Balls

If you are expecting this to be some sleazy post I’m sorry to disappoint you. I am referring to golf balls.

A friend recently emailed me some testimonials titled “Think Before You Speak” One from a lady read as follows:

“I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking guys working at the store. He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, 'I think I like playing with men's balls”

This was the first time I learnt that they also have separate golf balls for women!

A cousin of mine recently invited me to his golf club and it was the first time I visited one. To get a hang of the game I also tried my hand at driving and putting a few “buckets”. Before I visited the course I thought golf was a boring game. After spending an hour at the course I was convinced it was a boring game. But I do concede that it is not as easy as it looks.

Golf enjoys the distinction of being the only sport where your status is suddenly elevated by just paying for a golf club membership or buying some expensive golf gear! You don’t even have to know how to play the game. Have you noticed the air of pride and superiority people exude when they declare they play golf or just plan to do so?

Statistically speaking 50% of people playing the game are in such a bad shape that this is the only game they can actually play. 45% are those who are into it purely due to peer pressure, snob value or by virtue of free corporate membership. Only 5% consists of those who really understand and enjoy the game!

Those who are out of shape claim to get excellent exercise while walking on the greens. I find this very amusing. When I see the pace at which they walk, the only thing I see happening is overweight Homo sapiens suffocating the fresh green grass. I wonder how great an exercise it is when you don’t even carry your own clubs. You either have a caddy or still worse a motorized cart! Half these guys can’t even bend down to take the ball out of the hole! On the contrary, the spectators get more exercise than the players simply because they have to see the ball being hit and then scamper to try and catch the action when it hits the ground.

At best it is a great excuse to get away from your nagging spouse and have a few rounds of intoxicants with friends.

My conclusion: I love Golf!

Surprised? Well, not the sport but the enterprise behind the sport. If I ever wanted to be in a business it would be selling golf gear and accessories. Golf is the only sport in which the number of accessories by far exceeds that required in military warfare. Add to this the fact that it is a sport in which accessories are perennially either lost or broken and you have a fail safe business. Gullible wealthy individuals dying to be skimmed of their fortunes makes for a great customer listing. Long live Golf.

P.S. I am sure to incur the wrath of all my golf loving friends. I do have an escape though. I’m going to tell them that they all are part of the 5% who genuinely know and enjoy the game!

Newsy Week

I have been more or less a home bird during the past few days. I got a chance to catch up with news on the telly which ranged from interesting to hilarious.

Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif’s 'B' sample has also tested positive for dope. They said he is planning to appeal. Personally I think he will be better off suing the company making those performance enhancing drugs. I mean, despite taking the drug we hardly saw any enhanced performance from him during the IPL!

There was good news from the Olympics yet again and the whole country was celebrating except the ATS (Anti Terror Squad). They were a worried lot with medals coming from Shooting, Boxing and Wrestling! Vijender Kumar is a disappointed soul though despite his bronze medal. Bipasha Basu had promised him a hot date if he got gold! I wonder what might make Sonal Chouhan go out on a date! If you don't know who she is check out the heroine of the movie aptly named Jannat!

Yesterday was one of those rare occasions when one saw Ratan Tata fretting and fuming. When Lord Amarnath could not enjoy peaceful possession of land allotted to him in J & K it is not surprising that mere mortals like Tatas are having problems with land allotted to them. Seeing the hundreds of protest banners its easy to understand how mamata got her last name "ban(n)er"jee! However, it is not easy to understand how Ratan Tata intends to solve the issue. Instead of long drawn negotiations the best way to solve the problem is to call the car 'mamata' instead of 'nano'. This is sure to placate her and massage her ego. Come to think of it the nano does have many similarities with mamata. Its small, its cheap, its for the masses and it’s a bit roly-poly as well! A few dents and bumps once its on the road and it’ll be a perfect match!

It’s the weekend afternoon and I’m off for the Gokulashtami celebrations. With loads of goodies to hog and a muffin tummy to avoid its not going to be an easy task.

Notional Express Highway

Who says politicians don’t live up to their promises? I vividly remembered one such promise when I was travelling on the Eastern Express Highway last night. We were promised that rural and urban India would be integrated and that promise was being fulfilled even as I was approaching Vikhroli.

