Hippy Bogus - ness

Grey Skies

2006-06-26T13:01:00.000+05:30

Pink Sky

2006-06-26T12:47:00.000+05:30

First showers in Pune - 30th May

2006-06-01T19:04:00.000+05:30

Love the rains. Especially when I'm home, dry, and the electricity is working fine (It's Pune. "Information Technology" city of the future, but electricity, water and roads are still an issue).

Been reading "Maximum City" with the rain gods playing a rock concert of their own. And my throat and nose singing in seconds.

It's amazing how just when you think that more mucus cannot be produced from where ever it really lives, more of the sticky crap gets produced automatically . I went through 2 decent sized tissue rolls in one day. Then I got smart and used the old xeroxed prescription that the good pune doctor had given me the last time I was a sick cow. I had uncharacteristically xeroxed that prescription, and meticulously put it by in a corner of my wallet. I pay attention to only the most important details.

And I went out and bought medicines (with xeroxed precription) like they were fruits. No questions asked. And I even got a receipt.

Coming back to the book, another facinating one in a long line of books to come, which immoralize the city I've lived in for 22 years (and the beatuy of books like Shantaram and Maximum city is that they paint the city in the dark brown shitty shades and smells that so characterize the city, while unearthing the spirit of the people who live with those smells!)

Enough of the talk. Try and enjoy the pictures.

Dudley Green

2006-05-18T15:37:00.000+05:30

Pictured in the shaggy black and white coat above, is Mr Dudley Green. I met him before the Arsenal - Barcelona game last night.

I woke up this morning with the harsh reminder that we were 14 minutes away from becoming European champions till a certain Mr Hauge decided that Barcelona has more stars, and so should win the game.

It was then that Dudley Green decided to wisely speak up. He said " So what if the referee last night, Terje Hauge is a foul mouthed, firecrotched, numb-twitted, kidney stoned dick. It was only a game last night. And life goes on"

And I heeded that intelligent advice, and hurried along to 8.30 a.m. coffee, table tennis, and unlimited music :).

(Disclaimer : Dudley Green does not otherwise do capitalization while writing.)

Did chimp and human ancestors interbreed?

2006-05-18T11:00:00.000+05:30

Did chimp and human ancestors interbreed?

My Answer to the above question, supported by a repository of graphical evidence, would be Yes.

Sunset at Candolim

2006-05-10T14:39:00.000+05:30

Quality is our Aim

2006-05-08T17:45:00.000+05:30

Pictures like these always make me laugh. This 3-walled structure apparently functions as an egg shop. Clicked this picture while going to my favourite restaurant (Malacca Spice - yes again!) this afternoon for lunch.

Quality is their aim, but it does not prevent them from not having a roof, which helps the birds poop on the eggs, which they sell to their customers, obviously upholding their original aim.

One more step Arsenal

2006-05-05T12:44:00.000+05:30

May 17th, here we come. I did not post after our semi-final victory against Villareal. Honestly, this was because after we knocked Juventus out of the UCL, making it to the final was very much expected.

But the wait for May 17th is going to be an especially tenuous one. I'm an extremely peaceful sleeper, but the night of May 16th might be a rough night. I'm confident of us doing well, and in footballing terms , the thought of seeing Barcelona up against Arsenal thrills the daylights out of my otherwise nocturnal system.

Forza Arsenal!

Masahiro/Yoshikuni

2006-05-05T10:32:00.000+05:30

My japanese name is 吉国 Yoshikuni (good fortune country) 雄大 Masahiro (big hero).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!

Harvey , the Pervy Grammar school.

2006-05-01T14:15:00.000+05:30

Let's just for a moment say that I posed topless for Cosmopolitian?

Would I be fired from my day job ?

However, the folks at Harvey Grammar school think otherwise. Why, oh why this distinction between boobs and man breasts?

Why the Indian design community is uniquely equipped for emerging markets - my contribution

2006-05-01T14:08:00.000+05:30

Putting the Desi in "Design"

Ehsaas @ CYDA with the kids from Patil Estate - 30th April

2006-05-01T12:58:00.000+05:30

Shawn and Parth from Ehsaas teaching Dhananjay, Deepak, Hemant, Vishal, and Sunil from the Patil Estate slum, near the Government College of Engineering campus, Pune.

