On the way to School

For this Ramadan, I had decided that each week I would go out for a late night movie. The first week I had watched How old are you?, that was with my wife and kids. Last weekend I watched Bangalore Days. This weekend I waited for the movies to change, but alas, it seems that owing to their huge popularity, last week’s movies would continue this week too. In hindi, there was Humpty Sharma ki dulhaniya, but I was not too keen on that.

This weekend, after a sumptuous Iftar Party hosted by my college alumni, I was back at home, watching a late night Bhojpuri movie on DD Bihar. A movie, in which an off duty soldier takes some sort of revenge on his paternal uncle, that’s when it struck me, that last year same time around I had watched another soldier movie, The bridge over the river kwai, a 1957, Word War II classic at the Museum of Islamic Arts theater.

I quickly lunged on to my phone to check out the DFI (Doha Film Institute) app, to see what they are screening right now. They normally screen some awesome movies, some of which are even free of charge or charged as low as QR.1! The app showed two screenings, one was Amazonia, the movie about a capuchin monkey, born in captivity and now lost in the Amazon forest after a plane crash, and the other, On the way to School, a movie about four kids from different parts of the world who overcome dangerous obstacles and long journeys to attend school. Very soon, and to my dismay, I found out that, these screenings were scheduled for 10^th and 12^th July, respectively, that is last week. “Shucks!” I said, “Another case of slow updating of the app”. Frankly, I would have rather skipped the losers’ final at football world cup and watched On the way to School. But Alas!

In the moments that followed, I was on google researching about On the way to School. Frankly, I could not find much, except that there is another Turkish movie by the same name, and that, the one I was looking for is probably made in French, so now I have to find a print with English subtitles. Anyways my research had to be abandoned half way as torrent is blocked in Qatar and I would have to wait until the weekday to access it through my corporate account at work. (Now you know what I do at work! ;-P ) I could wait, but not enough, I found the movie trailer on YouTube.

Sometimes, watching the trailer is enough. It tells you whether the movie is worth or not the trouble, and this one is definitely worth it. Definitely worth taking the torrent risk!

The movie is about Jackson, Zahira, Samuel and Carlito, four children who live in four corners of the globe, that is, Kenya, Morocco, India and Argentina respectively, and all share the same desire to learn. They have understood that only education will allow them to improve their lives, and it is for this reason that, each day, they set out on highly risky journeys, through extraordinary landscapes, on their quest for knowledge. The film observes as these kids, barely 10 to 12 years in age, along with their siblings, overcome often-dangerous obstacles and enormous distances over treacherous landscapes, wild animals and even bandits on their journey to the classroom.

Here’s the link: http://youtu.be/eIsQ0B43Q9Y

Just reading about their lives, and watching a mere 90 minute clip, I was reminded of my parents and their usual rant about going to school. Their stories about they used to walk long distances to reach to the only school in the vicinity, how they struggled with their midday meal, how they suffered for they didn’t have the right books and all the blah blah. I was also pushed to think how fortunate I was. I had a proper school, a proper school bus picking and dropping me back every day, and what a fuss we kids made about it, and how fortunate my kids are, they have air-conditioned busses plying them from their doorstep to their air-conditioned classrooms, digital screens in the classes, a library, gym, swimming pool, playgrounds, canteen and what not. They have lots more than I had and I had lots more than what my parents had. Things have really improved with time, I thought.

That night, I was about to retire for the day, and as the last task logged in to my Facebook page to check for any last updates, and there it was; a close friend had posted the news of a 6 year old girl raped by two gym instructors in an international school. With that, my whole night was spoilt.

The next day, that is today, as soon as I woke up, I was on the internet trying to find out what the incident was all about. The news was all over TV. I found out that this incident had happened on 2^nd July, and despite the parents of the child having lodged a complaint on 15^th, and despite the fact that yesterday the Police Chief was in the school to talk to the protesting parents, no arrest has yet been made. Absurd! Absurd that the school failed to own up and act against the teacher who locked this little kid in a room under the pretext that she was a badly behaved child. Absurd that the school failed to own up and hand over the perpetrators to police.

