Since childhood, Sapota was watching Republic day parade on Telly except for when we have republic day celebrations in school and Sapota was among the participants. Sapota wondered how would it be to watch that thing live. Sapota somehow managed to get tickets for republic day parade last year. So this blog is more than a year late, but as always, Sapota can certainly come up with shitty reasons, but this time its just plain laziness.
Anyway, so we reached there on time, and it was early morning 6:40, bloody cold, and swarms of people coming to see the thing live. But still the turn out was low, because of terrorist threat and all that. Sapota just have one argument against that, If we are not safe at Janpath, we are not safe anywhere! Folks your houses are no fucking fortresses, get the fuck out of them to visit something worthy.
See Sapota had no overwhelming feeling of Patriotism or something. The reason is that there is literally nothing patriotic about singing patriotic songs, watching so called patriotic movies or for that matter watching parade at Janpath. Sapota wanted to see it how good our troops look when in they march in unison. All nations are equally good, so what is all that chauvinism about? Yes, Chauvinism and patriotism are two different things, but people fail to draw the line. Anyway, sorry for the gyan, but Sapota made his point clear.
So Sapota and his friend model settled on this uberchilly filthy metal bench and started discussing the program schedule for the day. So finally the Hon'ble chief guest Her Excellency the president of Democratic republic of India Mrs Prithbha Patil arrived in a black Merc limousine, waving to everyone. Following her were Guards of the president on camel. The funny thing was, there were folks, who were collecting camel dump, running just behind the camel troupe. The announcers(English and Hindi) were very typical Doordarshan style, which I prefer over anchors from private channels. So as Mrs President took her seat, the show begun. The first one to appear were Para commandos, they were on double march. Its most beautiful coordinated march I have ever witnessed in my life, they were all singing and they were fully armed with bag packs and Short machine guns. Movement of each and every foot and every elbow were in microsecond precision. Following them were Maratha regiment, they were equally good, except for the fact that they were on normal march and their uniforms were pristinely creased. Next to them were Rajputs, bloody tall and with moustaches that can make a lion pee in his pants(err lions don't wear pants).
Next there were many other marches from many units of Defence forces right from Navy to arti to Radars and what not. Then they displayed few missiles, not able to recall correctly, but it was agnee or prithvi(probably a replica). Then there were many other security forces like BSF and Delhi police and Delhi fire service. Interesting thing was seeing CRPF march, they were all tall and well built dudes with striking uniform with white boots and turban with butterfly like top yellow coloured, their march with clockwork precision was spectacular. Later the NCC cadets follow, they were playing "we shall overcome", given the fact, that they are just students, they were very good.
Most funny thing were exhibition from state. Some of them seem half hearted efforts, some of them totally disoriented. Sapota totally fail to understand if they have even made some progress to showcase. MP state's forest exhibition was totally a dumb idea, with no thoughts whatsoever.
Anyway, there were lot of school children singing and dancing, they were cute and well coordinated for their age. Sapota can't now recall the name of school or the dance they performed(see this is the disadvantage of being old).
Last portion was seeing signal guys coming on motorcycle. They are called motorcycle daredevils. Sapota have seen them in past, but seeing them live is another experience all together, these guys just steal the show. They are so well coordinated and all stunts are effortlessly performed. And all of them were of Royal enfield: army version.
Last part of the ceremony was seeing air to air fueling, which was invisible to sapota, as it was way too high in sky. Later, fighter plane soared in sky, one of them was quite low. The ceremony ended after Mrs President left in her limo.
This one was not particularly all that grand due to bomb threats and low turn out, but experience was fantastic. By this time we were too hungry, so we headed to breakfast at model's house.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
an emotional affair
Before starting, Sapota admits his technical ignorance as far as game of football goes. But in recent times, sapota has been following football madly and gaining some more insight in order to appreciate the beauty of game.
So before last Euro cup, sapota randomly picked up Spain, one reason is that sapota loves spanish language and culture and as you can see, this blog is themed in noobish spanish style. So Sapota has been supporting Espana for 3 years now. Raul was one of the yesteryears star sapota always liked, mostly because he was biggest name in Real and a very prolific forward. While sapota started supporting Espana randomly, they got lucky and won Euro. while sitting between 4 people, who were supporting Deutsch, holding a catalonian flag was difficult, but sapota is an obstinate bustard and he prevailed.
