Fair play

Every sport of note is out there to reward anyone or any team who lives up to the "spirit" of the game whatever indecipherable or undefinable quantity that is. Cheating during a game euphemestically called "gamesmanship" is so popular a tool nowadays that players actually have to be rewarded for not cheating. The Cristiano Ronaldos and the Michael Clarkes of the world thrive on this "gamesmanship" or "Win by hook or by crook" philosophy of modern sport. Second place is not worth a penny these days. The "Fair Play" award is apparently for losers who haven't got enough drive to win.

This in my opinion really sucks! Sports is the only arena where one can be blindly partisan to a club or a player without needing a flimsy basis for being so. It's also the arena where the natural competitiveness of humans as a species can be expended in a positive direction and bears witness to breathtaking David versus Goliath encounters. The whole charm of the face-off would wear thin if David were on steroids or if he launched a sneak attack on the sleeping Goliath in contradiction to the rules of fair combat. Rules are what make the playing and watching of sport such an intense and involving experience. It's human nature to try to sneak past a rule or two when no one is watching but it only means that the authorities need to keep a sharper eye out for misdemeanours and definitely coaching in "gamesmanship" as is common nowadays should be a no-no. There is nothing better on earth to watch than the grit and fierce passions on a playing field but everyone should tip their hats to the rules. I mean, what's next? Roughing up a key player in the opposing team pre-match or even hiring a hitman to take out a rival team's star - if all is fair in chasing victory where do we draw the line?

Necessary evil

During the course of my current obsession with the "Mafia Wars" game on Facebook, I came to a sad realization. We need evil, no matter whatever wishes we might express of living in an utopian peace loving world. Without organized crime, or bloody wars sparked off by childish opponents how bland and colourless our stories would be. If politicians started turning honest and laws actually started applying equally to us all, where would all our inspirational tales of fighting the system and its odds be? Can you imagine how boring an honest cop movie would be if the only thing he was up against were the bad guys outside the police force? A mystery movie without murder and illicit passion in it is a thing unimaginable. For the sake of worthwhile art, evil has to linger on a little while longer. Once my time on earth is done, folks can get back to this cleansing the earth of all evil business of theirs again.

Time warp

By the standards of what they show on TV on the likes of Discovery and NGC, this ranks somewhere in the danger region of a walk in the park. 17 miles of the Saco river in Maine were canoed in an highly inefficient S-shaped path by my novice oar. We could hear the traffic buzz by on occasions that the highway got close to the water's edge. True it was a forest, but it was a largely bear free zone of Maine and hopes of seeing a moose remained exactly that: hopes. Given the hard time that the fidayeen squads of mosquitoes gave us, we didn't have any time to take stock of any more wildlife anyways.

However there is something to be appreciated about leaving your wallet behind because all your plastic is useless and junking your cell-phone inside the dashboard because there is no signal on the river. The reality was that we were within 15 minutes distance of ready help in case something went awry yet it was very much an adventure for my delicate, urbanized soft bones. The bobbing canoe demanded attention to balance not normally necessitated on my ergonomic office chair. The cool dark green waters that my tipsy transport glided through were a welcome change from the gray carpeting that runs in between the gray cubicle walls where I normally wander and conduct my daily business. Without the benefit of a wrist watch, every minute of the day in the canoe is accounted for: minutes spent in the sometimes searing sometimes soothing sun, minutes relished in the rare shadows of riverside foliage, minutes invested in fighting off mosquitoes once they discovered new victims stumbling into their shadowy domains and minutes expended in never-ending hope that we had finally reached the end point of our self inflicted physical exertions. It's a way of life, this tendency to tangle with nature which has been with us since time eternal, since the day we as a species started exploring the world beyond the domains of familiarity and comfort. Yet we have become so isolated in our cocoons that even a little slit filtering light into our protected little world is blinding and an invitation to take that first shaky step out into the big bright world waiting to be discovered. I hope I have taken mine.

Overhaulin'

Though I never watched it on a regular basis, I've always loved the show "Overhaulin'" on Discovery Travel & Living. Folks walk into their garage to find their ramshackle old ride missing and a week later are greeted with the slickest machine possible, their old friend in a shiny new avatar. The guys at the Overhaulin' workshop do an incredible job of sprucing up the old pieces of junk, painstakingly reviewing designs, colours and configurations. It's almost theraueptic watching the guys go about their job welding beautifully sculpted body panels into place, bolt in spanking new interiors and re-paint the car in ravishing shades making a drop-dead gorgeous ride out of the nearly discarded wreck. No wonder the owner is so thrilled when his re-furbished car is returned to him at the end of the show. The surprise unlike on other reality shows does not need to be faked.

