Skip to main content

Waka Waka... No Way!

Now that the FIFA World Cup is over, I finally summoned up the courage to write this article. If it offends sentiments of any of my readers, let me be clear, I was not talking about you. ;)

"Who are you supporting - Spain or Netherlands?", I was inundated by numerous chat messages when I logged into my laptop on the eve of the FIFA World Cup finals. I had a tough time convincing my friends that I was not supporting anyone (gasp!) and that I do not even watch football (more gasp!). My only knowledge of football is at most limited to Paul, the octopus or Larissa Riquelme promise. Before you fall off your chair unconscious by my brazen honesty, I will explain you my reasons.

I was not born in any of these two countries (or for that matter any nation playing in the world cup) and also I have never visited them even once. I do not identify with their culture, food or language. I don't have any friends or family in those two countries. This makes it kind of hard for me to have any passion for them. Also, I have options other than football when it comes to the matter of entertainment.

Now I have many many friends who pretend to be absolute lovers of football. They were going nuts about it and in the process spamming every social networking site that they had their profile on. If that was not enough, every celebrity, big or small, was spamming Twitter about their love for the "beautiful game". Hell, even my uncle who knew nothing about football was complaining how the referee was being partial in a particular game.

I don't want to sound cynical but most of these so-called passions seem fake and just for scoring some brownie points, "most" being the keyword. (I understand that some people truly love football but they are far and few). I fail to understand how can one have such heated passions for a country that's not his own. When I quizzed a friend about this, he said that since India was a long way off playing in the world cup, so he had to support someone. Now, that's a ridiculous excuse. It sounds more like out of peer pressure than out of true love for football.

The feeling was best summed up by one of my friend's mom when I went to their house during the world cup. My friend as usual was going nuts about some match that was in progress. 
Excitedly, his mom asked, "What? Is India winning?" 
"Mom! This is football. India is not playing." 
"Then what are you getting so hysterical about? Now, give me the remote. I have to watch Pavitra Rishta."

The expression on my friend's face clearly made my day.
Labels:
Location: Gurgaon, Haryana, India

Comments

Post a Comment

As far as possible, please refrain from posting Anonymous comments. I would really love to know who is interested in my blog! Also check out the FAQs section for the comment policy followed on this site.

Popular posts from this blog

Integrating React with SonarQube using Azure DevOps Pipelines

In the world of automation, code quality is of paramount importance. SonarQube and Azure DevOps are two tools which solve this problem in a continuous and automated way. They play well for a majority of languages and frameworks. However, to make the integration work for React applications still remains a challenge. In this post we will explore how we can integrate a React application to SonarQube using Azure DevOps pipelines to continuously build and assess code quality. Creating the React Application Let's start at the beginning. We will use npx to create a Typescript based React app. Why Typescript? I find it easier to work and more maintainable owing to its strongly-typed behavior. You can very well follow this guide for jsx based applications too. We will use the fantastic Create-React-App (CRA) tool to create a React application called ' sonar-azuredevops-app '. > npx create-react-app sonar-azuredevops-app --template typescript Once the project creation is done, we ...
1 comment
Continue Reading >>

Add Git Commit Hash and Build Number to a Static React Website using Azure DevOps

While working on a React based static website recently, there was a need to see exactly what was deployed in the Dev/Test environments to reduce confusion amongst teams. I wanted to show something like this: A quick look at the site's footer should show the Git Commit Hash and Build Number which was deployed and click through to actual commits and build results. Let's see how we achieved this using Azure DevOps. Git Commit Hash Azure DevOps exposes a variable called  $(Build.SourceVersion) which contains the hash of the commit. So I defined a variable in the Build Pipeline using it. Build Id and Build Number Azure DevOps also exposes two release time variables  $(Build.BuildId) and  $(Build.BuildNumber) which can be used to define custom variables in the pipeline. So we have a total of 3 variables defined: Next we use these variables in our React App. I created 3 global variables in index.html and assigned a token value to them. < script   type = "text/JavaScri...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading >>

Use AI to build your house!

When a new housing society emerges, residents inevitably create chat groups to connect and share information using various chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. In India, Telegram seems to be the favorite as it provides generous group limits, admin tools, among other features. These virtual communities become treasure troves of invaluable insights. But whatever app you use, there is always a problem of finding the right information at right time. Sure, the apps have a "Search" button, but they are pretty much limited to keyword search and are useless when you have to search through thousands of messages. I found myself in this situation when it was my turn to start on an interior design project for my home. Despite being part of a vibrant Telegram group, where countless residents had shared their experiences with various interior designers and companies, I struggled to unearth the pearls of wisdom buried within the chat's depths. I remembered that I could take advantage o...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading >>