Hippy Bogus - ness

This is a long overdue post and it's divided into two parts. The first part is about Shantaram, the book, and the second part is about Shantaram, the man!. Shantaram the man will follow in a few days :)

Finished reading Shantaram (written by Gregory David Roberts) a month ago. It’s an exhilarating read. I began reading this book on a Monday night, around the third week of February. Read it for 3 consecutive nights from 11 to 4 in the morning, and dropped myself to work like a hypnotized Zombie. Finally on Thursday of the same week, I was so enthralled by the story, that I continued reading the book at work. (To all the people at work, if you saw me reading this thick red book with enormous concentration and thought it was Usability Inspection Methods by Jakob Nielsen, you were wrong;)) In between concerned workmates asking me what issue I was concentrating so hard on, I nearly got to the end of the book, and decided to leave the last 25 pages to savor at home. I was sad when the book ended, because I wanted to know more about the man’s life, and his real life story, after the book ended.

Shantaram is a 950 odd pages long, loosely autobiographical story of Gregory David. In Greg’s own words, Shantaram is described as being a fictionalized version of his own life. He elaborates “All the characters and events in the book are fictional, but loosely based upon people and events in my own life”I decided to wait a while before posting about this book because when I want to be completely objective about the subject at hand, and stepping away from it gave me a clearer perspective. The book is a must read for people who have lived in Bombay for a while. All the much loved chill-out places to grab drinks, or simply hang-out have now been elevated to iconic status with this book. Don't be surprised if people in Brazil know about Leopolds and Colaba causeway.

Leos (Leopolds) for me is very special because I brought in Christmas for the last 4years there. Gregory's book is a facinating journey through Australia, Bombay (the swanky parts of colaba and the slums, and lots of other hole-in-the-wall places for someone who has spent 21 years in the city), a small village in Maharashtra (not revealed in the book), Pakistan, and Afghanistan!

I saw this movie after a lot of friends turned down the opportunity of watching it with me. They basically said that it was a too slow, artsy-fartsy kinda movie. I on the other hand needed to kill time before Arsenal played Juve, so decided to head to Inox (Nice local theatre here). The movie features Naseerudin Shah, Dimple Kapadia (This woman is looks like she is 35), Boman Irani , Saif Ali Khan, and this really beautiful actress (who is the lady who plays Saif’s sister in the movie?)

In all, there were about 10 people in the theatre, and 4 of those dicks decided to sit ahead/behind me and talk on their mobile phones for the first 5 mintes of the movie.

So I decided to make disconcerted faces and move some rows away (The funda of buying tickets for late night movies here is that you buy any damn ticket and sit any damn where you want caus no one checks ;))

So the movie began, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of Saif’s voice. For those of you who don’t already know, this movie is Parsi centric, and does not feature too many people other than Parsis (except for a Punjabi police inspector).

It’s slow moving, well shot movie but I was left a little shortchanged by the story. I also thought there would have been more humor, and that they would have explored the legendary Parsi eccentricity in more depth.

I’m not gonna be a numbtwit and reveal the ending, but I’m going to tell you that it IS a suspense movie (that did not strike me till the end). All in all refreshingly different, but definitely not worth a second watch (which movies can you watch twice over these days?)

There are some good nights, and some really good nights. I have waited on posting about MY team (because of an esoteric mix of factors like indolence, faineant - ness, otiose - ness, and slothful – ness. Throw in superstition just for fun). The past month has been especially kind, considering the comparatively poor season we have been having (We have never finished outside the Top 2 in the English Premier League since 1997, but are currently lying 6th in the English Premier League table).

However, this season has been different. We historically have always performed poorly in the Champions League, but this year we are in with a fighting chance of winning this trophy!

But let’s get back to the game we played against Juventus last night. I needed to watch it at the 24 x 7 coffee shop of a hotel (just the way I have watched all the other Premier and Champions league games this season) due to a ball whacked, mind numbed, groin scratching twit of a cable operator, who does not telecast ESPN/STAR SPORTS. It does not help that the matches are telecast from either 1.15 am to 3.30 a.m. or from 12.15 am to 2.15 a.m.

So I caught a movie (Being Cyrus, more about it later) and headed to the hotel, where there were about 20 Arsenal fans eagerly waiting for the match to start. The Juve fans were a little scared about openly expressing their club loyalty after being vastly outnumbered by Arsenal fans, so timidly sat in one corner of the coffee shop.

The match got underway, and I was stunned to see Arsenal ripping Juve apart. The ripping apart began intermittently but progressively became routine.

The average age of our defense is 22, and apart from Toure who has played in the Champions League before, none of the other 3 defenders(Eboue, Senderos, and Flamini) have had extended CL exposure, prior to this season. But they were in their footballing element and defended with very high quality technical ability.

Up front, in the 5 man mid-field Arsene Wenger, our manager had put out, our men there were running Juve’s mid-field ragged. Cesc Fabregas (Who recently turned 19) was showing his 29 year old former mentor, and our former captain Patrick Viera how European football should be played. Reyes, Hleb, and Pires were playing our very typical Arsenal brand of one touch football. The football being played was so easy on the eye that at times, I thought we were playing some mid-table Championship side and not the mighty current Serie A leaders Juventus. Gilberto was sitting back and allowing the full backs Flamini and Eboue to attack at will, and the pace of Reyes, Hleb, and Pires had the Juve defense chasing shadows. It was only a question of time whether the attacking football would yield a goal, and to the collective pleasure of all the Gunner fans present, with 40 minutes on the clock Cesc Fabregas put us ahead after an awesome tackle by Pires to dispossess Viera in the midfield.

The Arsenal attacks from mid-field were hitting the Juve defense like huge surfing waves on a Californian beach, and our Goal keeper Lehmann had as much work to do as a tanning beach denizen.

If no mention of Henry has been made so far, it's because he deserves a dedicated paragraph for his attacking exploits. On really big European nights (Like the one against Real Madrid this year, and the nights against Inter Milan, AS Roma in the past years) Henry plays with the aura of invincibility. He is one of the only players in world football (the others being Ronaldinho and Zidane) who can take on 4 defenders at one go and still come out of those tackles with the ball, and he repeats this kind of feat with awesome regularity. A Hleb pass found Cesc, who passed the ball a yard from where Henry wanted it played, but he checked his goalbound momentum, plucked the ball out of it’s comfort zone, and shot another magnificient goal. The Italian defenders Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Thuram, and Zebina were resorting to hacking Henry down at every opportunity and it was no surprise when Zebina was sent off for bringing down Henry for the nth time. This was after Cameronesi hacked Van persie and was sent off for a second bookable offence.

So Juve ended the game with 9 players, and Viera also picked up a yellow card which will rule him out for the return leg next week (though I suspect he did not want to play against his former team again, and get beaten AGAIN!). It will a nerve wrecking match and I will not be able relax till the whistle blows at the Stadio Delle Alpi stadium, and we have won the game!

Am I dreaming of a final against Barca a month too early?

These are pictures of an NGO called the Hermian Gmeiner Centre for Street Children, Shivajinagar, Pune. This NGO is the focal point in the lives of the 3 boys in the pictures above (Raju and Rashid in the pictures at the top of the post, and Balu in the picture below) , and 60 other children like them (32 girls, and 28 boys, 57 of which go to school and the folks at the NGO help the school children with their school work. Most of these children have parents who are HIV +ve and are out of work)

The only things that Raju, Rashid, and Balu have in common are:

1. Run away from home ten to twelve years ago (Raju from Hubli in Karnataka when he was 11, Rashid from Allahabad when he was 10, and Balu from Kolhapur 7 years ago)
2. Earn their living differently (Raju is alternatively a chain repairer, restaurant worker, and was a shoe polish boy, Rashid is a courier boy, and Balu is a shoe repair boy)

Otherwise all of the 3 boys live off the Shivajinagar railway Station in Pune, and have at some point of time in their lives been addicted to drugs (charas, ganja, etc) or inhaling and drinking shoe polish. They also unfortunately live from day to day because the concept of saving has not yet sunk in (surprisingly they earn anywhere between 150-300 rupees a day) .

This NGO has played a pivotal role in keeping them clean for the past few years. (Raju has been through a comprehensive detox program, and spoke animatedly about what he was told in detox). It also provides all children with a hot afternoon lunch, a place to bathe, and a roof to sleep under.

They help the other 57 schoolchildren here with their homework (the centre functions as a school upto standard 10. Children appearing for their 10th standard board exams are entered as external candidates through a nearby local school)

The folks running this centre have also recently introduced the 5 working adults at this centre (Raju, Rashid, Balu, and 2 others) to the concept of saving!

This centre is completely run by individual donations and ad-hoc corporate sponsorship.
(Cognizant Technologies, Pune sponsors their afternoon meals, SCESA {Sophia College Ex-Students Association} and Honeywell Technologies Pune are the other main donors)

Great work, folks at Hermian Gmeiner! Keep it up!

My Bloginality is ESTP!!!

How about an organization that says " Pune Cares", run on these lines ?

"The concept of NYC Cares is simple: time based, flexible volunteering. You sign up and are called for an initial orientation. Thereafter you are "activated" and get on the website where there is a project calendar. The calendar lists various activities - adult education, child education, animal shelters, painting & sorting, office work, children's art & performance, hunger, SAT prep etc. NYC Cares partners with various organizations who carry out these activities and provide them with high-quality focussed volunteering. One can volunteer for as many or as few activities, depending on time schdules and preferences. "

My new idea of fun. Listening to "Canon in D Major", by Pachelbel, and watching the sunset.

This is also one of my most favourite places in the whole world.