Mad Max Mourinho: Weary Road

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The article is a satirical match report on Manchester City vs Chelsea, with a Mad Max twist.

Mourinho’s Bus had been on cruise control over the open highway of last season.  No others vehicles ever in sight.  But this year all the other drivers had upgraded their vehicles. Some drivers preferred to have local English nitrous oxide while some others preferred to import a German engine. The silverware of last year didn’t matter. He may have had a new contract and the board’s assurance. But survival was not the solution. It was trophies. 

Today was the clash of the two shades of Blue; the lighter wanted to see the light after its pitfalls last season. The darker wanted to don a stronger tone. There were still several problems for Mourinho. The doctor, the transfer market, Arsene Wenger, the perennial Costa issues and the Questions. 

Just as Mourinho pondered, almost like a quick day dream, his mind slithered into the Questions.

“Where were you? Why didn’t you defend us against the reporters?” Asked the teams

“Have you read what they have written about me?” Asked the Doctor

“Excuses again?” The sexagenarian club managers shared a chuckle.

Mourinho snapped out of it. For years he played mind games. Now the mind was playing games with him. He thought he had left the scars back in Spain, but they had followed him back to England, albeit two years hence.

He calmed himself. All would still go as per plan.

Three former Athletico strikers had been absorbed within the blue oval. Each trying their best to show their form in the hint of the yesteryear Red. Out of the two on the pitch, just as the needles of the clock eased themselves from the half hour mark, one of them showed the colours with his feet, the other showed it with his face. Aguero had waltzed alongside Cahill and Terry and slipped the ball coolly evading Nemaja Matic’s long legs.

Suddenly Begovic appeared:  “ Where were you? Am I as good as Courtios. Can you tell that to the reporters?”

Miniature Terry and Cahill pulled his blue tie. “ It wasn’t our fault. Can you tell the reporters? Please.”

“Shut up!“ muttered Mourinho. An hour to go. 60 minutes to go. Lot of time. A lot of time for the plan to take off.

Everyone thought the other striker, Diego ‘Furiosa’ Costa, would break someone in half at half time. The bandage dressing by the new doctor duo was loosening by itself. The beast had only two switches, break his shackles or his own hamstrings. Today the needle was firmly pointing towards the former. This was it. The redemption would begin in the second half. All would go as per plan.

Cut to the second half, and Terry sits along with Mikel watching his prodigy take the centre stage. The man who was the best defender last season was already subbed in his second match itself. Yes, but all was still as per plan. This was needed to counter Aguero’s pace; everyone nodded around him. 

“Am I too old? You have never done this to me. Am I NEXT? The media will mock me Jose”

Fabregas brushed his perfectly groomed hair again,checking for the magic hat. It was there. Any moment now. Last season’s top assist maker. Ivanovic, the new captain sent a beautiful cross only a tad fast for Costa to get a touch.  Of course, there was a comeback.

But Ivanovic, the Serbian Tank, today had harpoons pierced around him,drastically slowing him down;  Sterling and Navas swinging and hovering above him; and finally overtaking him. But Zouma had the centre swiftly covered, cutting each harpoon as he saw it.

“ Am I a liability after today and the Swansea Game? Is it Baba Rahman and Azpi on either flanks hereafter? Don’t tell the Reporters” Ivanovic growled.

Cuadrado was coming on for Ramires. A 7/10 performance again, but clearly overshadowed by the Ramires v2.0, Fernandinho. Just like the Shakhtar Donesk game years back.

Willian, another goalscorer for the Shakhtar game that night was fortunately playing for Chelsea.  The evergreen legs would match Cuadrado pace to pace. There was still time left in the plan.

“ Will I be sold back to Florentina? Was I not worth the money? What will you tell them? ”

“Why did you sell Schurrle?”

With all of Zouma’s efforts, one harpoon on the Serbian tank had remained. As the tank lost steam, the opposition captain, Kompany took advantage and pierced home a header.

 2-0.But still time for a comeback. The game changers were still on the pitch. Hazard would dance. Willian would run. Falcao has now entered with a point to prove, and maybe to steal a point.  Mourinho altered the plan to salvage a draw.

“ How would you judge Falcao in the past two games? Was it your ego which signed him up?”

” Were you serious about Hazard being better than Ronaldo” The reporters and pundits smirked.

3-0. Fernandinho.

