Kuch naya ho jaaye.

This is just the video you want to watch and then want to buy your own GoPro camera. It allows you to catch stuff that you always wanted to while freeing your hands and minds. You go do the exploring and the camera will do the capturing. Isn’t that the ultimate fantasy. Being alone with your adventure and then being able to share it with the world and of course yourself. I am sure the next killer app they would want to promote is the video maker that takes your footage and makes a lovely video out of it. Easy cutting, editing and music addition to make a complete video. The music of course is the key to all this… a range of customized sequences like – high action, low intensity, romantic, etc. Now put that in a simple app and le.. go pro on your head to sharing it in a minute.

These are amazing videos and you can search for the complete range of them online. Underwater, in air, land, sand – forest everywhere. I love the spirit of adventure. I love that Jispa is now an accomplished swimmer and now has the freedom to do a lot of this stuff. I learnt to swim properly and now I got Jasmine to learn as well. The only way I shook her off her inertia was to enroll her without asking her. Now she is learning well and is to my opinion proud of what she has already accomplished. That’s nice. I want to snorkeling with the family at some point of time. Hopefully sooner than later.

Along with Jispa’s swimming, she is learning to run. We had to choose one more sport for Jispa to give her a complete range of exercise. A land training schedule was increasingly becoming important. So we just decided to try out running. We got this teacher who does running coaching. Since it was early morning and at mahalaxmi race course, which is fair distance from home, I enrolled along with her. The running is fine. There is great joy in running with Jispa and I think at her pace she doesn’t stretch me but it’s a nice workout. But the best part is not the run. I learnt the importance of stretching well before and after the run. It’s a 15 minute routine before and after. Sometimes the workout after the run is more tiring than before. I think, that itself is worth all the effort. I think Jispa is also benefiting a lot from it. Her swimming coach is unable to dedicate time for stretching in a way the running coach is focused on it. This ensures the muscles are properly stretched. I think this is helping her as of now and I think this suddenly becomes the central point in the workout that Jispa is enjoying. And along with that I am learning to stretch before and after any workout.

Even as I play badminton, I don’t go on court before stretching and spend some times on court after the game. I try my best to tell my friends to stretch. They simply don’t. They make some few conciliatory movements and off they go. All they want to do is hit a few smashes and then possibly run off. Stretching is not that easy. It needs to be an essential part of the routine but it is most ignored. Possibly because it’s boring and the results are hidden. I think the running coach tries her best to give new types of exercises to keep the interest going. You have to keep the interest going and the fun element happening.

I remember this fun element as a critical thing in a work out. Once I had the chance to meet the legendary Anil Kumble. We were talking and he said, when he was captain they had introduced a lot of new regimes. He told me that as cricketers it’s not that they can practice on a day in day out basis. You just can’t come out and hit the same balls on a daily basis. Its gets boring. So they introduced the concept where every day there would be a new captain for the workouts. At first they would do everything that is needed to be done and as mandated by the coach. Then they would look to the captain of the day who would do some regimes and make the entire squad do it along with them. So if someone wanted to do fielding practice as that was what excited them, then the whole squad would follow suit.

That’s the first time I understood that even the best of the best can get bored doing what they do best. You have to bring excitement and change from routine. In fact if I were to reverse it - the best of the best NEED a constant change from routine – a new challenge. A new opportunity.

For me that’s why the running is far more exciting than the badminton as of now. But I try and bring in a fresh perspective to my game. I try and hit new shots and play different strategy. Something different from what I may have done before. This is what I also try in office all the time. Do something new. That keeps me going. I would hate to do the same old thing again and again. Kuch naya ho jaaye.