Since sapota was not having TV, he lived on Fifa.com for all the info. For this season of UEFA championship, sapota followed bayern very seriously. Bayern defeated ManU and Juventus and Bordeux to finally fight internationale in final. They lost but given their state of affairs, it was an acceptable defeat. Half of my team(yeah bayern) have player which belong to either Deutsheland or The Netherlands. Now supporting spain against these favourite ones was difficult task. Seeing your boy Swansteiger getting dejected after a loss is too much.
So the very first match sapota glued himself was espana vs swiss. The swiss defeated espana. Sapotas heart sank in fear and sadness for many days without loosing his cool. Sapota stopped watching matches. While Brasil, Argentina, The netherlands and germany were sailing easy, Espana were bit stumbling. The loss was majorly due to lack of coordination and killer instinct football needs. But it was a good shocker for them, which later proved to be beneficial to them. The thought which were haunting in sapota's mind were seeing brasil and espana play each other so early. Though today I can say Espana would have outclassed Brasil. But Brasilians would have upset them if they have strong morale given espana were still finding its form, but inevitable didn't happen and both team were saved. The next match which made sapota sad was German loosing to serbs. The serbs played as if they are on some army mission and they executed it perfectly, klose's departure sealed german fate. Sapota stopped watching league matches at all. Only thing he did was looking into fifa scoresheet in the morning. Somehow, all the favs had the same ranking as expected. The fear of first loss was not still away, so Sapota avoided Espana vs portugal.
Once Espana recovered fully, sapota was all set to watch Brasil vs the netherland. The worst part of this duel was seeing two favourite fighting each other so early. Sapota was confident Brasil will edge out dutch as easily. So he went for the live. Brasilian dominated first half as if dutch were no bodies. Dutch were at that time building the schema, after second half dutch started playing a strange physical game, which made brasilains upset and the first yellow card is flaunted thanks to Robben. Initially Sapota was sad as Robben's team would be out so early, but later Robben played unlike his original self, the desperation to win was so evident. He is supremely talented, very shrewd and if required can smartly get dirty. Barring two matches he played like a champion.
In the match bommel, van parsie and dutch defence tried everything they could to disrupt the brasilian rhythm, worst part is Brasilian gave up to what dutch wanted. The self goal by Melo was one of the most hurting moment of the match. Sapota believe Cesar would have saved the goal, if it wasn't for the melo to jump. Later on the german mechanics of kyut sniejder air headers killed the brasilian. In the mean time, sapota got angry, sad and upset all at the same time. Some folks at the venue of TV made sapota further upset by arguing with him, and this lead to general outburst of high pitch screams and what not. This all later proved out to be big moment of embarrassment due to triggered arrogance. Sapota cursed dutch team for dishonesty and cursed his fav player Robben for being such a foul player. Despite the fact that his Fav team was still in run, sapota literally disassociated himself with the futbol.
This was after 13 years that sapota had such emotional outburst with sports and he was heartbroken. Slowly and gradually the emotion was wearing off, and Espana was progressing steadily towards final. Sapota was lukewarm with spanish progress, but still not ready to watch any matches for the fear of loss.
The day final was due, sapota knew that dutch would play foul, but he knew spanish can do the same, not on that physical level but they can act like morons if required. Unfortunately, sapotas net connection was down, so he couldn't get the progress of match anyway from fifa site. Later in morning while in pool, he tried to overhear people talking about match but not really result. Sapota was at this time ready for any result. Later he saw the news in paper and was instantly happy.
At this moment, support felt like a weak supporter not having full confidence in his team. Besides, Its never about wins or losses, its about standing for your team, no matter what. But the last two matches have left sapota so ajar, that this time it could have made sapota get very depressed, if Espana would have lost while he was watching the match live.
In retrospect, sapota have learned to respect a lot of players including the english ones namely Gerrard, Lampard and terry. Have hated his favourite Robben and bommel. Acted like a cry baby and recovered back to his usual composure.
Sapota don't want to shove his team is so good attitude to anyone, that is unlike being a sports fan. But yeah it is a luke warm fun. The most enjoyable part is discussing it with people, who know what is being talked about.
Now sapota is looking forward for when the world cup returns to the holy land of Estdio de Maracana and that is when he will full heartly support A selecao.
So before last Euro cup, sapota randomly picked up Spain, one reason is that sapota loves spanish language and culture and as you can see, this blog is themed in noobish spanish style. So Sapota has been supporting Espana for 3 years now. Raul was one of the yesteryears star sapota always liked, mostly because he was biggest name in Real and a very prolific forward. While sapota started supporting Espana randomly, they got lucky and won Euro. while sitting between 4 people, who were supporting Deutsch, holding a catalonian flag was difficult, but sapota is an obstinate bustard and he prevailed.
