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The Olympics have come to an end: Sixteen spectacular days when we saw men and women win gold, silver and bronze, break records, make new records and show the world the extent human endurance could reach.

                               Before you sit and wait for the next Games in Britain, here are two stories to inspire you also to greater heights:

                               Many years ago a young black child was growing up in Cleveland, in a home, which he later described as “materially poor but spiritually rich.”
                               One day a famous athlete, Charlie Paddock, came to his school to speak to the students. At the time Paddock was considered “the fastest human being alive.” He told the children, “Listen! What do you want to be? You name it and then believe that God will help you be it.”

                             That little boy decided that he too wanted to be the fastest human being on earth.
                                The boy went to his track coach and told him of his new dream.
His coach told him, “It’s great to have a dream, but to attain your dream you must build a ladder to it. Here is the ladder to your dreams. The first rung is determination! The second is dedication! The third, discipline! And the fourth rung; attitude!”
                                The result of all that motivation is that he went on to win four
gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He won the 100 meter dash and broke the Olympic and world records for the 200 meters. His broad jump record lasted for twenty-four years.

                               His name? Jesse Owens

                               What about the fifth rung?

                               Well, another tale, this time not an athlete but a preacher: Somewhere in the mid-1960s, evangelist Billy Graham was invited to speak at an event in the university’s football stadium. There were 18,000 people in attendance that evening. America’s civil rights movement was well underway and the stadium crowd represented one of the largest racially integrated meetings ever held in the state.
                              As Rev. Graham was giving a message about easing racial tensions, a huge thunderstorm gathered overhead. Suddenly, lightening struck and a ball of fire seemed to emanate from the speaker’s microphone and travel down the wire.
Graham immediately sat down. Then he leaned over and spoke to Alabama’s legendary football coach, Bear Bryant. “Coach,” he said, “you’d have stopped, too, if that lightnin’ had hit you like that.”
                             Bear said, “No sir!”
                            “What do you mean?” asked Graham.
                            “Well,” he said, “if I was down on the one-yard line, I wouldn’t have stopped until I scored!”
                            Rev. Graham returned to the microphone and finished his talk.

                            The fifth rung to your dream; ‘never quit, till you score..!’

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Mamata’s Nano..!

Not many know of Mamata Banerjee’s master plan to beat the Tata’s at their own game: “We don’t need no Nano because Mamata has her own Nano for the people!” chanted a party worker of the firebrand leader. “Come let me show you the Mamata Nano!”

                             I drove with the party worker out of Kolkata “Our engineers burned the midnight oil to produce this model,” he said proudly as he showed me into a small shed somewhere near Singur.

“And like the Nano this will just cost a lakh?” I asked.

“You think only a Tata can do that? You don’t know our Mamata! There it is!”

“Its beautiful!” I cried.

“The paint we’ve used is the latest in gobhar gas technology,” said the party worker proudly. “The gloss will retain its shine for a whole day.”

“Incredible!” I whispered in disbelief.

“Safety belts made of pajama strings!” exclaimed the worker.

“Superb!” I said.

“Bucket seats out of real buckets!”

“Unbelievable!”

“Iron bumpers from old ploughshares that will rip open another car in an accident!”

“You’ve even got a small vanity box inside!” I said.

“That’s for our rosogullas! Look at the headlights, good ole kerosene lamps!”

“Brilliant!”

“Mosquito nets instead of glasses all round!”

“Awesome!” I cried incredulously.

                     The party worker looked at me with unconcealed pride. “Mamata will bring back Bengal’s lost pride. Our party will come to power once this car hits the road,” he said. “This will surely catapult her to the PM’s chair!”

“She will send Sonia packing to Italy!” I mused

 “And Manmohan back to his books!” guffawed the party worker, “for too long have we had to hear about liberalization and nuclear deals when desi ideas where available right here. Mamata knew we didn’t have to borrow from western technology!”

“Yes,” I shouted gleefully, “you might even export this car to Japan.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the worker, “I can see you are becoming a Mamata fan! What about a cup of tea before we return?”

 “Let’s take it out for a spin first,” I said eagerly.

“A what?” asked the puzzled worker.

“A drive,” I explained, “I’d like to see her on the road!”

“You’ll have to install an engine for that.”
“It doesn’t have an engine?” I asked astonished.

“What do you expect for a lakh? But if you insist, Mamata has even thought about that: Come with me,” said the worker as he led me to a field where farmers stood next to their bulls, “For a lakh more these farmers will hitch a pair to the front of the car!”