My second day with the kids. I love the radiant smile on Dhananjay's face(in the first picture and fourth picture, in the Blue and White shirt). He works as a Mechanic everyday from 9 a.m. - 6.30 p.m.

Deepak (in the second picture, wearing spectacles), has given his 10th standard board exams, and wants to become an engineer.

In the third picture from the top, Parth from Ehsaas (in the White shirt with Orange sleeves) taught Sunil, Vishal, and Hemant (from left to right) the basics of English grammar. Sunil and Vishal work as office boys at a local agricultural college in Pune. Hemant (the brightest of the boys from Patil Estate) is unemployed. Sunil is the youngest of the kids from Patil estate (11 years old).

It was a fun class.

Parth took on the responsibility of teaching the fundamentals of english grammar to Hemant, Vishal and Sunil (in picture 3).

The kids were given varying levels of homework (from bringing 25 new english words to the next class, to completing english sentences in the Present, Past, and Future tense).

Dhananjay wanted a solo picture clicked, which explains the "bollywood
star type" picture. His hero is Salman Khan.

I also promised the boys a picture of the houses of Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan, when I go back to Bombay. (I wanted to explain to the kids that Salman Khan is basically this overgrown, brawny, numbfuckingtwitted 40 year old man, who emotionally is 9 and a half, but did not want to break the bubble. Some heroes must live on)

They promised to do their homework for next Saturday's class.

Brave the low resolution of the notice

2006-04-30T15:29:00.000+05:30

For those of you who could not get through the lines on that notice, they say "Kindly take care of your belongings. The management will not be responsible for any loss of THEFT (sic!)"

Random list of addas I need to visit, before I leave this city.

2006-04-27T21:37:00.000+05:30

I'm a true blue foodie. The owner of Malacca Spice, here in Pune, treats me like his goti-ayaar (Not even going to explain that). I personally know most of the waiters at Flags and La Pizzeria. I would rate the above 3 restaurants 2897/ 100, for the awesome food and service they dish out.

Besides the above addas where I'm pretty much of a regular, I've checked out most of the other popular places here, like Bounty, The Place, Chinese Room, Kamlings, Yanas, Silk Route, Vaishali, Prems, Toons(not really a restaurant, but I'm there so often), Carnival, 1000 oaks (The best part here is the music ;)), Bombay Brasserie (How wrong is that name? Hippy Bogus to Jane : "I ate at Bombay Bra today, and the food was spicy"), besides the names of a host of other places that I have positively forgotten about, and need to go back to eat, to remember again.

But I haven't checked out enough of the hole-in-the-wall, non-descript, type single speciality addas (read as Restaurants/Khanawadis/Dhabas/..... ). So I have compiled a list of all the single/super speciality addas that I need to eat at, before I move out of Pune. The list below has been compiled from a variety of online sources, and I will need to throughly verify if the directions noted below are accurate. Will update you all about my personal experience at each of these addas. (blue italics are my personal additions to some one else's description of the adda)

Kolhapur Darbar - (apparently) spicy kolhapuri non-veg thalis - the lane opposite JnanaPrabodhini (wherever that is) - one chowk down

Hotel Kaveri no 2 - (yes that is the name) - near marketyard main entrance - Great non-veg thalis with spicy rassa, bhakris etc.

Fountain - Shivaji Putala near JMRoad (V precise directions)

Kaveri bhel - Tilak road (V precise directions again!)

Small bakery type shop - USP = Bread pattice (sic!) - symbiosis road - in the middle of the road, as you turn in the direction opposite to Janwadi and on the right of the road (There son! That's the way you direct someone to a non-descipt adda)

Appa's canteen - Deccan Gymkhana

George - Biryani - behind where Naaz was (sadly no more)

Lateef - East street - Butter chicken

So will spend the next few weeks picking addas off this list. That is not to say that I will cut down on my almost weekly Malacca Spice trips, but will be more open to trying out addas on the newly compiled list.

How to earn Rs 110 after lunch

2006-04-27T20:43:00.000+05:30

Today has been one of the most different days I've had in Pune. My team had a 11.30 a.m. meeting at 3D (a local gaming zone here, with Pune's only bowling lanes, and a bunch of other sad assed games, save for Air hockey which I think I have a good shot at turning pro).

By 11.30 a.m. meeting, I meant we were supposed to meet at that time, to exclusively hang out, behave like asses, and waste time for the whole day. the underlying reason was to apparently "celebrate" the release of a product we have been working on. (Whatever happened to being taken on a cruise, flown down to Bangkok, or being sponsored massages at Ayurvedic spas?)

