Hate mail

I'm grateful to the law of the land which comes between me and what I would like to do to these people.

1. The fight of the century has just gone by between Mayweather and Pacquaio and like everyone else who missed the fight, I start searching for highlights online. I look for reasonably long duration videos. I land up on a video titled 'Mayweather vs Pacquaio full fight highlights May 2, 2015'. Very promising indeed at a duration of 51:25 minutes. But no, it turns out to be a video of the dude in the pic shooting himself watching TV while waiting for the fight. Note - it's not a video of the fight. It's not a home video of the fight showing live on TV. It's not a video of the dude watching the live fight on TV. It's a video of the dude watching some random crap on TV before the fight. And uploading this as a video of the fight. Why? Why?

2.  I read about Messi's spectacular goal against Atletico Madrid. Not too much into league football but something like this makes you get on to youtube. Guess what, there's a video titled Messi goal against Atletico Madrid, with the date. What could go wrong from here? I click it and am immediately subjected to really poor graphic design (in pic). So this was a dude who was playing soccer in PS-2, probably a 200 kg fat slob who last saw sunlight in 1995, who thought it was important to upload his PS-2 crap on youtube. Why not? I could watch recordings of other people's body of work on their PS-2s, all day. And he uploads it under a false title that would make people watch it. For about 2 seconds i.e., before cursing him, maybe leaving a nasty comment about his women relatives. Why? Why?

Qora explains net neutrality

Q:What is this net neutrality? Can someone out there really really dumb it down for me? I'm 2 years old btw, just started using qora.
A:(upvoted 2 billion times)
Picture this. An American, a Chinese guy and an Indian walk into a bar.
'Get us all some beer' the American dude growls.
The bartender says 'No can do. You gotta buy drinks online today. Can't order it directly. Sorry, buddy, that's the rule'
The three of them pull out their smartphones and open web browsers. They get a little distracted and check email for a while. The bartender's annoyed by now, 'Get a move on, fellas, don't got all day'
The Indian guy sees a facebook status update by one of his friends that talks about net neutrality. He's intrigued and looks up the wiki entry. The bartender meanwhile updates his status on his phone 'Stuck with three nerds, Want to go home, now!'
The Indian guy is still at it and even signs an online petition demanding net neutrality. The Chinese guy downloads the app to order drinks at the bar. Download's really slow. To kill time, the American guy asks the Indian guy to explain net neutrality to him in a simple way.
'Sure. Let me paint you a picture. Imagine you go to a bar to order drinks. Let's say the bartender says you need to download an app to be able to order drinks...'
The bartender's now all ears. '...and while downloading the app, you happen upon an article on net neutrality. Let's say you want to know more about the topic. The bartender is busy with something else while you read the wiki entry on net neutrality.'
The Chinese guy smiles. He sees where this is going and continues. 'What do you do then? You go to Qora, of course. And ask someone to explain the damn thing to you and pretend you're younger than you are so people won't think you're stupid'.

Shortform

The namesake - The rise and the rise of K L Ragul
- Caravaan desk

It was December 26th, 2014. Tens of people braved the sun to throng Melbourne Cricket Ground. They watched with a heady mix of emotions as K L Ragul, wearer of cricket whites, carrier of bat, striker of ball, walked out to bat. And holed out in the first innings for 3. He had arrived. A few days earlier. In Melbourne. By aeroplane.
Cut to 1990 types. Senior Ragul was a worried man as he walked to and fro in a middle class house in Bangalore. Karnataka was in a socio-political cultural situation of sorts. As if to mirror the State's vague circumstances, the birds and the leaves around the house were also inscrutable. It was an important day in Senior Ragul's house. It was the day when other important events must have been happening across the world. I mean, if you pick up the newspaper of that day or google a bit, you'd surely find some stuff. Ragul arrived in this world, a tiny child (hopefully). The hospital, Ragul, and his parents were unavailable for comment. Even the hospital janitor's now retired and untraceable.
Back to 2014. KLR failed again in the second innings. The parallel to Don Bradman, who failed famously once, in his last innings, was not lost on anyone, especially in our writing team. The world had gotten to see hardly a glimpse of KLR. KLR was undeterred.
"He couldn't believe himself. I mean the bowler", said an unrelated veteran cricket journalist who supposedly watched the match live on TV, "I mean who'd think KLR would fail miserably in both innings".
The next few days were the toughest out of the few days that KLR had played international cricket so far. 5 out of 10 days to be precise. He was in the eye of a storm. "He would go quietly to the nets everyday and come back to his room quietly", said someone who claims he was also staying at the same hotel as the Indian team. "I didn't see him at the breakfast buffet one day and I was so worried", he continued, "but then there he was! And I think he ate some apples that day" he concluded, painting a vivid picture of the storm-eye that was mentioned earlier.
KLR was no stranger to failure. He'd failed many times in other matches as well, going back all the way to street cricket. "Gully cricket those days was serious. If I hit a six I'd be in a good mood. If I got out for a duck, very bad mood", reminisces one of our writers, capturing the universality of emotions that gully cricket brings out in people including KLR.
At nets one day prior to the Sydney test, again all eyes were on KLR. And in a shocking few seconds, he took Dhoni's keeping gloves. While it was well known that KLR could keep, no one thought he would be asked to keep for the Indian team. What was going on? There was only one thing going through every onlooker's mind. Would KLR become another batsman-keeper like his namesake, Ragul Dravid?
Dravid, the wall, the gentleman, the guy who'd do anything for the team. Fun fact - Dravid once stood in a line to buy milk in the 90s. The 90s - inarguably, a period of great churn and development in the country.
But KLR in his characteristic way, dusted something off the gloves and returned them to Dhoni. Unlike his namesake, Dravid, KLR would not keep, at least not yet.
Fun fact #2 about Dravid - he has a test wicket! Of some guy.
Sydney, 2015. KLR walks out to bat. All 12 people in the crowd watch with bated breath. A cover drive. Everyone takes a deep breath. People would now speak of the other Ragul - KLR. The namesake has arrived. In Sydney, probably by air though there are direct buses also from Melbourne.

