Football and Flings !

At a mall the other day, I over-heard a conversation between 2 Indian women.

The first remarked, ”Oh John’s always with his b**** football nowadays“ to which the second retorted, “He’s having his time darling, he’ll be back after his fling”.

This got my mind rolling. Football, a fling?

It did seem like that though looking at almost every Indian man. Men asphyxiated by cricket (read: wives) 24-7 were suddenly paying more attention to Messi & co.

And so I started probing as to what was the actual definition of a fling. As per Oxford, a fling is very ‘subtly’ defined as, “a short period of enjoyment without thinking or wild behavior”.

I shall leave the actual comparison of every point below to the reader, but in around 15 minutes I actually did learn a lot on how football was indeed a fling. A fling every man ought to have!

Read on.

1. Men will be Men
Man is a creature governed and driven purely by excitement. Well people might then wonder why marriages exist but let’s keep that for another day. For now, 35 days of excitement all at once is too much of an opportunity to miss out on.

2. Once every 4 years
This one is a no-brainer, no really. If the Football World Cup happened – say every 6 months – a man would pay no more interest to the game as he did to his everyday .. lose interest. Unless of course, he wasn’t interested in his wife in the first place, oops ... I meant cricket of course!

3. Peer Pressure
For one whole month, no man can afford to be completely out of sync with his colleagues and friends. We had these times in college and after where almost all my buddies had these ‘time-pass’ (or fictional) girlfriends and I would be left out of conversations because I was ‘single’.
Ditto with football. Imagine not being able to talk about the Spanish passing, or the Dutch defense or perhaps an amazing goal England scored (ok, that’s one joke too far but still .. ) Bravado rules with men... and bragging rights come only with watching the match!

The World Cup is now over, and hopefully every Indian man is once again paying attention to his wife..


Unless of course the football turned serious.

Give .. because it doesn't take too much off you !

1 Dirham. What does this 1 Dirham mean to you in your lives? Nothing? Something? Not much … Mostly nothing ..

When we were small, perhaps early in our careers, or maybe in our neighborhood back home, all of us at some point of our lives received some amount of help , monetary or not. Today most of us live well, comfortably to the point where many a nation would call our styles of living ‘ lavish’. And yet, we lack one simple power. The power of giving.

1 Dirham … might not mean a lot to you … but it sure does to Alisha, Pinky, and Bhupinder Singh.

Who is Alisha ?

Alisha is a desolate little girl of 12 years. She resides in a village in Central Africa amongst a total child population of around 200 kids in that village. You see .. because of the absence of any drinkable water in their village, what these children did was to have muds of sand which apparently had ground water in them. These kids then used to grind the mud and drink the water. Me and you, if we saw that sight, would say …. They eat mud... because in simple terms they did eat mud because that was the only thing that quenched their thirst.

And now... back to us... ‘civilized people’? Every person in the UAE uses... I’m ashamed to use the word, “USES”... I would rather say... wastes … hold your breath... 600 liters of water .. every single day.

A request to all of you - Save 10 Dhs. a month on your water bills, and give it to anybody you think doesn’t have the same access to drinking water as you! Wonder now if this glass of water, or every liter of water … means a little more to you ….

Pinky.

Pinky is 17 years of age and will complete her grade 12 examinations sometime next year. She recently wrote my parents a letter thanking them for changing her life by giving her what she called ‘the gift of education’. You see, Pinky was a little girl of 3 years when she was dropped off at the gates of an orphanage by her parents who couldn’t afford her anymore. Most of us here working in Dubai have our education which we got back home to thank for, for all that we have basically. And yet, what are we giving back? And really, I’m not asking you to go too far .. Go to your neighborhood back home .. Help the children of the maid that comes to our house who can’t afford to give her children a decent education. A government school education in India costs an average of 5000 Rupees. Guess how much that is. It’s 1 dirham a day!

I met Bhupinder Singh at a labor camp in Sharjah in late 2009. Due to the completion of a particular religious function at home, we wished to give the labor camp which consisted of 50 people a good lunch in a decent nearby Indian restaurant. He had a strange question to ask me, he asked” How much are you willing to spend? “ and I replied, Around 600 , 800 dirhams”…

The sardar ji broke out into laughter and quietly asked us to take him to any good grocery.

With 550 dirhams, he bought 100 kilos of rice, 20 kilos of pulses, and 20 kilos of potatoes, and gave it to their kitchen head. And he said, “Sir, What we’ve bought today will serve 50 of us for more than a week, probably 10 days. Thank you very much.”

I was stunned; rooted to the ground for the next few moments.

How much food do we waste in the hotels that we so often frequent? How difficult is it really, to order one dish less so that we don’t waste food? Mother Teresa said, “If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one.”

Barbara Bush once famously remarked and I quote to conclude, “Some people give time, some money, some their skills and some literally give their life's blood. But remember one thing: each one of us has something to give.”