French Connection…

The French connection did have its share of nail biting matches on the 2007 circuit….

The traditional rivalry between the French and the English defining ‘opposites’ seem to extend to the Roland Garros and Wimbledon. The bright red Parisian Clay of the Garros had to be in defining contrast with the lush green striped Grass of the Wimbledon. Even the players seem to be rigid by showing their favoritism , maintaining the exclusivity in wearing their kingdom’s winning crowns n fighting hard to elude themselves’ from the rival triumph, all this proved excessively by Sampras, McEnroe, Becker and now Fedrer, all confirming their loyalty to the Queen by not wanting to get too dirty on the French Clay, so as to retain their presentable best in whites for the Wimbledon at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to be followed in a few weeks after their French connection..... Only the impartial few world citizens (6 to be precise ending with Andre Agassi) seem to lend their service to the ancient empires on equal basis.

And with Nadal having electing himself as the Eiffel towers bigget fan for the 3nd consequietive time and proved his love to it by not even knowing the Queen’s language, he seemd to have stuck his legs in clay for quite some time to come …….. as Federer still not wanting to hit the right note with the French…… After Nadal’s lionlike sharp looks/cuts in keeping Roger off his space, now it wud be the latter's turn on the Greens. They seem to have taken over the mattle from Agassi-Sampras, n with no grt challenge from masters like Courier, Becker, Ivanisevic things r up for these two….

Switzerland known to be the best in the orbit of Swiss Banks, Swiss Watches, Swiss Choclates & Swiss Federer…. The Swiss have this knack of reinventing all these time n again and looks like its time to work on the last one… well he has certainly carved his name along with the greats at this very moment. Just has to work on surprassing that greatness to follow the swiss legend of "eternity"…. The french open being quite a diappointment to his fans and record books… he should be looking right now at retaining Her Majesty’s Crown next month ….

As no talk on French is complete without the mention of its women… the red clay carpet did provide a perfect venue for the french haute-couture with lots of its internationl colorful “models” hitting the “ramp” …. hey they had an accessiory too--- tennis racket!!! with our own ash doing her bit too….. in the stands this time ….looked like it was a re-run of Miss Universe contest??? All of this was very much interupted by some classy strokes (with the racket) by Henin, she wud have felt out of place… poor gurl… jus knows tennis n collecting trophies…. {not much help on the Ftv rgt :( }…

Something seem to have replaced talent in womens’ tennis circuit, have the “Steffi Grafs’” gone the dinosaur way……

Stationery Dreams...

A pit stop at a stationery shop made me take a detour my memory lane……

It started with a casual evening stroll to buy some paper n clips at a busy market place dogging the veggie vendors n vehicles to reach an array of shops staging clothes, gifts, toys…. ending at the corner was my destination…. Well quite empty, with jus a couple of orders before mine…. made my eyes relax casually on the colorful assortment displayed…. this lethargy did cost me my place in the queue…. with a crowd of “ready to school. Kids” + their “proud moms/dads” stole my turn, with orders much larger than mine….

Well each kid seem to make the best of his time n choice ranging in the form of notebooks, colored pencils, pens, labels … the list wud go on had i been aware of the endless necessities…… gudness… wat a range of choice today’s kids r offered with???? mindblowing….. I surely envy them…….. for a whole lot of reasons…. But not to mention the little joy we had too…. at our good old times……….. THOSE TIMESSSS…………

Now that’s where the detour starts……….

Took me to those few days prior to school re-opening… fresh after the hot summer hols, in the cool monsoons of the june ......... the smell of wet mud ..... the fragrance of freshly stitched fabric (which eventually wud be the most used dress for the entire year) ..... and thatof paper oozing from the fresh brown bound books…… n with eagerness to put the best of the writing in them(at least for the first few pages)… ….

hmmmmm............. how we used to spend time arranging the bags n pencil boxes with meticulous care…… colorful pencils….(camlin was my fav), scent ‘rubbers’ with cute cartoons impressed on them (seldom used, dint wan to get the shape spoilt) the labels ranging from superman…. Sassy cars….. to our cricketing heroes…….

Shoppin for school was the best way to end the summer hols…. n the nearest n the best stationery station had to adhere to my demands starting from 6 to 7 variety of notebooks ranging from ruled, un ruled, mixed, squared, fourliners, drawing books to name a few… to the thousand erasers before I chose a couple ......... to the hundred pencil boxes b4 I stuck to one (hey remem… there was something called double deck boxes with magnets) ........ to the pencils, labels, pen-pencils. etc.....hey n color paper for "craft" classes:)...... b4 graduating to geometric boxes n pens.........

Wowoowowowowow… wat a wonderful trip that was………….. followed by the torture my mom had to go through to bind the books n stick the favorite labels to my beloved subjects (very perticular bout tht) ……… jus cudnt wait for the last few holidays to get over n don the NEW uniform, NEW bag with NEW books, NEW class, NEW teacher, NEW year……… n to share all the NEW with “gudoldfriends”……

Well the years to come replaced all these with jus a couple of unbound books n pen in pocket……. avoiding the annual customary visits to those ........................ Stationery dreams ...............