When the Building Came Alive

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Kasturi Dhama Apartments — the play area where many evenings came alive. The lights would go out without warning. For a brief second, the entire building would fall silent. Then, from somewhere in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, a chorus would erupt. “Yayyy!” It is difficult to imagine children celebrating a power failure today. But in the Bangalore of the nineties and early 2000s, a power cut did not always feel like an inconvenience. Especially in the late evenings, it felt like permission. Permission to stop whatever we were doing, leave the darkness inside our homes, and step into the building outside. Before Kasturi Dhama became home, we had moved through a few different parts of Bangalore. My family had begun in Srirampuram and Vyalikaval before gradually cementing ourselves in Malleswaram for the next few decades. My earliest memory is of living in a vatara —a Kannada word loosely used for a building or a cluster of homes—on 15th Cross, near Karur Vy...
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Twists and Turns

There are few games that can match the excitement of football. This world cup has certainly been fascinating and brilliant. The top teams qualified to the second stage, and the quarter-finals had some interesting contests and now the semi-finals awaits. It is also fun to make predictions at the start of the tournament and see how the saga unfolds. The quarter-finals lineup was lip smacking. Look at the play-offs

Germany v/s Argentina
England v/s Portugal
Italy v/s Ukraine
France v/s Brazil

The first and the last match had all the ingredients of being touted as the Final, but nevertheless each of them ended up much before the finals. It was interesting to predict who would win each of the battles. Atleast as far as I was concerned, I thought Germany, Portugal, Italy and Brazil would battle it out in the next stage. I was good for three matches, but Brazil gave me a disappointing result. Who would have expected Brazil to be so sloppy on the field? It was distressing and disturbing, with all the top guns being a pale shadow of their normal selves. Ronaldo and Ronaldinho were clearly marked by the French defense. France, to their credit played amazing attacking football. Zinedine Zidane proved why he is one of the best in the world, with his skillful dribbles and unimaginable passes to the forward. Even against Spain, he came up with perfect execution of flawless exhibition. Talking of the finals, I expected it to be a Brazil v/s Germany match, but with the ouster of the world champions, I would redefine my prediction to France v/s Germany. Who knows, next week may present with a totally different final, and what with Italy playing brilliantly and Portugal supported by a superb coach. Only time will tell about my yet another prediction. Till then let us drool over the dribbles!

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