An Indian in Germany

Football Fanaticism And All That

Kaiserslautern is a small town (a population of 100,000) where you barely get to see police except for an occasional patrol car. When it comes to football, that is to say, when football comes to KL, it is a different story all together. It must be the same all over Europe only I realized it now.

A stream of people coming from all three roads that leads to the bridge near which we stood waiting for our friends. Staunch supporters wore jerkins with jumbo sized 1FCK logos on them. Some wore only caps. And in between was a whole range, T-shirts, badges, flags and scarves. Most of them had a red scarf of 1FCK the Kaiserslautern first class club.

The ticket to the stands cost us 8.5€ and we have to stand. We arrived about 30 min early and spent most of our time watching the stream of people. Groups of young people singing songs and making war cries made their way into the stadium. Some were drunk already; some were sipping their beer, some carrying their supply.

We stood near a bridge besides a refreshment stall and on the opposite side of the road was a pair of hawkers selling scarves, badges, caps, and a lot more that I prefer to throw in etc. Behind us are a group of people having another round of beer, shouting and laughing. A guy stumbled as he crossed the road. The people behind start laughing in a rather deliberate manner and one of them shouts something to the guy who fell down in German.

A few minutes pass and the team arrives in a red bus. People take little notice of it. Some wave hands at the bus. A guy comes out of the crowd and kicks and bangs the bus. Perhaps he is drunk and is expressing his disappointment over the dismal performance of the team this season. A few more minutes later, a guy runs down the footpath on to the road and tries to open the rear door of cars. Then a plastic bottle is hurled at us from the group that was behind us and hits my friend. We prefer to ignore them and after some time, distance ourselves from the group.

A few more minutes later a police car stops beneath the bridge and another police man comes from the opposite direction. Probably one of the two guys who made a fuss was being taken care of.

We are joined by our friends and soon we enter the stadium, not before we were frisked of course. A sip of drinks and then we enter the stadium. A series of ads, intros and finally the team/club song. People hold the red scarves with both hands above their heads.

I had concluded football is religion here.

The game itself is not very exciting. The team misses many chances (11 corners, few close calls and a free kick to be more precise). In the last minute, a header wins the match for 1FCK(which later to our surprise turned out to be an offside). We walk back home having enjoyed what was supposed to be a nail biting finish (at least for hardcore fans!).

How I wished it would run past the extra time and into the shoot out(I was unaware that league matched could end in draw). Just for the sake of completeness let me pen down that the match was against Hanover, first league and that Hanover fans were outnumbered to say 1 to1000. Football matches in KL are said to be usually peaceful and fans are separated on rare occasion of a visiting teams fans being know for their aggression.


Miscellany

Back home, cook, eat, watch a move, spend a lazy Sunday and back to work on Monday. Life is back to usual.

These days my friend the cosmic citizen tells me his temper is under check. I guess he has come to terms with the world around him. I some times wonder, with so much happening around us, so many revelations, so many atrocities, so much injustice, so many absurdities, if ones voice will last a day before his throat goes sore, should he take to shouting in protest.

Well the eternal optimist (not for the voice but for the system) thinks there will be some day when it should be possible. The pessimist also thinks so.. he goes a step further to predict that eventually there will be noting left to shout at. God knows.

Forgot to mention that we watched Mr.Natwarlal, Agneeapath and Khuda Gawah; Amitabh extra dose.

Baki sab Khairiyat hain.

Some relavant photos

I want to shout!

I am back

After a few weeks of silence I felt my blog had died a rather early death. I was under the impression that nothing worthwhile was happening to write about, until I realized that it was not true. I could write a little about my trip to Darmstadt and about the four movies I have seen in the mean while. But surely these were under the category 'not worthwhile to write about'.

The topic for this blog comes not out of a pleasant experience I want to share with you. It is about the futile attempt by a citizen of this Cosmic world to shout at the top of his voice hoping that it would be heard. Alas! he knows it will die before it reaches another’s ear. Yet he shouts without asking himself why? to what end?

Why I want to shout?

Few weeks back I was reading comments posted by fellow readers in 'Have Your Say' of the BBC. The readers were asked their opinion on whether the war on Iraq was justified (something like that atleast!). Going through the responses I came across a smart one and this person didn’t really care as he was neither an American nor a British tax payer (and not an Iraqi obviously). His/her attitude set off alarm bells in the head of our friend the silly cosmic citizen. Had he realized this simple fact was applicable in his case also, it would have saved him a lot of time.

