The Thums Up Trophy

I had just come out of the gym and was walking towards our car.

"Eyy Bhai!"

There are lots of Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and Indians over here in Cyprus. Quite a few of them study at the colleges here. Most of the others work as household help, at hotels or at petrol bunks. We code the whole day, which is not really an improvement on what the others do.

"Eyy Bhai!"

I turned around.

The guy standing on the opposite side of the road grinned at me.

"Pakistani?", he asked.

"No. Indian.", said I.

"Aahh. Indian! Good! Good!", he gave me a thumbs up.

"Aaj aap jeet rahey ho(You are winning today).", said I swinging an imaginary cricket bat in the air.

(Pakistan had scored 303/8 in 50 overs and India was 36/2 in 10 overs, Sachin and Sehwag back in the pavillion.)

"Good ! Good!", he said giving me a thumbs up.

"Ok. Bye.", said I.

"Bye. India! Good! Good!", said he thumb still high in the air.

I gave him a thumbs up too.

I walked towards the car pondering about how we have been at loggerheads with each other when we cannot differentiate the one from the other.

Duck Tales

Converstaion between Ganguly and Inzy...

Ganguly : You guys dropped Sehwag so many times and he went on to score a century. Give me a few chances and then see what I can...

Inzy : Bismilla Rahmaney Raheem Sabse Pehle to Allahtaala ka Shukar. All of us are desperately waiting to drop your catches so that we can make you play longer. But you have to connect bat to ball to give catches.

Now that Ganguly's been banned for 6 matches, cricket fans and email servers across the country must be heaving a sigh of relief. Sardars too, since now they can reclaim their traditional role in email jokes which Ganguly had encroached upon as if it were a middle order slot.

So? Where does that leave The 'Baahar Aaja' of Kolkotta? I remember a time when Azhar faced similar flak. Azhar's response? A century of 74 balls against South Africa, including 5 consecutive fours in an over of debutante Kluesner. A knock of such disdain that all that we could say was, " Waah Azzu Bhai!Waah! Chindiya (hyderabadi for tatters) kar diye!"

But then with Azzu Bhai it was different, all his life his taqdeer
(destiny) has been meherbaan(favourable) on him. How else can you explain Sangeeta Bijlani falling for him?

Can Ganguly do something similar? Don't be silly. How can he marry Sangeeta Bijlani? I was talking about a century knock. I ( and I am sure the hordes of Ganguly bashers out there) would love nothing more than a repeat of his Salman Khan imitation, but this time for something that HE (Ganguly not Salman) has done.

But let's not talk miracles here, Ganguly is so hard on luck that even Mandira Bedi could get him out bowling left handed.

So? Where does he go from here? Tinseltown? a la Jadeja? If the script writers haven't been taking coffee breaks (yeh yeh maggi breaks too...) and actually managed to catch his exploits on the cricket pitch then the only roles that he will be playing would be that of the hero's highly expendable buddy who gets bumped of by the serial killer before u can even say "Hey that's Soura..."

My Great Idea:

Since Lady Luck refuses to smile upon him Jug Suraiyya should. And as he did with Bush's Dubyaman he should cast Ganguly as a comic super hero Gangu Lee who wins a World Cup Final for India against Pakistan. A match that Pakistan is winning very easily needing just 2 runs to win of the last six balls. And then Inzy comes into bat. And, you know, it's not actually Inzy but Ganguly in disguise. But let me not spoil the suspense for you by revealing the ending.

The comic series can be called 'Duck Tales'.

Did I mention that Gangu Lee has special powers that allow him to disappear in an instant especially from the batting crease.

PS: Just in case Gangu Lee becomes famous, remember you read it here first.

Unquote

"The early worm gets eaten by the bird."

Death comes to Baghdad

This is one of all time favourites from the surprise ending genre, the kind that O' Henry specialised in.
I first read this as 'Death Speaks' in Jeffrey Archer's 'To Cut a Long Story Short'. A little bit of Googling coughed up the information that there were many versions of this econcept over the centuries, but one of the earliest instances was in 'Tales of the Dervishes' by Idries Shah.

When Death Came to Baghdad

The disciple of a Sufi of Baghdad was sitting in the corner of an inn one day when he heard two figures talking. From what they said he realized that one of them was the Angel of Death.
"I have several calls to make in this city during the next three weeks," the Angel was saying to his companion.
Terrified, the disciple concealed himself until the two had left. Then applying his intelligence to the problem of how to cheat a possible call from death, he decided that if he kept away from Baghdad he should not be touched. From this reasoning it was but a short step to hiring the fastest horse available and spurring it night and day towards the distant town of Samarkand.
Meanwhile Death met the Sufi teacher and they talked about various people. "And where is your disciple so-and-so?" asked Death.
"He should be somewhere in this city, spending his time in contemplation, perhaps in a caravanserai," said the teacher.
"surprising," said the Angel; "because he is on my list. Yes, here it is: I have to collect him in four weeks' time at Samarkand, of all places."

A blogful of dollars

Have to keep writing more often if I have to turn this into a moneyspinning enterprise. The ads that you see on top are ads by Google. As part of Google's AdSense program you can sign up to this service and allow Google to display contextual ads on your webpages. You get paid for every time that a user clicks on the ads.

'Click' 'Click'. That's the new sound of dollars.

So? What are you waiting for? Go ahead and excercise your index finger a little and contribute to a noble cause.

"Millionaires have selective amnesia...", said someone,"...they forget those who did not contribute to their affluence".

Did i hear 'Click' 'Click'?