At home now and technically 'chilling' out though it is quite muggy here in Jam.People tell me that it is pretty cool now but all I know is that I start sweating if I don't sit under a fan.You really appreciate ACs here.Maybe I have become the extremely sensitive to weather asinine Bangalorean.I was wondering why we don't have power cuts here in Jam,then the power went off yesterday and it dawned on me-its impossible to breath without a fan or an AC here.At the steel plant here during most of the summer,all work is stopped between 11AM to 4PM because even the sheltered portions of the plant become as hot as 50 deg Celsius or more.

So all that can be done is done in the evening and the rest of the time is spent reading or sleeping indoors.I have been reading Moby Dick,Gravity's Rainbow and Beyond Belief in turns so that I don't get bored of any one book.I somehow always end up concurrently reading two or more books and this might seem strange to people who swear by one book at a time but somehow I end up finishing books faster this way.I am also very desperate to read Paradise Lost but unfortunately all these fancy bookshops in Bangalore do not bother to stock it.All I could locate was a massive 'collection of Milton's works' or something of that sort which was anyway beyond the price range.So,whoever you are,please mail me a copy.

Spain won in style and quite decisively.They broke their jinx of not having any silverware for the past 44 years.For me the find of the tournament would be Fabregas-his passing is beautiful and elegant and he created that vital space on which the likes of Villa and Torres thrived.The penalty taken against Italy was very clinical too.With this win I broke a personal jinx too.It would so happen that every team I supported lost in the football world cups or Euro championships.in '94, the first I remember seeing; I was supporting Germany being a fan of Klinsmann.They lost in the quarterfinals.Then in '98,it was again Germany and they lost again. in '02,I switched to Argentina being now a big fan of Batistuta,they were in some 'group of death' and didn't even make it to the second round.That was enough for people to start saying that I am jinxed and that whichever team I support is gonna lose. With Argentina out of the way,I supported Spain and they lost to South Korea in the second round.Then Italy collapsed in the quarterfinals.I started getting taunting calls from all my friends.(you know who you are) They supporting the safe bet- Brazil.Then in '06,it was Argentina again and they were playing some amazing football right throughout the tournament.This time,watching the world cup in the hostel common room was amazing.Unlike cricket in which there would be a collective mourning after an Indian loss,hostel had this different groups of people supporting different teams-the German supporters,the Brazilian supporters,the Argentinian supporters and that would spice things up.The '06 world cup ended in July coinciding with the exams and it was pretty tough concentrating in that almost carnival atmosphere.It seemed as though the jinx would break when 80 mins into the Germany-Argentina Quarterfinal Klose headed in a winner and all was lost. Consequently I bungled up my Digital Communications paper.Yesterday was weirdly familiar with Klose still at the helm of the German attack but thankfully there was no equalizer and I could finally after a 14 year wait see my team win :-)

PS:the only thing better than tennis under lights is probably swimming under lights