Great Britain

Then came the news of the death of this man named Kelly. Around this time I read that a journalist asked Blair whether his hands were red with Dr. Kelly’s blood. In the following weeks the media took to task the government for ill-treating this man. Now what problem does the cosmic citizen have in this issue? Again he fails to understand the logic? He didn’t know the numbers but was sure that many innocent people had been killed in the invasion of Iraq and was rather surprised that no body asked this maniac if his hands were stained with the blood of the Iraqis. He failed to realize that to them only Brits mattered. And now we have a Hutton enquiry, going into the reasons that caused the apparent suicide of Dr. Kelly. Our cosmic citizen is too naive and can’t understand why Blair is still not facing a full blown enquiry into the lies he had told the House of Commons. If Saddam could launch WMDs' in 45 min what happened to them? The US and UK have been in Iraq long enough to plant them and say hey! did we not say this guy had em? But they have not found anything incriminating. Even a dumb ass wouldn't be surprised if the CNN came up with a breaking news story "Bush found the Treasure". Our friend fails to be convinced that the 45 min claim was a single source and genuine and not an attempt to sex up the dossier.

America

In America every one who had spoken against the Iraqi war was a traitor. The Democrats couldn’t stand up and cry foul. French fries became freedom fries. The stupid cosmic citizen wonders "freedom from what?" (That people in some anti-war countries stopped buying Colas is another story. ) He is reminded of a statement by Bush soon after the 9/11 "Either you are with us or against us". Someone called Arundhati from India had vehemently opposed this. Little did our friend realize that soon this would translate into "Either you are with us or we are against you".

WTO

The Cancum talks failed and the reasons are quite well know. A comparison between the earnings of a European cattle farmer and an African cow herds man on BBC shows that the African managed to earn around 20 $ a month while the European farmer is given €22,500 farm subsidy per-anum. Huh! Cant believe it? Just click here. Forget the haves and have-nots and income disparities. The subsidy itself makes no sense. The rich countries now want to reform the WTO. May be they want to make their hidden agenda as the open motto of WTO "Kill the Poor and not their Poverty". Is there an equivalent for Darwin’s "Survival of the fittest" in economics?

Secular India

Just the other day, our friend couldn’t understand the calculated silence of the Govt. of India over Israeli plans for their old pal Arafat(throw out or liquidate, how generous of the Israelis). The cosmic citizen shouts at a 1001 things. Narendra Modi and his role in the Gujarat riots, the Neo-Hinduism of intolerance, and the new found and self proclaimed saviours of Hinduism to list a few. The predicament of the Muslim brethren as refugees in motherland is a shame on the nation. We call ourselves secular. For a moment we should look at what the world thinks about us. This Guardian Special Report for a sample.

Today the court has sentenced those guilty of murdering Graham Staines and his two kids.

I have written enough to ward off even the most patient of readers. Some of this may not be fully unbiased despite my best efforts to be unbiased. My friend the Cosmic citizen doesn’t oppose any person/country in particular. All he opposes the injustice and the violence. 'Hate the sin and not the sinner'.

I remember very vaguely a piece of poetry ‘The Happy Man’ and a piece of prose about ‘Utopian Society’. Too vague to quote, but not fully forgotten; I still remember the spirit behind both of them.

The Indian Ethos

Movies

Last Sunday was Vinayaka Chaviti. Last weekend was very enjoyable. We had planned to visit Heidelberg on Saturday but called off the plans fearing that the cloudy weather would play spoilsport. Friday evening, having given up the travel plans we decided to watch a good movie. After a little confusion we ended up watching the telugu movie 'santosham'. Well I dont intend to act like a film critic but I cant help wondering why the 'Kala tapaswi' gave up his tapasya and is disillusioned into establishing himself as an actor. Looks like there are no takers for his films and he is unwiling to make stuff that will find takers.

Saturday morning we hurried downtown just in time to lay our hands on a pirated DVD version of 'Koyi Mil Gaya' with the pakistani shopkeeper. We rented two more DVDs one with 3 and another 2 movies. Except for 'Monsoon wedding' none of them were main stream commercial movies. I certainly never heard the titles till then. 'Salaam Bombay', 'Salim langde pe mat ro', 'Leela' and 'Hollywood Bollywood' to be more specific. At this point I think it is only fair that I be allowed to write one line statements about each of these movie. Koyi Mil Gaya fails to make any impression. A mix of Forest Gump, Close Encounters, ET, Bombay sentiments of friendship, hyped motherly tears from Rekha for the dumb alien. Roshans have a secret technology that can boost sound to travel faster that 330 m/sec and their technology is superior than NASA can even think about, because NASA and ignorant scientific community still believes that sound needs a medium to travel.