Vijayender, Sayna kick up Cannes row

Boxer Vijay and Shuttler Sayna are angry. And this time they're not acting. The jury was out, and literally, till midnight, at Cannes. It's not every day that they get a million sms's.
There have been rumours in the weeks leading up to the awards this year, that Vijay was not entirely happy that his bravura performance as himself (without the boxing stuff) in Fu.gly was ignored completely in the Palme d'Or category for best international film. Sayna Naiwal, not to be left behind, wrote a letter to the Cannes Lions jury demanding an explanation for not nominating her disturbingly brilliant portrayal of a pained athlete in the Iodex gel advertisement. The two of them launched an sms voting campaign asking for the people of India to vote for their favourite film 'in which a sports star tries to enhance his or her income by trying to act' but that backfired with Sachein winning top honours, and he wasn't even a nominee.
Not the ones to give up, in sport or in life, the second phase of the campaign was launched - 'we cannes do this' which was a plea to sms the jury members directly - CJ0001 for Vijay and CJ0002 for Sayna. These are being counted and the results will be out tomorrow. Sachein might just come up trumps once again.

An important movie

Vishaal Bard-waj’s Mirchand of Varanasi is not only one of the best movies he’s made in the last six months, it’s also an absolutely stunning literary achievement by someone we can only gape at in dumbstruck awe.

One catches an early glimpse of the auteur at work in the opening sequence. Irfan Khan who plays Mirchand tells Anayat Khan (played by Shaahid Kapur) ‘I’ll give you a loan only if you create communal harmony in India’, a subtle nuanced tongue-in-cheek dig at India’s volatile communal situation. Anayat Khan, not to be left behind retorts ‘The loan is to buy bason ka laddoo’. Doesn’t take a genius to catch the reference to Shakespeare there – bason for Bassanio – Wow!

Anayat Khan’s ship sinks in Palk strait – Sri Lanka’s human rights’ situation has never been captured as metaphorically as this – a staggeringly clever take, and he's unable to repay the loan.

Anayat, the Poor Shia (Portia?) has to now defend himself in court – an audacious reduction of wasteful characters and plot. The detailing of the court is exquisite, with a large black board saying ‘Court’ in white letters. Anayat defends himself gamely, his speech peppered with unrelated statements about various important issues thereby distracting the judge.

Mirchand is willing to accept repayment in kind but Anayat, in a hat-tip to the original, says he may take exactly one kg of laddoo and no more – which sort of backfires because Mirchand does do that – a clever departure from the original, nonetheless. The audience is visibly stunned at the denouement and also at the fact that the Bard trilogy now officially has 4 movies so there’s no stopping Vishaal from adapting another of Shakespeare’s works.

Method acting

Piggy : What's the role? It better be something meaty like Janjeer where I had 2 songs
Director : This is a biopic, based on Mari Kom.
P : Eh?
D : She's a boxer
P : So? What's the role?
D : You play her. You play a boxer.
P : God! Let me make this easy. Was this Mari girl rich or poor?
D : Poor.
P : Then say that na? So I play the Agneepath character. Poor chokri with colourful clothes. I can put on my poor girl accent which is easy - just got to say 'Ai' before each sentence.
D : She's from the North east.
P : Dombiville?
D : North east India. Manipur.
P : So? She was poor no?
D : Yes.
P : So I play Agneepath girl.
D : She won the World Boxing championships for India
P : She became rich after that?
D : I mean she's alright now. I'm not sure. She's probably not poor now.
P : I've lost you. Tell me clearly if you want me to play poor girl or rich girl? Rich girl will be Dostana girl - fashionable types. Either that or Dharavi girl where I say 'Ai' and maybe some Marathi words like 'ki haal putthar'
D : You've got to do some boxing on screen
P : Ok. Boxing. North east. How many songs do I have?
D : None. Maybe some inspiring songs.
P : There is a third option just for you, special - I can play a singer and sing my own songs with autotune. Maybe make the central character a singer instead of a boxer.
D : This is a biopic about a world champion
P : Who is a poor little girl from Manipal
D : Manipur
P : 'Coach - main boxing karthi? ayyo, achi achi boxing karthi'. How's that for Manipuri accent?
D : Er...not bad
P : Done then. I'm going to stay in character now. Mari Kaum meri naam, boxing meri kaam.

Smiti Kirani mulls setting up HRD Ministries in each state

The press got a glimpse of the ambitious new education plan of the HRD Ministry on Monday when the Minister Smiti Kirani unveiled the roadmap to creating an IIT in every nook of the nation. 'No one should walk more than 400 metres to the nearest IIT' she said. The prestigious IITs have been franchised to Cafe Coffee Day and are opening branches at a scorching pace across the nation. At the inaugural of the 10,000th outlet, the Minister said this expansion would find a new fillip in the new scheme where each state is planned to have a central HRD Ministry staffed by the retired cast and crew of 'Kyunki saas bhi...', a sitcom that was wildly popular till Smiti left it to join politics. It is rumored that the Relyance Group has approached the ministry with an 'IIM in every petrol bunk' scheme that could again change the face of higher education in the nation.