Of medals and gol gappas : The sorry story of Sita Sahu

This post first appeared on Sportskeeda

Sita Sahu, a mentally challenged teenager from Rewa, is busy nowadays helping her mother sell ‘gol gappas’ in their nondescript ghetto settlement. Well, that is nothing out of the ordinary, considering there are millions of children in our country faced with a similar bleak fate, and their state of living narrates the same old story.

What, then, prompted a leading newspaper to carry a front page article dedicated to delineating her hardships?

Well, she is a precocious talent. Representing India at the 2011 Special Olympics in Athens, she did the nation proud by bagging two bronze medals- in the 200m and 1600m. She was faced with a deluge of congratulatory messages and cash prizes. Her life seemed to have taken a turn for the better.

Sadly, the hollow promises are yet to materialize into something substantial.

Not Very Indian Premier League

This post first appeared on Cricket Tadka

The Indian Premier league presents a point of statistical interest and intrigue. The teams in the fray seem conspicuous by a general lack of Indian skippers. Out of the nine teams battling it out for glory in this season of the Indian Premier League, five are being led by foreign recruits.

The four teams that are currently being captained by Indians are the Kolkata Knight Riders (Gautam Gambhir), Chennai Super Kings (Mahendra Singh Dhoni), Rajasthan Royals (Rahul Dravid) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (Virat Kohli). And for the remaining five, three are being captained by Sri Lankans and two by Australians.

Sri Lankan presence as regards captaincy in the league is as prominent as India’s. Kumar Sangakkara has been at the helm of affairs for the Hyderabad franchise (formerly Deccan Chargers) for quite some time and Mahela Jayawardene has been appointed as the Delhi Daredevils’ captain this season. And as Michael Clarke was ruled out for this season following an injury he picked up during the Border-Gavaskar trophy, the team management zeroed in on Angelo Mathews as their new captain. That makes him the fourth captain for the Pune team in three seasons, and the third Sri Lankan captain for this year’s IPL.

Is anyone jumping at all?

What is the single most retarded piece of shit currently doing the rounds on Indian television? The question barely leaves the lips, and pat comes the obvious and unanimous reply: ‘Dil jumping jhapak jhampak jhampak, thumping thapak thampak thampak , gili gili yeah’. No, seriously. Farhan Khan (and of late her brother too) have made it a habit of theirs to openly insult our intelligence.

The promotional videos that are a part of this year’s IPL feature Farah Khan in a series of TV ads barging into unknown households and offices with her band of acolytes, followed by full-blown harassment of the occupants. The one featuring the small family of three is particularly pitiable.

She storms into their house, brandishes a cudgel, and scolds them for being just a mute spectator (‘sirf dekhneka nai’ she says) and forces them to dance to a tune that is as retarded as it gets. Really, it is so annoying that even Justice Katju might not approve of it, leave alone pardon her.

Being Ravindra Jadeja

This first appeared on Cricket Tadka

“Sir Ravindra Jadeja or Ravindrasinh Anirudhsinh Jadeja (born 6 December 1988) is a philanthropist, a Nobel Prize winner, a double Laureus sportman of the year and the nearest human to being God. Other than that he is an Indian cricketer.” Wikipedia had to lock the article on Ravindra Jadeja after it became evident that, obviously, one of the readers had a wicked sense of humour  when it came down to describing someone who is easily the most 
hated Indian cricketer as of now.

The three test old Saurashtra player, who blasted his way into the test team on the back of two triple centuries in a single season, has become an internet phenomenon of late, albeit of the sort one would not want to pride oneself on. The cyberspace and most notably the social media is inundated with parodies, jokes, memes and what not that cricket aficionados, as well as the ignoramuses, use relentlessly to express their ‘deep respect and love’ for Jadeja. Everything involving the cricketer (including his love for Audi cars, and the Hayabusa in his possession) seem to have become a matter of public interest and ridicule.