Taking your valuable resources out to a local bowling alley is a really cheap way to get off rewarding them for their "earnest" efforts on a project, but that's just what happened so I just decided to bowl my heart out.

This was only the second time in my life that I have bowled, and for the first 6 tries I bowled into the gutter like a seasoned "gutter penchant having"alcoholic. (We were 17 of us pitted against each other, playing in groups of 5 odd, in 3 lanes)

However, the competetive streak in me was rekindled, and watching the scoreboards display my pathetic score was ignominy I could do without. So I decided to head to play a small game of "Shoot-the-Hoop" (sad assed game #n where you shoot into a basket ball hoop, from 4 ft out, and the digital scoreboard updates your score, with background sound effects that go like "You make Micheal Jordan look like an Amateur, That would have almost gone in, and You got it going there"

I returned to the bowling lane, convinced another gutter ball was coming up, but bowled nevertheless. And Voila! My first career strike. I felt like Kolo Toure, after his first champions league goal. And the next 2 attempts were consecutive strikes. It had to be something the bowling lane people were doing, because I was bowling the same-old-damned way, save for using the same ball (Orange Number 10 - will never forget it)!

I never won the game, but had put up a respecful score after 20 odd tries, so left feeling like some pride had been regained.

We headed to lunch at the same gaming complex (BAD MOVE!!). After bowling, and showing up at an ad hoc mid-day dancing session in a gaming complex, the last thing you want is have lunch in a closed restaurant without an AC. And that is exactly what happened. We could have whacked the restaurant manager (if "it" did show up that is, but "it" never did). And the gentleman who took us out to dinner (read as Bill Footer), needed to leave, to take the visitor (in whose honour the play-for-the-whole-day session was organized) to the airport.

So we were 15 idiots left at a restaurant with the freedom to use one of our credit cards, to be fully compensated later. The lunch was strictly OK, and the ice-creams that arrived later were ravishingly devoured. So some of us were left with time to kill, in between finishing dessert, designating a "Bill Footer", and deciding whether or not we wanted to continue Bowling/playing ice hockey.

So I came up with a "Guess the bill game". The rules were simple. You needed to guess the standalone lunch bill, and you needed to pay Rs 10 to avail of the opportunity. The guess with minimum distance (positive or negative) from the actual bill amount wins the "game entry fee" collected from everyone. None of us had seen the right hand side of the menu (none of us had even seen the menu), because the lunch was was pre-ordered by the original "Bill Footer", so none of us could possibily have known the total amount spent on lunch.

For some wierd reason, all the "game stakeholders" at the table were very excited about the game, and I became the hustler who went around collecting 10 bucks each of the 11 other people (I DID not pay up. Watching Don King hustling is standing me in good stead).

On the back of one of my used ATM account mini-statements, I went around writing the guess each person was hazarding. Hustling also involves avoiding potential conflict, and that would have been a distinct possibility going foward, because a few people were bidding the same amount. So a few quick rounds of convincing people to change their bid amounts/equally split potential windfall of Rs 110 ensued.

Hippy-Bogus also got a chance to bid, and his guess was Rs 4100 (underlying logic = company would not have spent more than 5K on lunch). And the bid amounts ranged from Rs 2000 to Rs 5434.80. (Don't ask me why. And hustlers are only supposed to collect money, which I did with a vengance). And we waited anxiously for the bill to arrive.

And arrive it did in style, with this stamp et all! For a grand amount of Rs 7435!!

And just when Mr Rs 5434.80. thought he had won, we realized the bill included bowling and "dance floor" (sic!) charges. So after few rounds of subtracting from the grotesque main bill, the lunch bill was isolated, and found to add up to Rs 4325. And Hippy-Bogus promptly declared himself winner!!

And a worthy hustling winner he was. Holding 11 of those slightly soiled and very crumpled Rs 10 notes was the best feeling he had since almost beating the mechanical Rodeo at the Flea market in Goa!

And he promptly decamped with his windfall, lest he be designated as the "Bill Footer" on account of his newly acquired windfall.

