Show me the money!!

Hello to all the bored and jobless people who are at this moment reading this blog. You know you should be doing something better!
The past week has undoubtedly been the 'moolah' week. While the world looked enviously at Lalit Modi's and BCCI's moolah, Mulayam Singh Yadav looked at Mayawati's moolah. Carlos Slim's moolah crossed Bill Gates' moolah. And for good measure, David Beckham had a good look at his lost moolah, when England's favourite cheerleader lost out on a World Cup berth in true Trojan hero style(and that's the last time I use the word moolah. Promise).
So to begin with Her Highness, the leader of the Dalits and the supreme champion of the causes of the poor and down-trodden. The lady has done her subjects huge favours by erecting a statue of hers in every nook and cranny on the streets of Lucknow. And how the people love her for that!. The people's 'love' manifested in her being presented a monstrous multi-crore garland made entirely of 1000 rupee notes. Move over Romeo, that's spontaneous love for you! What? Poor and down-trodden did you say? What a load of old tosh! Its love! Now wait for her birthday bash.
One person though, would be wistfully eyeing all that wealth. David Beckham snapped his Achilles tendon while having a light jog during a football match. Now somehow by some co-incidence, I suddenly managed to get a sneak peek into the minds of the Beckhams during that moment of pain. Here is the sequence of thoughts of both Victoria and David Beckham.

VB: Why did he suddenly pull up?
DB: Ouch! What was that? Oh my Achilles!!
VB: Oh no! There goes my chance to promote the Victoria Beckham dress range!
DB: Aaaaaah!!! That hurts!
VB: Nooooo!!!That puts an end to my over sized Chanel sunglasses deal. And my Louis Vuitton handbags deal, my Christian Louboutin high heels deal!
DB: Aaaaaah!!! My Armani suits deal! My Hush Puppies shoes deal' My promotion for Jim's tattoo parlour!
VB: Sniff!! Those photographers will now make Toni Poole the queen bee.
DB: Oh hold it! I won't be able to play for 7 months. Damn! That's a lot of good deals gone.

So much for the football then.
Anyway, moving on to the IPL. Mandira Bedi with her 40 haircuts in 50 days routine has been banished to ITV in the UK. In her place, the King of Hyperbole is back. 'That ball has gone so high, its going to kiss the air hostess before it comes down', '2 wickets in 3overs. They are falling over faster than cycles in a cycle stand!'. Yes, Navjot Singh Sidhu is well and truly back. And as if ads after overs were not bad enough, we now have to accept the fact that Akshay Kumar's demented laughter can disrupt us between overs as well. Guess it will not be long before we are unable to realise whether Saurabh Tiwary's pull is a part of the match, or Akshay Kumar virtual forehand smash is. Personally however, the best comment of the IPL came from Harsha Bhogle. 'Lata Mangeshkar should not be singing rock and roll', claimed Mr. Bhogle, when VVS Laxman got out after another horrendously ugly looking swipe.
And across the border in Pakistan the mayhem continues. First they had players without a coach. Now they have a coach without any players. Knowing Pakistan though, this is enough to ensure that they will retain their status as T20 champions. Maybe a couple of more bans will well and truly seal the deal. That would be a Citi Moment of Success for sure.
Have a nice weekend then. Bye-bye!!

