Noggyisms

777  - Total number of passes that Barcelona made in the final, more than double Manchester United's 357. Barca had 69% of overall ball possession. 148  - Passes that Spanish midfielder Xavi completed during the game, a high for the Champions League this season. He misplaced only seven, giving him a completion rate of 95%. 90  - Percentage of passes completed by the Barcelona team. United's was 80%. 60  - Passes between Xavi and Andres Iniesta, the most common pass journey on the pitch. United's most frequent combination was between defender Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic (16). 55  - Number of times Xavi and Iniesta passed to Messi. 18  - Passes made by Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes - two more than Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez. 16  - Times United fouled Barcelona's players. Barcelona did likewise to their opponents on only five occasions. 15  - Dribbles by Messi, of which 10 were successful. Wayne Rooney was the next most frequent...

The Magician conjured up another performance and this was the reward Yep, the picture above says it all. ManU and Rooney threatened at the beginning only to remain the promise that they are. Barcelona and Messi played football, displayed magic and danced away into the night holding the cup. But let's rewind - 12 hours! 15:00 hours - Wanna sleep, girl wants to get stuff. Use non appearance of maid as excuse and get shut eye . Maid comes and goes, excuse runs out. Haul myself off bed, have a bath, appear presentable and move out of house. 17:30 hours - Girl getting stuff, dutifully driving her around, no parking though. Drive into one of the numerous small lanes, park in a corner, tilt seat fully backwards, grab shut eye ! P.S. shut eye is very important since there is a big match during the night and of late I have been needing to sleep so that I can stay awake. I think it's the ageing process. Not sure though. 19:20 hours - remember Big Moose and Ocean are coming ...

So its Man U and Barcelona in the finals. Supposed to be the best 2 teams in the world today. The footballing pundits are also claiming it to be the match between Rooney and Messi although personally I think that was decided long time ago. Rooney was destined to be the boy wonder who failed to get past his attempt at glory being caught up in whores, scandals, transfer controversies and pretty much everything but football. Messi, during the same time, surpassed the tag to become "Wonder" without pretty much any controversy whatsoever except certain comparisons to greatness, God and certain other illusions! Well who will win today? I am not sure, but I hope it is not ManU. While Barcelona is not my favorite footballing team (that credit goes to Chelsea, although of late I have been doubting my allegiance), I positively abhor ManU. Something about Fergie and the whole we are the world attitude makes me detest the whole bunch! (Same reason I hate Apple too!). Next update s...

... and I already know I have a hectic weekend coming up. There is a play to watch at RS, maybe 2. There is the Man U - Barca match early on Sunday morning. There are also a couple of friends to meet, one from a not so distant city and one from a much further one. And in between all that there is the little matter of calling up a couple of more friends whose calls I have missed during the week. And yeah, the car thing! Right! To making sure all is done in those 48 hours.

When Sai Baba (of the Afro hair do fame) died, his trust was worth $10B ( Forbes ). Now, that is really a cool amount of money to have. Many have regarded him as God, many more have called him a fake! People no less than a former Chief Justice of India has said SSB has divinely guided him in his judgments! OHH! WHEW! Good, I didn't have any cases before a judge who looks at divine guidance rather than being guided by the law. Being an atheist, I have the highest disregard for godmen of all kind, be it SSB or the SSRS (of Art of Living fame). But what I am more interested in, is the wealth that these institutions have at their disposal. Wikipedia  says that the US chapter of AOL has $7.7M net assets. Take the other international chapters including the huge India one and you have another billion dollar enterprise. Ramdev is another case in point. That chap along with his bunch of blowing the nose followers even own a Scottish isle worth ~£2M. The claims of such self profess...

Last week, history was made and enough has been written about it. Jayalalitha swept the polls in Tamil Nadu and Mamta Banerjee consigned the Communists to not having a government in any single state in India for the first time in 30 odd years. And when the two of them take over as CMs, we would have 4 women CMs in India viz. Jayalalitha (Amma), Mamta (Didi), Mayawati and Shiela (of Delhi/CWG fame and not jawaani). Good for the country, more power to the women! But in all this change, is there really any "poriborton" the word that Mamta made famous (means change in Bengali). Today, TOI ran an article about how 35% MLAs in Bengal and 27% in TN are history sheeters. ( ToI article ). But then this article is not about corruption and/or criminals in politics. The people have voted and since I have not been part of the voting populace, I don't want to sit and write about what could have been, should have been or would have been if things were otherwise. Ofcourse I have my o...

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2071241,00.html Read this yesterday and again the same feelings of injustice crept into my mind. Here was a man who was captured by the Germans from the Red Army and sent to be a guard. He did his duties as a guard which included being the guard of a concentration camp. The prosecution followed the line of "he could have deserted when he knew the extent of the entire inhuman crime that was going on inside the camp." Now at no point of time am I condoning the excesses of Nazis. But does a guard have to be tried as a criminal? Would he not prefer to be a guard rather than deserting and being caught and sent to the same camps because of deserting? Would be not prefer to be a guard rather than be a prisoner of war? As I type these words, I wonder what would I have done in case I was the one in his shoes? I do not know! I cannot state with the utmost certainty that I would have run away and put my life in danger. But what I wou...