Salaam Bombay is very original and captures the life of street children in Bombay. Last line of the titles ‘40 locations and 30 days exactly and approximately’. Salim langde pe mat ro, I would dare say had a better story line that KMG and certainly delivered a message. The plight of a poor muslims in Mumbai, how they get sucked into the world of crime almost automatically, how difficult it is to stay afloat in the gutter and the fact that it is always a one way ticket into the world of crime are captured well. It is a pity, whatsoever the reasons be, that most young men in India don’t ever get to such movies.

For those who had seen Mira Nairs Missisipi Masala, Monsoon wedding is not a surprise. The characters are realistic, some corrupt, some immoral, some innocent, some foolish. We often don’t like to admit facts. This movie contains 2 or 3 such facts we wouldn't like to see on the silver screen.

Well I’d better not risk banishment from my house for airing my views about Leela. It is not a good movie(Telling lies.. ). Adultery and ‘post modern women’ are the main themes this movie deals with (Feminists forgive me but that was facts). It captures some aspects of ABCD (American Born Confused Desis’) and their search for their true identity very well.

To start with, the cover of Hollywood Bollywood fails to make an impression. Even better, I haven’t seen this movie. Well I do believe in the free phenol proverb.. but sometimes you see one doesn’t get time. Besides we traded the phenol for the most delicately delicious dinner we had after arriving in KL.

Vinayaka Chaviti

Well having finished the boring stuff, I will get to the most interesting part of the weekend. We lazed Saturday watching KMG and Monsoon... I realized that Sunday was vinayaka chaviti only after I saw my Dad’s mail late in the evening. I decide to celebrate vinayaka chaviti, subject to my convenience and capacity, a clause our wise forefathers had included in the puja vidahnam. Telugu One a website maintained for NRAs’ (Non-Resident Andhrites) had an audio/video version of the vratakalpam nicely rendered. I downloaded the file and slept early. I spent a lot of time trying to fix the mess I made of my room and then after finishing my bath, created pasupu vinayakudu. My friend Sarath who beat me in bathing(you see he is 50% partner in making a mess of my room and didn’t have to fix his. That he is a partner in cleaning it is another story), placed the rice and dal combination on stove earlier. I prepared vundrallu (balls made out of the rice cooked with dal and salt). Vundrallu are the favourite dish of Lort Ganesha and is a compulsory item for an andhrite preparing for Vinayaka Chaviti. Then we started the audio clip and the pandit read the mantras and sang some devotional songs. I was eager to play the story of vinayaka chaviti skipping parts I couldn’t do due to non availability of items. When the story had just started, there was some error (reminds you of Murphy’s law... it went wrong because it could go wrong). By Gods grace I am not new to the story, and knew I could manage without this clip. So I took over. Since my friend couldn’t understand telugu, I told him the story in English. We offered akshitas in place of all the offerings. Nivedyam with vundrallu, panchamrutam and items cooked for lunch. We took some akshitas and wore them on head as a mark of blessing from elders and Gods. Pity we were not capable of lighting the agarbattis (we bought few days back) and show dhoopam and light deepam. Non-smokers! For once in disadvantage.


Miscellany

Lunch, Salim Langde pe mat ro and some sleep. It was 4 pm and we left for Dr.Tiwaris’ place for he had invited us for dinner. We enjoyed good tea and the company of Anil Tiwari, cute 1 month old son of Dr.Tiwari. Mrs. Vimla Tiwari had prepared vegetable biryani, palak paneer and chana masala. The dinner was followed by Kheer (north version of Rice Paravannam).

Some pleasant miscellany I wouldn’t like to skip. A brisk walk after the dinner helped burn calories and brought us back to Meisenweg in about 20 min.. The Pakistani trader from whom we rented the DVDs’ had all the anti pak movies Mr. Sunny Deol had acted in, much to the astonishment of my friend and to my content. Even more strangely, he was appealing for co-operation from Indians for not circulating his DVDs’ amongst friends (means more business!). Thoroughly professional business man I guess. Don’t shave on festivals my Dad would say. I disobeyed. Misled by tv ads(must sue em!) I tried shaving my beard in reverse direction, and it is very funny now... especially as an accompaniment to the cold weather. This is just one example I share with you. Many to prove "Fools learn by experience..." . Almost 24 hrs later, I have finished my account. Time up as well. I got to catch some sleep. Ah! Talking of time, I haven’t quoted my favourite quote. "Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn".

Before I sign off.. those of you who haven’t read the 'I have a dream’ speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, check this.

Humming... Sage Thyagaraja’s
Endaro Mahanau Bhavulu, Andari ki vandanamulu...

There are many Great men... I Salute to them all...