football

In some ways I hate Jispa’s vacation. It takes my morning schedule and throws it out of the window. Jasmine too believes she is on vacation further compounding matters. Hence thanks to that we don’t sleep early we wake up later and I barely get time for my morning yoga and swimming. I guess I have learnt not to fight it too much I just get on with it. I have decided it takes too much effort and will power on my side to break away from the family ritual and I stay on in bed and just about manage to amble in to office on time.
I am just dying for the school to start. Morning yoga and morning swim is just the right thing for me. I have been getting too soft and hopefully the coming Monday will see me back to the good old schedule.
To make matter worse the general uplift in work load means very little time for writing my blog. I like to come in a bit early and sit down and write before the office wakes up. So today I missed yoga and a swim but I managed to come in early just to write the blog. Somehow this blog has become an important creative release for me. I feel it gives meaning to some activity of mine. I don’t know. But its fun writing.
Talking about activity… no matter how much you exercise every sport is different and has its own nuances. On Saturday we had the intra office soccer tournament. It was a five a side affair with tiny grounds and small goal posts. Played in rain on grass, it makes for a wet, horribly soggy ground and a mud wrestle of a match. Its complete chaos. And after the tournament day you discover some muscles that you never knew you had. While walking the first time I felt that there was muscle a little over the shin and below the knee. Till now I thought it was all bone.
The reason I can feel this muscle on my right leg is because I am the defender. My job is to kick the ball right into the other half. The muddy ground makes passing impossible and the water soaked patches makes dribbling a farce. And in five a side there is no office rule. I learnt this lesson around five years ago. Just kick the ball over every ones head into the other side. Most teams make this mistake of dribbling and passing and slow short passes or solo runs by the star. The star player is simply supposed to hang around the opposite goal. Two defenders are enough to save almost any goal from the amateur sides. Especially when there is soo much muck floating around. Also with seven minutes a half, the referee is not going to blow the whistle often and on most fowls. You have to be blatantly dragging the guy down to really give away a foul. It is an ugly slug fight.
Some patches are so water logged that there is atleast a foot of water. We had one area near the goal post. There the forwards were fighting with the defender, the goalies joined in, no one really knows who is in which team, everybody is covered in brown. People are fighting and falling all over the ball. The goalie cant get a grip on the ball. At one point the defender had come sliding in, the goal had jumped over him, the attacker was down and eth ball… the ball was somewhere near the led of eth defender and under the stomach of the attacker. Then another defender comes in and tries to kick the ball which is under the stomach of the fallen attacker. All this in one foot of water, and the rain is still coming down hard. Finally the ref had enough and blew the whistle for dangerous play. Penalty. As a defender I was happy that the ball wasn’t kicked my way. I had tears in my eyes from all the laughing thank to the sight.
The penalty spot was in 4 inches of water. The attacker managed to put the ball there and he took a kick. What do you expect? The ball did not even reach the goal post.
That’s football for you. Good fun nah? Well it’s a male thing. All that physical exertion, hardly any skill, lots of mud and a general fight on hands.
I guess there is reason why we like cricket over football as a nation and I really don’t know what Girish says about Indian genetics and football :) (he does make sense) but all I know that I don’t see too many Indians falling over and rolling in mud trying to play this game. Like most writers without substantial proof I feel like saying ‘it’s too anti Brahminical to succeed in India’. But like most truths, I think the answer might be a curious mix and match of many more characteristics. Sometimes I believe it’s simply a case of lack of role models.
My brother used to play very good football. In fact he was given the haloed number ten jersey while he played at school. My mom told him that football will never sustain him as a career. While my sweet dad loved sports and tried to support him in his game, at some time he knew it was education that would hold him in his life not football. I don’t think our parents ever saw that it was possible to play football and make a career. My brother is only one. There were many such talented player who just about killed their talent and love with education. My guess is that only after Sachin really made it big and showed how its possible to play cricket and make money that so many parents supported their kid’s cricketing ambitions. Till about them most of the players who played for India generally belonged to the upper class.
Which makes me think. Do kids require role models or is it parents who require role models. A kid simply plays, it’s the environment that supports him or not, basis their own beliefs. Hmmm… I am thinking.

showers

Life has hit routine. Sleep by 10 – 10.30. Wake up alarm at 5.55 am then snooze a bit, then shut the alarm and sleep a bit. Get out of bed by 6.10. Brush, and then get Jispa up. Wakey wakey wakey… Spend at least 5 -10 minuets coercing her to get up. Coerce her? Let’s look up the dictionary – coerce - to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means. Yup, coerce is perfect. I use all means mentioned above as well as some more. Then get her to the bathroom and give her a bath. Its good fun to give her a bath every day. When we recently did the plumbing in the bathrooms, we kept a rain shower (pretty cool thing that) in one bathroom and I got my self a good replacement on the hand shower in the other. There was no way I was going to get an overhead shower in both the bath rooms. When I am giving Jispa a bath, the hand shower is perfect for use as a hose. It’s easier and much more fun for me. She practically wakes up in the shower. Then drying her, a big hug and its time for mommy to take over. Breakfast and out to the bus stop. Thanks to this I reach office at 8 am. A full 90 minutes before official time. It’s a good thing I got my RSS feeds and two newspapers to read.

While on the showers… the builders had given us really silly hand showers that sprayed water all over the bathroom. We had to do something to it. The catalyst for change was a lovely bath I had at my friend’s house under the overhead shower. It was pretty cool thing. So we decided to get one at our house as well. The shop I went into was a fittings store at Matunga. He sold stuff from Jaguar bath fittings. Not to be confused with its automobile namesake but a brand on to itself. Do you have rain showers? Sure – here is one. How much? Eight thousand rupees. WHAT ON EARTH? EIGHT THOUSAND BUCKS. DO YOU HAVE GOLD FALLING FROM IT? Do you have a smaller one? yes sir. Here is one for four thousand. YA SURE – THIS ONE HAS SILVER FALLING FROM IT.
I lost all hope in getting a shower done in my bathroom. Jasmine suggested we go to Dadar and see others. Sure enough. At Dadar we got another one (unbranded) for guess what – five hundred bucks. Jaguar charges a premium of 16 times. Yes you heard me right 16 times. I am sure the quality must be better but 16 times? That’s an unheard of margin. Wow. What a cool brand. That too in something as mundane as bathroom fittings where the stuff is at the essence of it, the same thing. My friend had bought the Jaguar one. Sure enough, he insisted that the quality was much better. I am sure the water drops must have been… rounder; ‘more rounder’ I guess. BUT 16 TIMES. I am happy with my drops beings a bit, a bit…. They could be square for all I care. 16 times. BAH!