One thing which strikes me as odd is that when an inanimate object like a car is given a second chance at life, a return to its glory days, the act seems so noble. Yet when transferring the same kind of overhaulin' to a human being, the act reeks of desperation and the failure to accept reality. Going under the plastic surgeon's knife to maintain youthful features more often than causes the subject to attain a plasticized beauty that is so evident that it is almost grotesque. The inherent dignity in growing old and acknowledging it gracefully is lost in this quest for perfection. So mid-life crisis hit people should refrain from drinking of the fountain of youth as it detracts from their poise but their cars are always welcome to do so. I wonder how that logic works? Is human beauty beauty only because it is temporary?

Violent red

Someone in Chattisgarh is real angry - angry enough to kill 30 policemen and an IPS officer by ambushing them in the middle of the forest. They are not fighting for any religion or on behalf of any country. They are fighting the system which they believe to be against their development, against every symbol of the government - its officers, its infrastructure and its rules. Who are these people? Are they insane or do they have reasons to be that desperate? Hundreds of policemen and government functionaries are being murdered in this futile pursuit of an alternate 'people's' rule. It would have been almost funny had it not been for so many deaths, how thousands of uneducated, irredeemably poor people around the nation have fallen prey to this madness called the Naxalite movement who dream of giving birth to a new nation. Driven by the inefficiency and corruption of the government machinery that was put into place to help these people out of their misery, for many of them a revolution brought by the barrel of a gun offers them that only slim chance that their lives will take a turn for the better.

We may always not think of it that way but it is we the privileged educated urbanites who are the focus of their hatred - the spoilt "haves" to their barely surviving "have nots". Even our most basic necessities would seem like the most unnecessary luxuries to these people who have no idea where their next meal might be coming from, if at all. Is there nothing we can do to understand and mitigate the tremendous gap between our lifestyle and theirs? Is there no way to reduce the bitterness that has pervaded the lives of so many of our countrymen. It seems obvious that we are not in any way responsible for their plight, correspondingly it is not our duty to relieve them from it. But can anyone in his right mind ever claim to be that innocent and free of blame? There is a fire raging in our backyard. Can we stay home, pull down the shades and watch TV?

Tuesday hazards

Tuesday is the weekly trash collection day for our neighbourhood and residents leave the orange Taunton city council 'approved' trash bags on the street in front of their houses. It wouldn't have meant too much to me if I wasn't prompted by rather cruel comments on social networking sites about the insignificant kilos I have put on to take up running. On Tuesday mornings, I find myself the focus of unwanted attention from all the residents of the 'hood who are really protective of what is the gold and diamonds of their household - the pet dogs and their trash.

Initially it was only the tiny Skye terrier next door who voiced his disapproval of my trying to steal his trash even though I tried to explain to him to the best of my ability that I had no such intention. But he remains thoroughly convinced otherwise and comes tumbling down the stairs of his house to stand guard next to his precious pile of vegetable cuttings and milk containers and chase me as far as his little legs could keep up. As the weeks go by, I discover new security agents. A Dobermann here, a pit bull there, a furry white ball of undistinguishable breed in the house at the end of the street - all bay, woof or growl their warnings as I huff and pant by.

I am really very fond of dogs but I find it rather discomforting when one of them suddenly pelts out of the house compound and escorts me till I am out of the visible range of their home steads. Every Tuesday I begin my run with a prayer that these are dogs whose bark is worse than their bite. Haven't ever been bitten by a dog yet, and I hope that in this case the adage "There is always a first time" doesn't hold true. If it does hold true though I'd prefer the furry white thing over the Dobermann anyday.

Poor little piggy

On the Reuters website, there is an Oddly Enough section reserved for off-beat news stories and for want of more interesting stories they've been running this story for nearly 2 weeks now. It may not dictate the future of world politics but it sure is amusing.

Kabul Zoo has a single pig on exhibit, a gift from China it seems. "Khanzir" is his name, Pashto for pig. A pig is a rare sight in Muslim countries as consumption of pig meat is forbidden in Islam. According to Islam, a pig is the most dirtiest of God's creatures and even though the poor fellow is imprisoned for public viewing, visitors to the zoo turn their faces away from the enclosure of this most 'haraam' of animals. To top all of this, the zoo authorities put the creature away into a small cell for 2 months as protection for visitors against swine flu before someone finally told the authorities that it was a human-to-human transmitted disease and not in any way to be contracted from a pig! And the pig being a pig survived all this mistreatment and oinked his way back to his cage when he was released as if those past couple of months were nothing at all. His return was via an enthusiastic run through a crowd of unsuspecting zoo visitors who didn't take too kindly to being ambushed by a homesick pig. Whether folks wanted to look at him or not, Khanzir was back in his domain grunting and groaning his way through mud and slush, living life piggy style.

Check out the story at: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE5654HY20090706