The highway was in tatters with potholes easily outnumbering any vestiges of a road. This stretch of alleged road had the potential to induce labour pains even in women who are not pregnant. Half the express way is accident prone and the other half is full of mini speed breakers warning about the other (accident prone) half! Potholes play the role of special effects.

Combine the above with water cuts and power cuts and very soon our city would be truly integrated with rural India.

We have “celebrated” 61 years of independence with not even 61% of our people having food, shelter and education they deserve. When we got independence democracy was being touted as government of the people, by the people and for the people. All I have seen so far is government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians.

After our loss in the test series our cricketers were expected to go all out in the ODI’s. I hear they just went and got all out! The team however believes that it’s not their fault. When Dhoni went from India the message he had for them was that everyone back home was complaining that as a nation we only think about cricket and do not concentrate on the Olympics and various other sports. It is now learnt that we lost because our team was doing its best to concentrate on the Olympics and other sports.

On the positive side the festive season has started and I'm eagerly looking forward to meeting up with friends and family as a part of the celebrations!

Air Travel

I’ve been travelling a lot lately and last week has truly been fun filled. I travelled down south to meet a very close friend of mine.

I reached the airport in the early hours of Saturday and all the newspapers were screaming that the health minister wanted to make homosexuality legal. I had just finished my security check and the way one is frisked these days I thought homosexuality was already legal in this country!

It just struck me that on numerous occasions this minister had been at loggerheads with a leading film star about his on-screen smoking. The star has recently announced that he would give up smoking. A conspiracy theory came to mind….is it possible these two have some kind of a secret deal? One agrees to give up smoking in return for homosexuality being made legal? You know what I am talking about right?

My flight took off a few hours after the scheduled time and people seemed so famished that even airline food was welcome. The one thing I love about airline crew is their ability to use the limited space they get to move and serve. Ever noticed how skillfully they get the food out of the galley and load them back when they clear your tray table? I suppose being slim is a professional requirement and these people are perfectly suited to live the ‘match box home’ city life.

If you cannot control your urge to eat sweets you must taste the dessert they serve on flights. It is sure to put you off sweets for a few weeks at least. The one thing I like though about airline food is the after mint. Airline catering is run by smart people… the food is invariably lousy but the after mint is always so nice that it hardly ever leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Compare this with those fancy restaurants on the ground where food can be fantastic but when it comes to after food mouth fresheners they are the worst.

Since I am on the subject of airlines I must say how pissed off I was that my late night return flight was delayed by over two hours without any announcement. Instead of calling it JetLite I think they should rename it to JetLate. The one thing that hasn’t changed in a long time is the in flight security procedure announcement and the effect it has on passengers. The moment they hear the words “ …krupaya hamare karmachari par dyaan de..” most men take it as a license to start ogling at the airhostesses. Shame on all you men…cant you find someone better to stare at? Airhostesses these days look so terrible. Even the item-airline Kingfisher seems to be having problems getting quality staff!

At the airport I also overheard people discussing the pathetic performance of our cricketers in Sri Lanka. I’m hardly surprised. Senior players who should be retiring shamelessly continue to be in the team and young players who should be playing are resting. The one thing you cannot blame them for is consistency. We have been consistently losing all the crunch games.

On the positive side we had some heart warming news as well…he’s young, he’s talented and he’s handsome too…no he’s not superman..he’s Abhinav Bindra…on second thoughts though I think it won’t be wrong to call him our sports superman of the year! He’s the shooter but it will be the pretty girls who will be gunning for him now:)

Independence day and Rakhi…we have two wonderful days to celebrate and for a change I saw one of the cutest Rakhi ads I’ve ever seen. It’s the Vodaphone ad.on TV. It’s perfectly executed and the bro and sis in the ad couldn’t have acted any better. Don’t miss it.

Our General Body Meeting

It has been pouring the last few days leaving absolutely no scope to move out and get something concrete done. We’ve just had our General Body Meeting and it seemed like the perfect time to document my own account of the meeting.

Having a roof on your head has always been considered a sign of security and safety. Hence, when the venue of the General Body Meeting was the first floor car park I was glad there would be no problems of braving the rains or the sun. The truth however was far from it. Even as I walked around the first floor of the car park I was greeted with a POP ceiling which threatened to fall on me anytime. I victoriously got past this danger but my celebrations were dampened…literally…by the 100s of drops of water leaking from the ceiling.

“Good Morning and welcome to the Phase II General Body Meeting” said the speaker. They say you have to go through various phases in life….for me Phase II has been the most painful one so far….it all started way back in 2003 when Rahu, Ketu and Shani in my horoscope must have conspired to make me book an apartment in Phase II….more on that some other time…for now let me stick to the proceedings of the meeting.

The minutes of the previous meeting were discussed and the meeting progressed. Members raised a lot of questions, some symbolic and some agitated…. visibly more out of frustration than anything else. The formation and registration of the society was revisited and the need to collect funds for maintenance beyond the initial contribution was communicated to the members.

It was brought to the attention of the members that the car park in which we were having the meeting was an illegal structure. The merits and desirability of bringing down the illegal car park was also discussed. I thought to myself…. “no need to discuss this issue, because seeing the way it has been constructed it was likely to fall on its own in a few years time”.

The issue of dog menace too was discussed. Personally I don’t have a problem with dogs per se but yes I do have a major problem when members start treating stray dogs as pets and pets as stray dogs! Terraces, Staircases, Building lobbies and car parks are all being used as toilets for pets….we truly live in “forestland” and members devoid of any civic sense are ample proof of it. The only hope is some day a member gets a pet tiger which likes dogs.

On the sidelines, some members also discussed the absence of a compound wall enclosing our buildings and how other complexes had clearly demarcated compound walls. Once again I said to myself “compound wall?….why do we need a compound wall?...people build compound walls for the safety and protection of something cherish able…all I see here is perishable!”

Maintenance or the lack of it was also a matter of concern as the builder had reduced the number of people employed for it. Members complained of leaking walls, ceilings, lobbies et al. Water seemed to be present everywhere it is not supposed to be! I recently received an email from a friend which said that the Jog falls had overflowed after 12 years. I don’t know how true that is but am pretty certain that our overhead water tank will overflow for the next 12 years!

In the meantime the attendance register was being circulated and everyone was signing it…the more I attend these meetings the more I’m convinced that one of the major reasons for people to attend is their belief in the saying…“dukh baantne se kum hota hai.”

We were two hours into the meeting and already running late. It was time for some Samosa and Tea. Based on the proceedings at the meeting I started seeing the Samosa and Tea less as a snack and more as a metaphor for the only things we seemed to have control over in this housing complex.

Gradually the meeting was drawing to a close and the final question was about our lawyer and the level of satisfaction with his work so far. In general lawyers have a reputation of believing in ‘give and take’….you give and they take. I hope for our sake this one is different.

The meeting concluded and even as I walked back home the imposing structure of the unfinished ‘Blue Diamond’ was in sight. No matter how big or high we go, what’s the point if we are colorless and empty? The incomplete building surely bears mute testimony to the sorry state of affairs. People in general are mature enough to accept and deal with shortages of water or shortages of power what bothers them the most is shortage of integrity.

If I sound despondent let me assure you I’m not. Yes, I am certainly disappointed but not despondent. The reason for this is my innate belief that there is no problem which cannot be resolved or sorted out through healthy discussions and negotiations. In the coming days, I hope that the apex committee members who have been working so hard all these months will find ways to approach the builder and work out an amicable solution to all the problems.

At the cost of sounding a bit heavy let me leave you with some wonderful words of hope by Tagore. He said “Every time a child is born it brings with it the hope that God is not yet disappointed with man”. For those of you who see the relevance of this surely know what I am trying to say.

A Blog of my own!

Friends with whom I correspond regularly have been egging me on to start a blog. They recently threatened to crown me the king of procrastination if I didn’t start it soon.

Today seems to be the perfect day to start my new blog! I sent an article of mine to some of my neighbors yesterday and realized how much easier it would have been to just post it on my blog. Besides this, the date 08-08-08 also has a nice ring to it! So welcome to my very own space in cyber world.

Since this is a new blog I’m not sure how often I will be posting but once I get the hang of it I’ll try and be as regular as possible.

My first post happens to be about the housing complex I live in. You may not be able to relate to everything I’ve written but I’m sure you will get the drift!