Absurd and funny, especially in the light of the fact that few months back a leading journalist had molested a female colleague in lift in Goa, and despite the girl having not registered a police complaint, the molester was arrested and lodged in jail. In the aftermath, the Managing Editor of a prominent magazine had to resign from her position. The police was fast, just because some political parties had the will to push them into it.

Whilst the perpetrators of this heinous crime against a hapless 6 yr old roam freely, the school says, they are not responsible, the parents have to go on protesting for days long, they have to carry out a rally through the city, and all this time we are waiting. Waiting for the school to own it up, waiting for the law enforcement to act. All this while a little girl has to go through two medical tests and explain things to the police and other officials as if she is the culprit. Shame!

I wonder what is going on in the heads of all those school kids right now. What they think about their school? Like Jackson, Zahira, Samuel and Carlito, do they believe that School is a place where they need to go to change their life for a better, or is school a scary place that their parents send them to every day so that they behave well on the weekends, or is it some shit place that they just have to go to.

Pushes me to think, are we really fortunate to have all these facilities, these big buildings, playgrounds, libraries, these vast facilities run by emotionless morons?

Shame! Shame on our political system, shame on our law enforcement. Shame on those parents that brought up those criminals. Shame on the school that recruited them. Shame on our society that does not have a filter mechanism to drain out these kinds of people from our system. Shame!

Coming for Lawn Tennis?

For the first time in my life, I woke up at 5:00AM on both days of the weekend. No, it was not to watch the third test at Perth.

After almost a month of lull, I and my tennis partner resumed our Lawn Tennis sessions. For over a month now, the Qatar Tennis Federation courts were out of bounds for us amateurs. Firstly because of the Arab Games and then the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. The good thing though, is that they have now redone the court flooring and have installed new benches, nets and a quiescent freezer in the new courts.

After two days and two hours of rigorous (at this age any activity other than which is done lying down is rigorous) tennis, I have realized two things:

• The fastest way to finish a game is by serving four straight aces.

• The second fastest is by serving eight faulty serves.

And here I am, proudly proclaiming that I and my partner can do both of them very effectively. Albeit our aces are not those fast and zippy ones that fly like a bullet and akin to what used to come out of Goran Ivanišević’s racquet. Our aces have a lazy flight and parabolic trajectory with its vertex high in the sky. The only reason why it becomes an ace is, because it ceases to bounce back with the same vigour. How could they? They are our balls. By the time they reach the other side of the court, there’s no vigour left at all!

Well, it’s not funny. Playing an hour of ultra-slow tennis can be very strenuous and demanding. For one, you have to look up straight in the sky (and sometimes straight into the sun, which can almost burn your eyes in this part of the world) and spot the ball among the birds and the many Qatar Airways aeroplanes.

It is just like trap shooting, but much more difficult. In trap shooting, you have to stand still in one position and shoot the target down. In this, one has put into use all known engineering ken. First estimate all the x, y, z’s whatever, then solve a complex parabolic equation, estimate the path and when all that’s done, walk slowly towards the impact point with your racquet held high. That’s not all. When all this is done, one has to estimate the bounce and the whole calculation exercise repeats.

I must’ve written my Engineering Maths exam three or four times before I cleared it, but frankly life was much easier then.

Well, it’s not these complex calculations that make our style of tennis so difficult; it’s the waiting. Imagine standing in middle of a tennis court with a racquet over your head, waiting an eon for the ball to drop. The worst however happens, when the ball lands right on top of my head and I am left with no option, but to whine “Opps! Wrong formulae! I should’ve taken my engineering subjects more seriously while in college”

And then, the pain turns excruciating when I’m reminded that I have paid an equivalent of Rs600/- per hour to play on this court, where just few days back the likes of Federer, Nadal and Tsonga practiced for free. For my partner, the rent (and pain) is almost double in his currency. He is from Pakistan.

