Orissa boys are Rugby World champions

Mari sent a link to this wonderful piece of news which happened in early October. But, did not hear about it in other places. So, assuming that this might be the case with many of you, I am writing about it in Musings as well.

Adivasi boys from Orissa have won the Rugby world championship. The team almost didn’t make it to London because the players didn’t even have valid birth certificates that are mandatory for their passports. (I could empathise with them, as we struggle with our adivasi team every year for their passports and visa).

Indian team consisting of all the players from Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar won Under-14 Rugby World championship by defeating South Africa in the final match held at London. The tournament involved ten under - 14 Rugby teams from different parts of the World.

You can read the entire story here. Their team is called 'Jungle Crows' and I love the name.

Recently we watched 'Chak De India' and liked it quite a bit - though lot of exaggerations there. The girls from Jharkhand reminded me of these rugby champion boys !!

Author Norman Mailer dies at Age 84

The two time Pulitzer prize winning American author died.

"He built and nurtured an image over the years as pugnacious, streetwise and high-living. He drank, fought, smoked pot, married six times and stabbed his second wife during a drunken party.

He had nine children, made a quixotic bid to become Mayor of New York, produced five forgettable films, dabbled in Journalism, flew gliders, challenged professional boxers, was banned from a Manhattam Young Women's Hebrew Association for reciting obscene poetry, feuded with writer Gore Vidal and crusaded against women's liberation."

I would have thought it takes more than a few life times to do all these things !!

But, the best epitaph he could have was in Guardian (reproduced in the Hindu) :

The man whose greatest books consolidated the now standard view that reporting is as important to storytelling as invention. His books were a nightmare for any librarian hoping to neatly classify them as fiction or non-fiction.

What would I like to be written on my epitaph ?

Deepavali - Festival of Lights (Sounds ?)

Just back from celebrating another Deepavali. Though our Chief Minister Karunanidhi feels that we Dravidians should not celebrate Deepavali - a symbol of an Aryan king vanquishing a Dravidian king - it is nice festival. Crackers, fireworks and sweets.

Though, strictly speaking, it is the festival of lights, I end up celebrating it merely as a festival of sweets. Children in the house are given the responsibility to ensure that lights part of the ceremony is attended to.

Our family, of course, has a way of enjoying the light effects created by not only our children, but that of the entire town of Trichy. Rock Fort is a nice landmark in Tiruchirappalli and on top of this hillock, there is (what else, but) a temple of Ganapathi.

On Deepavali night, if you climb on top this big rock, after quickly praying to the God, you get to see the fireworks of the entire city. It is a lovely sight - completely free. The most wonderful, and Cheapest, way of celebrating Deepavali - the travel costs are of course subsidised by the blessings you get from Lord Ganesha !

But, of late, Deepavali in India was becoming more a festival of Sounds than Lights. After living in nice tribal areas for more than 15 years, I am becoming allergic to sound. Gone are the days, when as children we used to vie with each other to burst the loudest crackers.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to read a news item in The Hindu on November 6, 2007, which ran something like this :

The Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board has appealed to the public to refrain from bursting crackers, which produce noise of high decibals and cause pollution during deepavali.

Sale of crackers which produced 125 decibals at a distance of 4 metres when they went off was banned.

I was curious - why 125 decibals and why 4 metres ? (Anway, isn't it risky to stand just 4 metres away from a cracker to measure whether it produced 125 decibals ? I guess they have some terrific machines for this, which are deaf and not scared of fire.) But, law is law. I am sure, children would feel cheated if the crackers, after all their elaborate preparations of closing their ears and eyes, go off producing a mere 124 decibal.

All these legislations only show that India is developing. (India Shining - not India Screaming !) We have come quite a long way from our national obsession with sound and loudspeakers. While every country would love to reduce the noise pollution, all our trucks running all over the country with national permit 'request' you to 'Sound Please', 'Blow Horn', 'Sound Horn', 'Please Make Noise', and what not !

(After that, of course, you need to wait for side - because giving way to the vehicle behind you is a prestige issue for most of our drivers !)

Ultimate Indictment

A Guardian article on Rudy Giuliani, the American Republican Party's presidential aspirant :

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"Mr. Giuliani is a dangerous man. He is George Bush with brains. Dick Cheney with better aim."

It is the ultimate insult any self-respecting politician can get these days !!

When you are in New York subway ...

[From the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams's blog]

"This week I am in Manhattan, living like a New Yorker. I have learned many things about the city. Today I will teach you how to ride the subway.



First, when you drop part of a cookie in the subway station, the five second rule does not apply. That cookie is dead before it hits the ground.

Second, when someone with a badge throws you on the ground, puts your arm behind your back, puts his knee on your neck, and yells, “DO NOT RESIST! DO NOT RESIST!” you should not resist. I learned this by watching. I also learned that you are not supposed to watch. You are supposed to “KEEP ON MOVING!”

To ride the subway, you must purchase a card with a magnetic strip. You learn this by observing other people “in the know” swiping their cards as they enter the turnstile. There are many options for what type of card you might want for particular purposes, and no apparent posted instructions. Luckily, you can ask for guidance from a helpful person who is behind thick glass. This transaction involves mumbling, rushing, condescension, the supposition that you are a moron, much evidence to support that assumption, and eventually the exchange of money for a little card that may or may not have some application for riding the subway.

Once armed with your little card, you swipe it on the turnstile. This is a frightening experience because there are at least nine wrong ways to swipe a card in a turnstile. I discovered all of them as a line of impatient New Yorkers formed behind me. I was holding the card the right way, and swiping it in the right direction, but as a uniformed guard eventually showed me, there is also something about the speed, trajectory, and possibly your state of mind that is also necessary for the turnstile to accept the card. I don't know how many times the turnstile has to reject you before the guy with the badge puts his knee on your neck and starts yelling “DO NOT RESIST!” but I am sure I was close to the limit.


Once you are on the subway, you must find a seat next to a person you judge least likely to drool on you, rob you, or start a conversation. My wife picked a guy who eventually fell asleep and slumped on her. I picked a guy who was muffin-topping into my seat and listening to an iPod. We felt blessed with our choices.

Next comes the wondering if you are heading in the right direction. There is one sign in each subway car showing the names of stations along the line. This sign is printed with tiny lettering so only the people sitting directly below it can read it. I didn’t want to risk losing my sweet seat next to the muffin-top guy so I relied on listening to the conductor announce the stations.

The announcements sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher on Quaaludes, approximately this: “Muwa muwa muwa.” I assume the conductors have the option of speaking in some language that humans can understand, but that is not their way. So we defaulted to the “get off when most other people get off” method of navigation.

This worked well traveling from Grand Central Station to the US Open tennis match in Flushing. To travel to any other destination, you have to become a native, either intentionally or because you can’t figure out how to get to the airport."