Sunset at Candolim beach, Goa

2006-04-19T16:20:00.000+05:30

Pictures of Sunset from Nine Bar, Vagator, Goa

2006-04-19T15:54:00.000+05:30

~Sunsets in Goa are magical. There is quiet sense of calm that comes upon me, and I reconnect with myself. Watching the sun going down reminds me of all that I have left to do~

More pictures from the Vagholi centre for the dumb and deaf

2006-04-19T15:46:00.000+05:30

This girl is called Priya. She was found living with an old beggar on the roads, next to a temple in Pune. The trustees at vagholi convinced the beggar to allow them to take the child away to the centre, to have a shot at a better life. The beggar died a few months later. She recited a poignant poem for us. She is too young to go to school.

A picture of some more kids at vagholi. The kid in the centre of the snap, Shyam, is dumb and deaf and communicated to us in sign language, which the other kids excitedly translated for us. I learnt a little bit of sign language.

Goa!

2006-04-13T18:36:00.000+05:30

Going to be in Goa for 5 days~!

Sun, Beer, Sand, Fish, Beef, CHICKEN!!!!

Will come back with a tan I could avoid, but what the heck!

Ehsaas at the Vagholi centre for the dumb and deaf

2006-04-11T19:43:00.000+05:30

This picture captures all I have to say about what Ehsaas is trying to do in Pune. Bringing a few moments of joy to the lives of underprivilaged children, in and around Pune.

However the writer in me has this compulsive need to document details surrounding the trip, so that the broader perspective surrounding this trip comes through.

This trip started out as a "bike ride and a visit to a tribal hostel" all rolled into one. It ended up being an extremely educating experience for me, and my friends from "Ehsaas", which is the community service group we have got together to form in Pune.

We started out at the CYDA office, located at the centre of Pune (CYDA is one of the NGOs Ehsaas is working with) with 8 folks from Ehsaas and 4 bikes. Madhura from CYDA volunteered to be our guide on this trip, and helped us find the ashram shala (interchangably referred to as the Vagholi centre for the dumb and deaf or the Mukh Badhir Vidyalaya - Vagholi) , located about 30 kms away from the centre of the city. What struck me about Madhura was the patient manner in which she allowed us to spend time at the ashram shala, without interfering in the long drawn discussions we had after tour of the ashram. She waited patiently for us to finish talking, to provide us with insightful information.

We had a car and a bike join us midway on the trip (and one car after we reached there), so were a happy group of 5 bikes and a car, on a very hot day in Pune. The mid-day sun in Pune burns your skin, and the dry heat has your eyes feeling sauna-esque. On the way to Vagholi, Sonika, my friend who was riding pillion and I swapped stories about our respective social and love lives. This considerably helped to beat the heat. We also passed this beautiful old temple, on the banks of a lake, but had overshot the ashram shala, and had the other bikes waiting for us, so had to turn back ASAP!

We finally got to the ahsram shala an hour later. It consists of 4 ad hoc buildings, with a central courtyard. It was evident that these structures were erected on a need basis, and not with any planned perspective. It houses 300 kids (including 50 dumb and deaf children), who study in standards 1-10. A lot of these kids have spent over 5 years at the ashram shala, and there were no visible signs of being ill-treated (I had to being this up. I don't have the most positive impression of residential schools run by charitable trusts) but the kids here were extremely happy, and showed no fear of the authorities (they seemed to be able to interact with us in an extremely unencumbered fashion)

The visit kicked off with Mr. Motilal (who is the son of the man who set up the NGO many years ago with 8 kids) explaining to us what they did at the ashram shala. He brought up how they pick up kids from various places in Pune, and the yawning gap that exists between funds that are provided to take care of the kids to the funds required to actually provide them with basic amenities.

Mr Arthur Linfield was then introduced to us. He has spent time doing charitable work in many places in the world, and the last 7 years have been spent in Pune (Family Care - Pune initiative ). He came there with 2 of his daughters (Amaris and Leilani) and along with his wife and 5 other children, spends time doing similar charitable work at a slum in Pune. He spoke passionately about helping people, and his experiences helping people in India over the past decade.

An extremely articulate speaker, the message I got from his little talk was that "even the smallest act of reaching out to other people is useful (and it could mean giving 1 kilo of rice or a 100). However, while having long term action plans is a good thing, putting those plans into action in the present is equally important.

