The joke is now always on us, Robin Gibb

I once knew a barman who would play me for free drinks at darts. When he had bled me dry, he would offer me the chance to get a free drink. What did I have to do? Dance to ‘Saturday Night Fever’. That is the best measure of the global influence of the Bee Gees. After all, this used to happen at a pub in Pune. Then there is the song ‘I Started a Joke’, made poignant by love – if I could only see, that the joke was on me. I dug the Bee Gees, man. RIP, Robin Gibb.

King Hendry, thank-you for the potting

I have a college degree in snooker with two minors - in billiards and pool. In my youth, Stephen Hendry was the greatest player alive. Not the most exciting, but certainly, the greatest. I quote a sportswriter, out of context, to capture Hendry, The Great: “With a pallor that suggested his skin had not seen sunlight for years, he potted the balls… again and again, for hours on end… no, days on end.” And I add, “Till he won”. Hendry retired last week. Hendry, in his prime, versus Ronnie O’Sullivan (in his prime). That would have been a master-class.

The beautiful game, for you Muamba

I exist at the heart of the parochial, divided, club-driven world of football.
I would rather watch Manchester United play Barcelona, than India play any cricket final.
That is the kind of passion football can exert.
However, even I have been moved by the uniting of the oft-divided world of football fans and players behind Fabrice Muamba – the Bolton player who suffered a heart attack on the pitch and is still in critical condition.
From Manchester to Madrid, the unity in show of support for Muamba, a small-time player, is the reason why football is called the beautiful game.

Fixed!

In the week Rahul Dravid retired, The Sunday Times reminded us all that we are fooling ourselves if we believe cricket to be free of match-fixing.
Worse still, India is at the heart of the fixing.
The most revealing story came from Victor Chandler, one of the biggest bookmakers in the world.
In an interview with The Guardian, he said his company does not take big bets on cricket matches. “We know they know more than us,” he said.
I stopped following cricket when the match-fixing scandal first broke to claim Azharuddin and taint Kapil Dev.
I stand vindicated.

Thank you for the music (even if I did not really dig it)

Soundtracks to your youth are not produced by the esoteric choices your sub-conscious reaches for in that epic quest to be ‘cool’.

Instead, it’s the blaring sound of shameless popular music that really is accompanying your misguided attempts at finding your place in the world.

So while I’d like to think it was Roy Orbison and Rare Earth that defined my youth, it was in fact, to some extent, Whitney Houston and Madonna.

I cringed at Madonna’s Superbowl performance (while the world, was, for some reason impressed).

And I almost cried for Whitney Houston. I did shed a tear.

Come back home, come back home to me

All of three, the little lady,

Wept like the baby she is.

Across a million miles, on the phone she cried,

Dada, when are you coming back home?

She wailed and howled, when I said girl, not now,

Not for some time, but soon, you’ll see…

Ok, she said, her sobs full of dread

Of a daughter left to hurt and feel…

A pain that no child, should ever have to cry

For a dad not there to be.

Come back soon, come back now
Come back when, come back how
Come back home, come back home to me

Fait accompli

I close my eyes and wait.

The fait accompli of shame, neglect and fear washes over me.

Like a practiced ritual of acceptance.

The pain numbs. The numbing is welcome. Like plumbing for a leaky spirit.

Devoid of conscience and character.

Now, devoid of hope.

This hope, perhaps overdone in the context of gluttinous despair.

Feed the beast, eat the loved ones to bare bones.

Shriveled lives, shrinking from the light.

Dig deep. Not deep enough yet for a grave.

Dig deep for a man. Find belief. Find nothing?

It’s Christmas time there’s no need to be afraid…