All in all, this is a great way to work out, and I recommend all my ‘already forty’ and ‘soon to be forty’ year old friends to start playing this game. By the way, there are many advantages of playing ultra-slow tennis:

• You can actually see the ball! 

• Chances that you’ll get injured due to a speeding ball hitting you are tremendously low. 

• Your wife, who is equally slow in taking pictures can click you hitting (or trying to hit) a shot.

• The soles of your expensive branded tennis shoes will never wear out.

• No scampering around the court, so no chances of backaches or joint pain.

• You’ll hardly hit a shot or two, and so there’s no chance that you’ll get a tennis elbow.

• In an hour, you will hardly finish four games or so, and so there won’t be a winner/loser to declare. So no scope of disputes at all between you and your partner; although your countries may be one of the bitterest of enemies, you both end up staying friends forever!

• You can make yourself a ‘Players ID Card’ and use it to show off to your friends at work and the college alumni. Also point out to them that although you have a tummy (which makes you look like five months pregnant) you are actually very active and sports inclined. Who knows, like me you might end up getting at tennis racquet as a farewell gift.

So yeah, all of you are invited to join us in our quest to redefine Lawn Tennis. We play on weekends, (every Friday and Saturday) from 6:00AM to 7:00AM at the Khalifa Tennis Complex, Doha, Qatar.

And while you do, do bring your own tennis racquets. No need to bring your balls; that we have plenty!

☻

Thus began the foodie's trail.

Yesterday night’s sleep, induced by my very content belly left me snoring till late in the afternoon. Once I was awake and alive again, I headed straight to the Car Accessories shop owned by my very hardcore kozikodan mallu friend from Vadakkara (Yes, the same place that some of my friends from the North East of India would refer as Ba-Da-Ga-Da!).

Working part time in a Car Accessories shop brought it own benefits. For one, I got a brand new and free Steering Wheel Cover for my car; for some time I played BOSS, sitting inside the owner’s cabin, watching TV and then I learnt a few new words in Arabic. Well that’s what I got from the shop. The best part of yesterday’s evening was when we closed the shop at around midnight and headed to my friend’s home for dinner.

Dinner was served past 1AM the next day, but what a dinner it was! His wife had cooked some delicious Malabar dishes. For starters there was Kozhi Vada (Fried Chicken Pockets), and for the main course Naee Chor (Ghee Rice), Mutton Curry and Chicken 65.

  

Kozhi Vada

The Main Course

After the dinner, we were chatting, cracking jokes till around 4AM in the morning. Even their kids were awake. What a wonderful way to kill the weekend night; at least better than shaking booty with some unknown females in a five star disco.

As soon as I got back home I hit the bed; another day without my wife and yet a very content belly. Wow! I woke up late in the noon again and immediately lunged on to my kitchen experiments.

Today I had a very English brunch; it was Beef Cutlets and Scrambled Eggs with Black Tea, Earl Gray. I couldn’t make milk tea because ‘mera doodh fatt gaya’ or as my very gujju friend would say ‘my milk was torn’ (The milk turned sour/curdled)

The second weekend of 2011

For the last weekend (second one of 2011), we were at the Asian Cup 2011 FAN ZONE at Aspire Park.

http://www.the-afc.com/en/afcasiancup-fanzone/fanzone-aspire-park

As it is during this time of the year, the climate was awesome and the boys had a great time running around the park and playing football with other kids.

Both Kevin and Yohan got their face painted. Kevin who was still reeling under the effects of last weeks zoo visit, got a tiger done and Yohan got a ‘banini’ (spiderman). Again, for the nth time, the lady doing the face painting mistook Yohan for a girl and was proposing to paint a Butterfly or Barbie on his face!!

We had another one of our first time snack – the ‘Chips on Sticks’ from the Chipstix cart within the Fan Zone. It is a large potato cut into a spiral on a stick, deep fried and seasoned with herbs and masalas etc. Nice treat for the kids, which packs in a whopping 300+ calories.