Growing up in 1980s and 1990s Calcutta (not Kolkata), I felt that Tagore was omnipresent. Yes, he had been dead for over forty years, but a visitor would think he was either a pop star or a politician in West Bengal. The main reason for Tagore’s omnipresence was that he expressed the core ideology of the ruling party. The CPM leaders were not Marxists, they were Tagoreans: elites confident of their ability to express the wishes of the masses and control them. Moreover, Tagorism was guaranteed international respectability (guaranteed by a Swedish medal), which Subhas Bose with his uncomfortable Nazi connections lacked. Tagore’s greatest propaganda medium was the Bengali programs on Doordarshan. There were music programs dedicated to Rabindra-sangeet where middle aged women and men howled with harmoniums in a language so formal and stilted that it would make Bach’s church music seem lively. Then, there were the Rabindra-nritya interludes in which slightly overweight Bengali women ...

This started off as a reply to a friend of mine who is doing his Phd in political sciences. He had written a very well researched article on Rabindranath Tagore. Now I had not much informed information about Tagore being indifferent to his various works and knowing him more as a painting which showed a man in a flowing robe and long white beard! Must confess was fascinated by the beard. Anyway on to the letter, my friend did touch upon the elections in Bengal and hence this reply. Dude, nice write up. I can't comment on Tagore. Inspite of growing up in Cal, I was somehow not exposed enough to his writings. I did see the odd Ghare Baire but again not read enough to make an informed opinion on him/his writings. The "Didi" culture, however, is a different ball game. Even though everyone calls this the year when change happens and when Bengal shall awaken to a new era, I believe it started some time back. It started with Operation Sunshine, Mamta being bitten and Jyoti Ba...

Saw the above titled movie yesterday. Based on the famous Nuremberg trials, the movie follows the case as it starts off and till it ends with the sentencing of the Nazi judges (life imprisonment).  My initial reaction to the movie was - this was unfair. These were (well some of them) people who held the offices on the basis of their capabilities not on the basis of the political affiliations. They had no choice but to continue in that office. Well technically they had a choice but if the other choice was death, imprisonment or social ostracizing, then it is not much of a choice is it. On closer thought, however, I realized this was not very different from present day Al-Qaeda. A bunch of people who were guilty of perpetrating unimaginable crimes on humanity. Now, the thought process changed. I guess it has to do with living the horror albeit second hand (through the medium of television and the internet) and  reading about it in books o...

As I wrote the previous post, I paused to look out of the balcony. There is Mercedes with the Emirates tag waiting to pick someone up. Nice - I want to be able to do that too I think. There is a lady standing on the balcony of the 10th floor talking to her maid who is roaming the ground floor with her friends. "Kitne baje aaogi?" she asks. "Abhi aa rahi hoon," says the maid. SO much for phones! Lady still standing on the balcony. Maid makes some comment amongst her friends circle. They chuckle. One or two, dart a quick look up to see if the lady is still there. One picture perfect family (husband, wife, 2 kids) walk out all dressed up. Must be going to attend some family function, lots of kids shouting, screaming and playing around. Summer holidays -aarrghh why can't we have it at work? Sundry people strolling around - what is it that they do? Various people in that one frame captured in my mind. Interesting.

So Osama Bin Laden or OBL as the Twitteratti seems to refer to him is blasted into his little heaven or hell. Obama is strutting around like a peacock in all glory assuring himself of term 2. Conspiracy theorists are on about OBL not dead, it was Pakistan that actually tipped off the US, No2 in Al-Qaeda (some Wahiri chap or some such name) tipped off the US so that he could be No1, US had actually killed OBL a long time ago, this was just hogwash, why no pictures, why buried at sea and on and on. So after all this here are the facts. The US sent in a team of trained, navy seals, into another country, killed someone in a house, took off from there with the body and returned while good ol' Pak was left wondering, "what the fuck?" or some such equivalent. Wow. Quite an achievement I would say. India has jumped onto the bandwagon and said, "See see, I said so." Now they are trying the little kid who wants lollipop line. "My killers are also there, can I als...

Nice Friday mid morning. I have taken the day off, purportedly to get the old car evaluated while the new car needs to come in. But in reality, so that I can take some time off from the chaos that has come come to define everyday. A day to pause, think, breathe and then 'start off again!' Of course last night I came to know that I don't have the luxury of the entire day off and there is a call to be attended to but the very fact that I don't need to up and go and pretend I am saving the world or actually save my ass. So the neglected blog will be tended to, the pictures on the wall updated, car stuff done of course, books read and music listened to, print cartridge replaced, frames to be put up on wall - oh it seems a long day already. Maybe I should catch some shut eye before the day sets in. :) Blog posts - one on Obama and Osama due, Royal Muddle has been forgotten and consigned to the dustbin of the mind, IPL sarcasm is just so "meh" and I am hungry!...

Millions of people had nothing better to do day before than watch 2 grown ups get married. As is by now customary, all news channels covered it with detailed insights about the bride's dress and whether mom-in-law was prettier. Pictures of people packed like the Bombay local trains were splashed all across as man and woman came through a nice, wide, empty road waving to the "aam aadmi"! Now I have no clue about why people watched it. I am sure most had reasons other than "I have nothing better to do!" Lost train of thought due to myriad interruptions on a Sunday morning! Hate it ... will be back