding to shoot an anti-corruption movement find themselves in a sea of revolution. A crazy bunch of committed individuals trying to change the country. Then they go online and decide to raise money. On the website they shoot a great video and make a compelling case. Then write some nice lines and put figures against which you can see what to get in addition to warm fuzzy feelings. I opened my kitty.

A few days later I get this email from them thanking me and telling me that they achieved their funding goal.

Dear Jaimit,

Thank you for contributing Rs.**  towards our initiative, Proposition for a Revolution. You have been one of the first few to participate, and we really appreciate your gesture.

Thanks to well-intentioned and generous people such as yourself, we have already raised over Rs. 12,00,000. As you might have seen on the website, that Rs.12,00,000 was our minimum target.However, this is only the beginning.  

This is what we need to complete an initial rough cut of the film.  After this, we will also need funds for other imperative post production costs, like sound design, music work, colour correction, etc., and eventually also for publicity towards release, outreach to cinema theaters across India, etc.  We truly feel that the film should reach out to as many people as possible.

Your contribution has helped towards making this happen. Thank you. We urge you to continue sharing the campaign, and supporting the initiative.  

Visit our website: www.prop4rev.com

Like us on: www.facebook.com/prop4rev

Follow us on: www.twitter.com/prop4rev

Subscribe to us on: www.youtube.com/prop4rev

This is also the beginning of a political dialogue in the country, wherein we can voice and put into action the change we wish to see around us.  We would like everyone to become part of this dialogue.

We will keep you updated with progress on the project over the next few months.  This is your project too, now.  

Best Wishes,

Khushboo and Vinay

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Cute and nice. I must appreciate their effort. Well done.  Worth my pennies. They also very cleverly hid the fact that they need more money after post production in the appeal but slipped it in the emailer. Solid marketing buggas these kids have turned out to be. Nice job. A great proposition!