Finally, we were at the Samsung – Fan Café, where I and Kevin took part in the ‘Cheer for your team’ contest, where we were asked to shout out a cheer for our team into a Samsung Galaxy Tab and we did it with a whopping 153 decibels screaming out ‘INDIAAAAAA’. The highest was 154 decibels. Anyways, our shout doesn’t seem to have done any wonders for the Indian team which was out after the pool matches losing all their games and a goal deficit of ten after three matches.

The shouting exercise took me back to those first two 'Maro Ree' years at CREC. India's exploits at the field let me conclude that "The Indian team in the Asian Cup is only as good as the Bloody Vampires or the CNC in any of the Monsoon Cup Tournaments at CREC".

The first weekend of 2011.

Took my ‘in lieu’ New Years Day holiday on 6th Jan and made my first weekend for 2011 a long one. And what a weekend it was! To begin with, I procrastinated my ‘regimen resolution’ and then took the boys outdoors, where they had a great time.

The ‘regimen resolution’ breakers, all of which we tried for the first time were:

• A late (North Indian) lunch at the Taj Palace next to the Mannai Roundabout, which was just okay;
• Cone pizzas and Pasta from a Hands Pizza Cart at Dream Park inside the Doha Zoo, which were good: and finally,
• A dinner comprising of one of the best platters of assorted Kebabs and Barbecued Ribs that I have ever had in my life from the Take Away Restaurant at Al Sadd. They have great tasting Kebabs and even greater tasting sauce along with it. A must have. 

On Thursday evening, we were lazing on our 'one of those usual' boat rides at the Doha Corniche with some peppy Hindi music playing on the stereo when we got this wonderful surprise. We were thrown right into the mouth of one of the best fireworks shows launched from the little Palm Tree Island. At one point of time, the pyrotechnics was right above our boat and the Coast Guard had to come by to shoo-shoo us away. The show was great. Yohan, who usually is very animated on a boat ride was awestruck and Kevin eventually got possessed by some wild energy and was seen making weird parikramas in the boat. Each one of us except for our two year old Yo, who was taken agape enjoyed it, thoroughly.

Although Yohan didn’t enjoy the fire crackers, he had a field day when we took the boys to the Doha Zoo the next day. The temperature outside was just around 20 °C and what a day it was for outdoors. Yohan was running around helter-skelter throughtout the Zoo screaming "Zebaa", "Giaff", "Mukky" in his sweet kiddy language and Kevin on other hand had two firsts; he posed with a snake and took his first ever solo paddle boat ride (albeit it was in a 2x2 pool!) . All in all, another good outdoors for the boys.


The last point worth mentioning is the lady's achievement. She posed with an Ostrich.

:-)

It's my birthday....

It’s the 31st of December and all my friends must be eagerly waiting for the sun to set, so that they can go on with their plans for their New Year’s Party. For me, like every other year this day is a hectic day. Primarily because it is my birthday today and I have to be awake very early to respond to all the phone calls from my friends and relatives.

My sons, Kevin and Yohan made great birthday cards for me and my wife, Tara just put a bang into the day and transported me back to my good old Mumbai days by serving me maska-pav and chai for breakfast. For lunch she plans to take me to my other favourite destination – Kozikkode with her Malabar Chicken Biryani. And to top it all, I’ll be cutting a Home Baked Strawberry Cheese Cake on this 38th birthday. In the evening we are heading to my friend Rinesh’s place for our usual ‘drink and get fit’ party that will go on till beyond midnight and after many days I will have the pleasure of snoring away in the passenger seat as Tara drives a very fit man back home.

So, all my friends who are busy, can go on with their chores and those who are just waiting for the sun to set and looking out desperately for something to kill their time can go on to my next blog post and have a relaxed read. I was inspired to write this after Girish R asked for our similar experiences on his Facebook note ‘My First Day in CREC’. Whilst most of it is facts, I have woven in streaks of fiction to make my otherwise boring life story interesting as also to avoid any legal comebacks, I have changed the names of some old friends who now are not part of my life… so, read responsibly and enjoy.

It’s my birthday!!