A season for celebrations

Much water has flowed under the bridge since my last post… amongst other things, we won the world cup! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Though it has been a month already, I want to blog about it here for posterity – to help me remember that wonderful day when I became a part of the generation that witnessed history in the making! Even as I was complaining in my last post that the team’s performance isn’t living up to all the hype &  hoopla and that I’m becoming disinterested, believe me – it only took one match for me to get back on track 😀 The quarterfinal match against the Aussies and the way we won it was brilliant and then there was the biggie – the semifinal against Pakistan. That was a cracker too and before we knew it, we were in the finals and our opponents would be the mighty Sri Lankans, who can never be taken for granted! All I could remember then was the 1996 fiasco at the Eden Gardens – the image of Kambli crying in the middle as people threw stones and bottles onto the ground is etched in my memory. Several members in the team too were carrying ghosts from the past – the loss in the 2003 finals and the dismal performance in the 2007 world cup, to be scuttled out in the initial rounds after their loss to Bangladesh. Many had a point to prove and it was Sachin’s last shot at being part of a world cup winning team.

And boy! Did we do it in style?! To be frank, my heart sank when we lost Sachin and Sehwag quickly; the way they were going all guns blazing, I was sure we’d win if they’d just continued to play like that till about mid-way. Just then, they fell one after the other and I didn’t fancy our chances, even though Yuvraj was in good form. But then the skipper chose to rise to the occasion and he did it with such panache! He was brilliantly supported by Gautam Gambhir at the other end (who was plain stupid to have missed out on his ton! aarrgh!) and then Suresh Raina. If you ask me, the key to our turn-around in this world cup has been Suresh Raina, the moment he came back in the middle order, the team looked totally different, he played crucial knocks in all the important matches and built brilliant partnerships just when the hour demanded it.

Finally, that look on Dhoni’s face as he scored the winning runs off a six said it all and that’s gonna remain in my memory for a long long time. That and several other scenes of jubilation – Yuvraj sobbing, the glow of pure bliss on Sachin’s face, Kohli’s words about carrying Sachin on his shoulders – ‘he’s carried the dreams of a billion people for 21 odd years, it’s high time that we take the weight of his shoulders’ or something to that effect… stuff that only dreams are made of.

When I talk of dreams, it’s also been a year since I wrote this mushy post (hmm…I wonder now, must’ve been them, the harmones! :P) – so it means it’s time to hi-five! Five years of being married, phew! On the day, we spent some time trying to recollect how we’d spent the day on each of the past years – or rather I bullied the husband into recollecting. Or it would be more apt to say that I recollected while he hmm-ed and haa-ed… what is it with men and their memories eh? I detailed out all of them, except the second anniversary which I for some unknown reason can’t recollect a minute-of and the husband insists it was when I bought my favourite necklace at CKC (trust him to remember such things eh? ;-)) This year of married life has been special, with the little munchkin entering our lives and seeking out all our attention and love. So much so, that there is no moment or event that can be recollected as being complete without him being a part of it 🙂

Speaking of him, he’s as mischievous and as sprightly as ever – racing across the floor in a flash, sometimes with such gusto and so many squeals that I get scared he’ll hurt himself! He pulls himself up into a standing pose at every given opportunity and wants to walk. He’s already negotiating the steps of the staircase with such ease and glee that it’s an absolute delight to watch him – I’m tempted to stand back and look on, even as I should be behind him protecting him from a possible fall. He’s babbling various sounds – started off with attha and akka… and now says baa baa, taa taa, maa maa and many more in his lovely baby tongue that is pure music to my ears 🙂 He’s also become a lot more clingy in terms of wanting me to carry him all the time when I’m around – he’s fine playing by himself, but the moment he sees me, he has to come to me.

Sometimes as he plays with his toys/ cups and is sitting on his knees with his feet tucked behind him and his back to me, I look down and watch the little head bobbing from side to side with his silky hair spread across the smooth nape and the cute little shoulders supporting the even cuter antics of his baby hands and am filled with such an ache that I wanna just grab him and hold him tight and smother him with hugs and kisses… doesn’t make sense, does it? Well, you gotta make allowances for a mother’s gushing… 🙂

some Olympic trivia

After Abhinav Bindra’s gold in the air rifle shooting event a couple of days ago – India’s first ever gold at the Olympics in any individual event, yesterday was cause for double joy. While Sushil Kumar won the bronze in the 66 kg freestyle wrestling event, news also trickled in about Vijender Kumar’s win in his quarter-final boxing bout against Carlos Gongora of Ecuador, thereby assuring him and the country of another medal. While it was an occasion for much celebration, on second thoughts, one and one’s kin wondered about the “assurance” bit a bit.

Looking at it from a layman’s perspective this is what it translates to –
Vijender won the quarterfinal and would meet the winner from another Q/F in the semi-finals. Assuming that he wins that bout too – it’s fairly simple to fathom that he would move on into the finals and thus would be assured of the gold or silver. But God forbid… if he loses, then what? – the sliver of doubt lingered on in our minds. Would he then fight the loser of the 2nd semi-final? If yes, he still wouldn’t be assured of a medal unless he wins that too, isn’t it? – that’s how the train of thought chugged along slowly.

That was when I decided to take matters into Google’s hands and dig for some light at the end of the tunnel. Surprisingly it wasn’t as straight-forward as I thought – had to do quite a bit of digging before I found this. I then also chanced upon this answer to a similar question raised by another confused soul on the Yahoo Answers forum – one has got to thank this guy for coming up with a simple explanation. This is what he has to say –

In Boxing & Wrestling 2 bronze medals are awarded to the competitors i.e. the final tally reads: 1 Gold, 1 Silver & 2 Bronze.

* Vijender Kumar will definitely get a bronze medal b’coz he has won the Q/F match & will fight in the S/F. The 2 losing semi-finalists will each get bronze medals & the winners will fight for the gold & silver.

* Sushil Kumar got qualified for the bronze-medal-match by winning through repechage rounds. Repechage meaning “to rescue” or “to save”, is a practice amongst ladder competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round.
So, he qualified by winning amongst the losers in the earlier rounds along with another wrestler qualifying for the same. Now there were 2 winners among the losers & they fought with the 2 losers of the semi-finals. The 2 winners from these S/F matches got the 2 bronze medals. The loser against Sushil Kumar i.e. Leonid Spiridonov (KAZ) will not get the bronze medal.

Isn’t that a fascinating bit of trivia? Now one can go back to celebrating India’s assured medal, without any lingering doubts. As an aside, here’s another interesting bit I found on the Wikipedia

“Boxing has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since its introduction to the program at the 1904 Summer Olympics, except for the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, because Swedish law banned the sport at the time.

The 2008 Summer Olympics will be the final games with boxing as a male only event. Beginning with the 2012 Summer Olympics, women’s boxing will be included in the programme”

Three cheers to the women’s lib movement! 🙂

Yeah, that’s right, we’re crazy!

Yesterday was truly remarkable – not because India won a cricket tournament (I agree, that has been a rare occurrence in recent times…); not because it was a resurgent young Indian team sans all the stars and pillars and what-nots (there have been such false starts in the past as well); not because we literally steam-rolled all opposition throughout our journey to the finals (of course, it did help that we batted first on every single occasion); also not because it was another thrilling India-Pakistan encounter with a nail-biting finish, as every single one of them are… it was remarkable for me, because thousands of miles away, in a foreign country, I was watching the exciting match, in all but a tiny slot of the mosaic pattern of channels on the TV screen (the subscription rates for cricket channels in this country are incredible!), the commentary on at full volume, jumping up and down, shouting and cheering at every wicket, with a bunch of equally cricket-crazy roomies and neighbors.

When I think back, it was a wonderful feeling, we were in the throes of agony when Bhajji and Sreesanth got thrashed for sixers and the match-equation changed drastically. And we were ecstatic when Misbah played that last atrocious shot which Sreesanth held on to and India finally won. It was a much repeated story, we’d lost the initial advantage and looked like we’d go down once again as it happens so often with Indo-Pak crunch matches. If Misbah had pulled that one off, the story would’ve been different. But the bottom-line is, we won. It almost seemed like India was destined to win this one, looking at their performance from the beginning 🙂

To top it all, today in office, the Indian guys amongst the employees here at the client location, had gotten a cake (complete with the Indian flag too!) and there was a small celebration. It was the first ever time all the Indians in the office here – irrespective of them being employees or consultants, had got together to celebrate for a common cause. As someone aptly said, cricket is not a sport; it’s a religion. It binds us all together, no matter where and what soil we are on! 🙂

Way to go, guys! keep it coming! 😀