“This is just the leader we need!” I whispered in awe, “Not only has she built an automobile industry in the state but has helped the farmer too..!”

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The Chinese have won the most number of gold medals but the US have won more medals overall, and this is causing a dispute of international proportions between the two giants.

“Look at the medals we are carrying home,” panted an American athlete as he lifted a sack, “even the airlines are refusing us on board unless we pay for extra baggage!”

“Gold is gold,” chanted the Chinese athletes, “you can carry back your silver, you can carry back your bronze, but we carried back the gold!”

“You might have got more gold,” shouted the American Olympians, “but we’ve got more medals and the Olympics is about medals dear dragons!”

                                Now there’s one thing about the Chinese, though the dragon it be national emblem and you also see it in most Chinese restaurants and also restaurants which are not Chinese but want to fool customers they are, still nobody likes being called a dragon.

                             “It’s a very provocative term,” said the referee who was kicked by the Cuban, and whose statements were now being swallowed by the International press, “you just can’t call anybody a dragon! Ofcourse that fellow who kicked me, he could make it to the dinosaur category but not dragon, never!”

                             “We’ve got to put an end to this controversy!” said the head of the Olympic committee, “We can’t have this dragging on…”
“Dragoning one…” laughed his Chinese interpreter.

“Ah yes, dragooning on!” said the head of the committee.

                           The British were upset, this could spell trouble in the next Olympics and it was decided to find a solution before it got carried to the Isles of Britain.

“I think I’ve got a way out,” said Prime minister Brown, “weigh the medals!”

“What do you mean?” asked the Olympic chief as his interpreter hastened to translate his English to Brown.

“Dammit, just melt all the American medals and put it on a weighing machine and the Chinese on another and see which is heavier, that’s the winner.”

“Genius!” shouted the Olympic chief as his translator hastened to translate the word for Brown, who waited for her to finish and then patted himself on his shoulder.

“Wait!” shouted the Chinese chief.

“No!” shouted the Chinese team.

“America win!” shouted the Chinese president.

                       “Why did the Chinese give up so easily?” asked the American President as he boarded the plane to America.

“The gold medals were made in China!” chuckled the Olympic chief as his translator scowled, “they were not genuine gold, just gold plated, like the little singing girl mouthing another voice and the imaginary fire works on the first day!”

“Ah! Made in China! What else can you expect!” chuckled the rest of the world.

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Gokulashtami, Ganpati, the Garba..

I opened my window on Sunday and heard the strains of Govinda aala re, aala zara matki sambhal Brijbala… the hit film song of the 60’s reverberating, as ‘Gokulashtami’ was being celebrated with ‘Dahi Handi’ groups moving about like warriors to win prize money.

                            I knew the festival season had arrived.

                       It’s that time of the year when potholes are forgotten, flooding overlooked and politicians forgiven. It’s that time of the year when pretty girls come on the streets and dance to sensual, scintillating drumbeats, their shy glances leaving long lasting impression on surrounding males, who dance macho steps with bravado and flourish to gain second look and maybe new courtship.

                      The festival season has started and there’s hope in the air.

                      And romance and laughter and gaiety

                      I watch the faces of devotees as they bring home the elephant god, small carts, pushed by the man of the house, with eldest son steering unwilling front wheel as daughter walks alongside, looking devoutly at sacred idol, lending a hand to steady him as pothole jolts the cart and I know a mother at home waits, with room cleaned and scrubbed for her annual guest and sweets and other delicacies for other guests who will drop in, as they do every year.

                       Ganpati stays a few days and then his journey to the sea or nearest pond, with same family accompanying him, this time the mother also to wish him tearful goodbye.

                      And then comes Navratri!

                      Many decades ago I marveled as I watched Gujarati’s dance the dandiya every night, their steps lithe, movements artistic and elegant, hardly revealing, sometimes overweight bodies. Today I see the whole of India joining in.

                       For nine days India dances.

                       Deadlines are extended and music goes on into the night as policemen become a little more tolerant to ten o clock deadline, after all their own daughters at some colony playground or club, dressed in fashionable finery are also dancing the night away, making the most of being away from watchful eyes of over possessive father.

                       Finally it’s Divali, when the country reverberates to the sound of a billion crackers and flashes and streaks fill night sky. It’s four days when work comes to a grinding halt; nobody complains; we all need to unwind, and from Gokulashtami onwards the unwinding begins..!

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