Scientific Findings

In case you haven't been seeing any posts from me for the last few days, it is because I have been in the middle of discovering a lot. Not out of curiosity, not out of any interest, but more out of necessity.

On June 17, Ranji had left to UK for office training. Now, she was going off for 3 months. Knowing me very well, she had post-its cover our walls with instructions like "Close the door before you sleep" "Dispose the waste every day" "Turn the gas off when going out" etc. Well, she might be knowing me well, but then again, she doesn't know me well enough. So, just 2 weeks into living alone, I have already had days where I have forgotten to dispose waste, haven't turned the gas off, and much more dangerous things, but let me not list out them all as she also might be reading these, and we've still got to live together.

Anyway, this imposed loneliness meant that I needed to do certain things from which I was shying away all my life. These included cleaning the house, cleaning the toilets, cooking (purely rudimentary stuff), washing (I hate it), etc. It was during these enforced activities that I came across so many interesting facts of life.

First of all, I have realized that human body has invisible hair which is visible only when it comes in contact with the floor. How else am I to explain the huge quantity of hair that I get while brooming the house? I mean, if I were to be shedding so much hair, I would be going completely (and I mean completely) bald in 2-3 days!!!

Another thing is that cooking and any other activity just doesn't go together. The other day, I was boiling milk and was reading a book when it started giving indications that it was ready. I looked at it and saw it wasn't ready and promptly proceeded to the next sentence in the book. When I was right in the middle of the sentence, the milk decided to act up, and without any further warning, just frothed over. Now, any serious reader would agree with me that you just can't stop reading in mid-sentence. The same is true with watching football matches and cooking. Just as one team would be lining up near the 18-yard of 6-yard area to go for a goal, the food particle would decide enough is enough and will act in the most imbecilic way possible.

As for washing, I don't even want to go into it. I have found that soaking a cloth for longer periods, like overnight, doesn't necessarily result in better results. Not that I really wanted to leave it overnight, but I had forgotten that I had soaked the clothes. I was thankful that they didn't exactly come apart. Thank God for small mercies.

Another 10 weeks to go before I can see any kind of respite from all these experiments. Meanwhile, watch out this space for my newer discoveries. One thing I have started doing is praying fervently to help me see through this demanding phase in my life.

Poetry in Motion

With the World Cup in full swing and with my own resolve to catch most of the action, I guess I might have done a major damage to my ability in enjoying football. Well, Argentina has to be blamed for this. They played such a beautifully mesmerizing game this past Friday against Serbia & Montenegro, beating them 6-0 (remember, this was a team which conceded only a single goal in their 10 qualifying matches and sent Spain to play-offs). I waited for another 2-3 days to see if anyone to could match that performance before I commented on the Argentine performance. I expected Czech Republic or Brazil to come close to that performance, but they both were rather disappointing. Czech lost their match to Ghana 0-2 and Brazil struggled to beat Australia 2-0.

Argentina, on that day, was pure poetry in motion. If you want anyone converted as a football fan, make them watch that match. That has probably been football's best advertisement in this World Cup. Most of the teams in the world would be happy having 1-2 very creative players. Well, this Argentine squad has about 5-6 with the likes of Juan Roman Riquelme, Juan Pablo Sorin, Esteban Cambiasso, Lionel Messi, Javier Saviola, Hernan Crespo etc. Add to this an equally creative defence, and we're talking. I don't know if eventually Argentina will the cup or not, but if that game was going to be an indicator for the way they are going to play throughout the tournament, the others have their task cut out.

Also, people who know me well know that I have a weakness for flashy names, namely African ones. For quite some time, Haile Gebresselasie has been topping that list followed by Oligbinde (Nigerian coach sometime back). In the recent World Cup, I have heard about Gilles Yippi Yappo (guess the spellings are correct). Esteban Cambiasso also sounds really good to me.

Sleepless in Bangalore

Four years back, when the FIFA World Cup was held in South Korea/Japan, I was really happy because I was working in night shift at that time and the matches were all during the Indian daytime. Using my limited grasp of logic, it wasn't long before I decided that since World Cup comes only once in 4 years compared to work coming every day, the former should be given priority. For one whole month, I struggled through my working hours, but happily watched almost all the matches.

Four years later, World Cup has returned. This time around, it is in Germany and matches are happening at night as far as I am concerned. This has led to more disruption of my sleep. Thankfully, I have grown older, though necessarily not wiser, which has resulted in my body showing slight signs of fatigue. I am finding myself increasingly dozing by 1 a.m. and just not having the energy to watch the third match of the day. This has been welcomed by Ranji who found her usual pressure tactics not really having their desired effect on me. Even then, I did manage to watch all 3 matches on June 10th. I slept only by 2:30 a.m., but it was worth every minute of it with Argentina and Ivory Coast really battling it out. One more selfish reason was that I had picked 3 Argentinians for my FIFA Fantasy Game and wanted to see how all 3 played. I was rather disappointed that Lionel Messi didn't come on even as a substitute. Now, after 3 days, my team is languishing in some 6-digit rank. Doesn't take much intelligence to figure out that my condition isn't all that great. Well, there is still a good bit of 27 more days, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.