Since sapota was not having TV, he lived on Fifa.com for all the info. For this season of UEFA championship, sapota followed bayern very seriously. Bayern defeated ManU and Juventus and Bordeux to finally fight internationale in final. They lost but given their state of affairs, it was an acceptable defeat. Half of my team(yeah bayern) have player which belong to either Deutsheland or The Netherlands. Now supporting spain against these favourite ones was difficult task. Seeing your boy Swansteiger getting dejected after a loss is too much.
So the very first match sapota glued himself was espana vs swiss. The swiss defeated espana. Sapotas heart sank in fear and sadness for many days without loosing his cool. Sapota stopped watching matches. While Brasil, Argentina, The netherlands and germany were sailing easy, Espana were bit stumbling. The loss was majorly due to lack of coordination and killer instinct football needs. But it was a good shocker for them, which later proved to be beneficial to them. The thought which were haunting in sapota's mind were seeing brasil and espana play each other so early. Though today I can say Espana would have outclassed Brasil. But Brasilians would have upset them if they have strong morale given espana were still finding its form, but inevitable didn't happen and both team were saved. The next match which made sapota sad was German loosing to serbs. The serbs played as if they are on some army mission and they executed it perfectly, klose's departure sealed german fate. Sapota stopped watching league matches at all. Only thing he did was looking into fifa scoresheet in the morning. Somehow, all the favs had the same ranking as expected. The fear of first loss was not still away, so Sapota avoided Espana vs portugal.
Once Espana recovered fully, sapota was all set to watch Brasil vs the netherland. The worst part of this duel was seeing two favourite fighting each other so early. Sapota was confident Brasil will edge out dutch as easily. So he went for the live. Brasilian dominated first half as if dutch were no bodies. Dutch were at that time building the schema, after second half dutch started playing a strange physical game, which made brasilains upset and the first yellow card is flaunted thanks to Robben. Initially Sapota was sad as Robben's team would be out so early, but later Robben played unlike his original self, the desperation to win was so evident. He is supremely talented, very shrewd and if required can smartly get dirty. Barring two matches he played like a champion.
In the match bommel, van parsie and dutch defence tried everything they could to disrupt the brasilian rhythm, worst part is Brasilian gave up to what dutch wanted. The self goal by Melo was one of the most hurting moment of the match. Sapota believe Cesar would have saved the goal, if it wasn't for the melo to jump. Later on the german mechanics of kyut sniejder air headers killed the brasilian. In the mean time, sapota got angry, sad and upset all at the same time. Some folks at the venue of TV made sapota further upset by arguing with him, and this lead to general outburst of high pitch screams and what not. This all later proved out to be big moment of embarrassment due to triggered arrogance. Sapota cursed dutch team for dishonesty and cursed his fav player Robben for being such a foul player. Despite the fact that his Fav team was still in run, sapota literally disassociated himself with the futbol.
This was after 13 years that sapota had such emotional outburst with sports and he was heartbroken. Slowly and gradually the emotion was wearing off, and Espana was progressing steadily towards final. Sapota was lukewarm with spanish progress, but still not ready to watch any matches for the fear of loss.
The day final was due, sapota knew that dutch would play foul, but he knew spanish can do the same, not on that physical level but they can act like morons if required. Unfortunately, sapotas net connection was down, so he couldn't get the progress of match anyway from fifa site. Later in morning while in pool, he tried to overhear people talking about match but not really result. Sapota was at this time ready for any result. Later he saw the news in paper and was instantly happy.
At this moment, support felt like a weak supporter not having full confidence in his team. Besides, Its never about wins or losses, its about standing for your team, no matter what. But the last two matches have left sapota so ajar, that this time it could have made sapota get very depressed, if Espana would have lost while he was watching the match live.
In retrospect, sapota have learned to respect a lot of players including the english ones namely Gerrard, Lampard and terry. Have hated his favourite Robben and bommel. Acted like a cry baby and recovered back to his usual composure.
Sapota don't want to shove his team is so good attitude to anyone, that is unlike being a sports fan. But yeah it is a luke warm fun. The most enjoyable part is discussing it with people, who know what is being talked about.
Now sapota is looking forward for when the world cup returns to the holy land of Estdio de Maracana and that is when he will full heartly support A selecao.
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