The Unsaturated Reader

The Week Gone By – New Yorrrrrrrrrk……!

Written by

Theur

in

  1. I have finally come to terms with what makes the Malayalam movie Balan so heart-touching and thought-provokingly baffling at the same time: the layers and gaps in the storyline makes one come up with one’s own mini-tales that unmask the mystery and turns it into a coherent whole. And we like to believe that our version is the right one.
  2. Mayor Mamdani🎶 (! – the title certainly has a ring to it) is on a roll..with his supporters asking if we can tweak the constitution to ensure that he gets to override the nativity requirement to become the President of the US, Like any self-respecting politician (which is a rarity) Mamdani has played down such hopes and aspirations — which only goes onto affirm how deserving he is of such a position, howsoever complicated the means to achieve it might be.
  3. I can’t stop listening to Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind with Alicia Keys’ wonderful ‘New York, New York’ chorus still ringing in my ears. It is a perfect companion for night drives, or every time one feels nostalgic about New York — even for those who may not have even been there! P.S. It doesn’t help that the World Cup final will also be happening in New York 🎶, New York 🎶, New York 🎶……!
  4. I am reading Simon Kuper’s World Cup Fever this week. And it heartens and saddens me that Jules Rimet (the creator of the Fifa was such an incorrigible optimist about the unifying power of football, transcending political and geographical divides. Even the WWII bloodshed and vengeances did not dither him. The current president Gianni Infantino is an amusing figure. The expansion of the World Cup to include 32 teams initially had me doubting but now I’ve been totally won over. Who would’ve thought Cape Verde would choke Argentina until the dying minutes of the match during the knockouts?
  5. Vozinha, the 40 year old goalkeeper of Cape Verde national football team (the tiny island nation of just over 500,000 inhabitants) is a legend and he has left behind a world cup story that will be recounted by football fans for ages. As a BS article memorably put it, “The Champions are alive. But Cape Verde showed they can bleed.” Argentina had to be on their feet for the entire match. Cape Verde showed remarkable resilience, they played with passion, putting their hearts on the field surrounded on all four sides by die-hard Argentinian fans. The goal that won La Albicieste the match, kicked from the corner by Lionel Messi, and headed by Cuti Romero, only for it to bounce off the head of the opposing team’s defender and ultimately find the back of the net, was ruled an own goal. But the technicality did not matter to Lionel Scaloni’s side– they had made through, finally. Much to the ire of several hate-watchers, including a voodooist who prophesied that the reigning champions would lose. Gautam Bhatia’s remark that anyone with a tiny romantic bone in them would’ve wanted Cape Verde to win (even if one’s a Messi fan) stuck with me. It has a grain of truth to it although the die-hard fan in me still wanted Messi and his boys to get through — and win his second WC trophy. World Cup Mbappe has got to be the most demonic version of him. 28 years old, dissatisfied at his ‘dream club’ Real Madrid, with not a Ballon D’or in sight, playing for France surely turns on something in him. France’s frontline is deadly, and that is something Argentina will have to contend with. La Roja is my second favourite side at the WC. I hope they get past Portugal. With Bernardo Silva picking Real Madrid over Barca this summer, Portugal has permanently sealed its place on my hate watch list. Lamine, Pedri, Rodri..you’ve got this.
  6. Might Japan ever be able to strike a consistently good relationship with India? Gone are the days of Abe’s ‘Confluence of the Seas’ vision, and it’s been replaced by realistic pragmatism in the international arena. Takaichi vowing that Japan would come to Taiwan’s defence in the event of a Chinese attack doesn’t help with its geopolitical calibration — which is now sensitive given how the US is slightly angling towards China, putting aside the cold hostility that has characterised the Republican stance in recent years.
  7. Delhi’s EV Policy 2.0 is impressive on paper, but requires full-throttle implementation to succeed. EV adoption must be incentivised on meaningful terms so that residents can weigh alternatives and make financially prudent timely switch to electric vehicles.

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