After Arthur left (and he has one very cute daughter), Motilal took us on a guided tour of the ahsram shala. The first "classroom" we visited was a concrete structure with a tin roof with holes (now serving as a classroom for the 9 & 10th standard kids). We were in that room for about 15 mins, and I could have roasted popcorn till it popped. I don't think I would have got through schooling those conditions, and you had kids here who were just excited about being able to study. We were taken on a tour of the girls hostel, the school for the dumb and deaf, the computer room, and finally to the hall, where we walked to a rousing applause from the children. I was stunned at the discipline inculcated in them. They were neatly sitting in rows, girls on one side and boys on the other (and I think each row consisted of kids from the same year - not sure about that though). We were officially the chief guests, and there were more than 11 chairs lined up at the head of the room for us to take (we were 11 Ehsaas volunteers who made it on the trip). We were introduced to this kid who said the most heart rendering prayer for us. She must've been about 3 years old, and was living with a beggar on of of the roads in Pune City. The organizationconvinced the beggar to allow them to take her away, and brought her to vagholi. The beggar later died. She is too young to go to school, so is in the balwadi (rudimentary playschool).

We also met Sachin, who is the son of a prostitute, and who was dropped at the ashram 5 years ago. I was very impressed with how intelligent some of these kids were.

Ehsaas volunteers at the end of the trip decided to do a realistic rethink about what we could do at this ashram shala. The location might pose a problem for us to come down every week, but we tentatively decided to come back here on the 30th of April and organise a talk for the kids about what career paths they could opt for, after giving their board exams. This is more of a morale building exercise for kids currently studying in the 10th and the other younger kids, that they have hope! It would also help the other kids understand what they could do with their lives and lend some direction to them.

I was personally very humbled by my interaction with the children. They had torn clothes, scrabby faces, and no slippers, but were so un-encumbered and full of life!

Our big European night - The Stadio Delle Alpi experience

2006-04-08T16:39:00.000+05:30

And to the Stadio Delle Alpi marched our men,
Under Arsene Wenger's tutelage,
Fearless and brave,
They played the beautiful game,
And had the Italians on their way home wondering,
How their tails ended up,
Between their legs.

This was a match I did not end up watching, courtesy of some numbtwits at the reception desk of the Pride Hotel in Pune (more about this later)

This post is about the beautiful game that Arsenal played with Juventus ( I gleaned from the highlights) and drew 0 - 0, thus progressing to the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time in their illustrious history.

The 11 Gunners at the Stadio Delle Alpi (did you know that's a shortform of Stadio Giovanni Agnelli) produced some of the finest football Europe has seen for a while, and though the display back at Highbury yielded 2 goals, this display was about the clinical precision with which Arsenal could kill off a tie.

As I said before, I did not watch the game live, but was forced to listen to some parts of live commentary of the game over a phone (Thank you Sheez). A kind friend messaged me the result at final whistle, and so I went to sleep at 2 am, safe in the knowledge that a final with Barca on the 17th of May is a real possibility.

Only Villareal (or Riquelme) stand between us and the Stade-de-France on the 17th of May. And I would take going to the El Madrigal on the 25th of April over going to the Nou Camp or San Siro!

Go Gunners, and remind Viera of what he could have been a part of!

I have a lot to say to the numbtiwts at Hotel Pride(according to their parent group Dicklets Inc, it's the finest hotel in Pune). The Kigfisher crew having a good fight with the duty manager at the reception desk, a group of 20 football fans waiting expectantly for the football game to be shown on the flat TV screen of the coffee shop, and I would have a lot to say about the Pune's finest hotel bit! And to think all it actually would have taken to keep us happy was changing the channel on the TV, and having some pest control done to their ground floor kitchen to prevent cockroaches from having an orgy and mosquitoes from binge drinking our blood!

But then a limit on stupidity has'nt really been placed and the staff at Hotel Pride are living examples of limitless stupidity. So I guess there is purpose to their existence. I've written a few stinker e-mails to their director, and placed a few "seriously distressed by your service" type calls, but don't really expect too much out of them.

Dicklets beget numbtwits, and Hotel Pride (Pune's finest hotel) provides the meeting ground!

Shantaram

2006-03-30T19:40:00.000+05:30

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!

All in all, a must read!

Being Cyrus

2006-03-29T20:55:00.000+05:30

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?)

Our big european night

2006-03-29T16:45:00.000+05:30

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?

Visit to the Hermian Gmeiner NGO at Shivajinagar!

2006-03-15T17:22:00.000+05:30

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!