IPL, protests and a rib-tickler

Its back! Its that time of the year again when sixes stop being sixes and become DLF Maximums. When in a 3 hour cricket match, there are 150 minutes of advertisements, 22 minutes of Lalit Modi on his Blackberry, 6 minutes of dancing celebrity team owners and 2 minutes of cricket. It is the time when Ravi Shastri considers it his personal mission to be heard over 100000 fans at the Eden Gardens (not when Sachin's had his stumps uprooted, but preferably when Dada has lifted one onto the top tier). Its IPL time again! And as we kick off today between the Knight Riders and the Chargers, I cannot help noticing the sea change in attitude of KKR as promised by King Khan. For starters, to make sure that his knights will be up there at the end celebrating, SRK has cunningly collected all the confetti from the past 2 editions and stitched them up as purple and gold uniforms for his team. Presumably this will also ensure protection against their floodlight failure issues. Meanwhile just to whet people's appetites, the ICC scheduled 3 series to wean people off normal cricket and make them crave for the IPL. So we have West Indies playing Zimbabwe, England playing Bangladesh and Australia playing New Zealand. The last mentioned of which might have been more interesting had the Kiwis managed to put 11 Daniel Vettoris on the field. But nevertheless, the English ensured that there would be quality even in the most meaningless of matches. So we witnessed pie chucking of the highest order when Alistair Cook went for 111 runs in 5 overs and Michael Carberry went for 78 in 4. Now that's class (more so when you consider it was Bangladesh A doing the hitting)!
In events far removed from cricket though, the Women's Reservation Bill was finally passed in the Upper House. Amidst claims of a few more quotas, I am now pitching for my own quota- 'the quota for people with no quota'. As a sole crusader for the cause, I shall uproot railway tracks, shout slogans against nobody in particular while smiling at TV cameras and appear in a chat show alongside Barkha Dutt. Maybe that will make me a reality TV star at the least!
And in football, the Porto defence showed how bad they actually are. I mean if Nicklas Bendtner (who has difficulty putting the ball into an empty net from 2 yards out), scores a hat-trick against you, you know you can sink no lower. The vindictive person in me, though frankly enjoyed the sight of Cristiano Ronaldo leaving the Santiago Bernabeau in tears on Wednesday night. After spending money like it was going out of fashion on the triumvirate of Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema, the Madrid Madmen failed to reach the quarters of the Champions League yet again.Oh what joy!
And finally AIESEC in MU's predilection for rib tickling names continued. And after a longish wait, along came the first TN raise. From Mr. Bhola Surender Kamath. You can snicker, you can laugh, but I can bet my Turkish kebab you cannot beat it. Congrats fellas!
So on that note, dim the lights, do not turn up the sound (unless you are in the mood for permanent hearing damage courtesy Ravi Shastri), lie back and let it rain DLF Maximums!

Amen!

A return to the madness

It is difficult to keep a blog running. Especially when you are an illegal immigrant with limited internet access. But we Indians are known to never care a fig about the law and I happen to be no different.
Well it has certainly been an agony missing Holi back home. While looking like a fading pink superhero for a week is something I might detest, the sheer joy of moving around like a Frankensteinien wastrel for a day is truly uplifting!
And as the Indians merrily celebrated Holi, the world serenely moved towards Apocalypse 2012. The latest in the line, after Haiti, being Chile. A few more of these joltings and I am pretty sure those sheikhs at Manchester City will be pulling out all their cash to book themselves a joyride on 'Made in China' boats. On a positive note though, that might force City to kick out that cad, Emmanuel Adebayor, which would be no more than what he deserves. Meanwhile, politicians in India are busy trying to give women 'the perfect Women's Day present'. The Women's Reservation Bill, which will once and for all stamp women as being unequal to men and needing a reservation to make their mark on the world. At a time when women are fighting to be considered as equal to men, this is as much as a present as Sachin Tendulkar's double ton was for the South Africans.
Which, of course, brings us to the Mumbai Maestro alias Little Master alias Tendlya alias 'Sachiiiiin Sachin'. Paeans have been sung in the great man's honour. But as the man himself said, 'Records are meant to be broken'. And why not? Pitches are getting more and more batsmen friendly by the day. To the extent that the 22 yards from Rajkot was caught propositioning batsmen outside an illegal pub in Modiland (Narendrabhai's land this one, not Lalit's), where Andrew Symonds has been known to nick off for a quiet beer or 30 when in India. At this rate, my personal favourite for the next batsman breaking the record is Ashish Nehra. Lets see. Meanwhile in neighbouring Bangladesh, England's South Africans and Irishmen huffed and puffed their way to victories over the hosts. Well if someone was looking for positives of outsourcing, they just need to contact the England and Wales Cricket Board. Maybe West Indies can outsource their cricket to a few more Indians. Clearly the Chanderpauls, Rampauls and Ramdins aren't good enough to beat the 11th string Zimbabwean side.
And finally in football, Arsenal climbed back into the thick of the title race. Albeit with a horror injury to Aaron Ramsey. But Arsenal and injuries go more hand in hand than a newly married couple. The previous weekend also saw the footballing world's biggest fuss over a handshake which never happened. Would Wayne Bridge break John Terry's fingers with an iron clasp or would there be an 'all is forgotten' handshake? The culmination of all that was an icy stare from Bridge, W. to Terry, J. which was supposed to send shivers down the latter's spine. Considering the abysmal game Terry had, 'the stare' probably did have an effect. Probably Ejaz Butt can use that on Shahid Afridi, the next time he tries his hand at ballet dancing on a pitch or gorging on a few red cherries.
And on that note, this illegal alien bids goodbye! Have a nice weekend. Chow!