Stop it! Mourinho screamed inside his head. All the cameras wanted a reaction. Just a small fit of rage. Something. Anything.

“ Worst defeat in recent history for you? Your thoughts”

“How can this impact the title race?”

“ Will you be on a panic buying spree in the next two weeks?

At full time, Mourinho was expressionless. He sternly picked up his Aqua Cola and marched into the dressing room. There were no goals. No green place. There was no plan.

It would be a long ride in the desert for the boys tonight. Tonight, It was... ah, Mediocre.

Shorts-II

The Critic

The Bollywood movie the critic had dismissed was a superhit. Hungry,he stopped for Pav Bhaji. He didnt care about the reused oil nor Chotu's clothing sense. The Pav Bhaji took him away from a chaotic world. It was his reward for a hard day. Perhaps he needed to take the movies and the Bhaji with  pinch of salt.


The Troll

He was mad for Wordplay on twitter and facebook. Anagrams or instagrams, he was very punny at it. But the memes never impressed the ma'ams. Jingles always kept him Single. Trolls never let him Roll. He then decided to 'A Bo(r)t his life. He never Trended. Noone saw his WIT in Twitpic..


The Robbery

'Tere ghar mein ma-behen nahi hai kya..jo khana banake de?'
The aiport authorities explained he couldnt take eatables with him.
'Toh achaar chak ke dikhau?'The authorities gave up and repacked his eatables. Once he landed, he smirked while taking out the diamonds from the pickle jar.

Shorts

Trucks
When all the world has been reduced to a rat race, he will always be the elephant who forgets. Bikes wriggle between cars to achieve an imaginary lead up to the next signal. Out of the box thinkers move out of the long queues of traffic into the opposite lane, only to see themselves facing the rightful lane owner and being engulfed back into the stomach of the automobile centipede. But a simple wave of the hand to go ahead and join the other rats briefly questions your motives to speed. With one hand on the non powered steering and the other hand steering your direction, he has shown you that he is the bigger man, as well as the bigger car. Slithering slowly on pitch dark roads, his dim headlights are the nazar for the world's kala mooh.


Banyan
The Banyan Tree roots dangled for months together for children to swing between their innocent school life to Tarzan's. The roots protruded from the branches, gently caressing the ground at first and then piercing it. The soil was as soft as ghee, and the roots curled up into the ground like a tedi ungli finally meeting its mother roots. This was Nature's Ouroboros.
As the next branches lunged towards the ground, they slowly saw the soft soil disappear. The petrichor filled mud was now replaced with cold concrete, the hoof marks now filled wiith tyre skid marks and nature now replaced by human failure.
The Banyan was now hit with hard reality. And hard realty. The vesting rights over the ground were over. It was now merely a vest.

More Vegetables than the Doctor Ordered..

 

“ Aloo, Can I help you?”, the receptionist enquired.

“Er yes.. Can  you can direct me to the Non-Non Vegetarian Group Inc. head office”, he answered wondering if that was a jibe at him.

The newspaper ad was short. “Beet the meat in 2 days.Free.”

The line was corny, but he wanted to turn vegetarian for quite some time. Junk food had caused his body all sorts of problems, and he believed vegetables could root this ale’ment and cleanse his system.  But he didn’t want to compromise on the taste quotient by eating boiled veggies. He wanted the body like the Hulk; but not by drinking juices of the same color.

He was escorted to a room where he was told to keep out all leather products.  Apparently they wanted to cleanse you from animal dependence from the outside as well. There weren’t any other customers to be seen. He wondered why people didn’t turnip for this offer as he was led into a glass cabin.

The cabin was filled with vegetables and herbs.  Just as he looked around, the door was bolted shut.

Still confused, he tapped at the glass door, thinking it was a mistake. Sala bakra chodne aaya tha, mujhko hi bakra bana diya.

Two doctors greeted him from outside the cabin.

“Hi. Don’t worry. The door is just jammed. I’ll just ask the security to open it. I am Dr. Jean Cabaye and this is my assistant, friend and brocholli.”

“Its Kohli”, the assistant mutter'ed.

“Oh hi. I thought  you will be experimenting on me in this cabin? Like I am some kind of lab rat?”

“No. No. No. Rats do eat meat, sometimes even other rats”, he said, trying to provide some quantum of solace to his customer.

“Haha..Anyways what’s the deal here? I didn’t quite understand what’s the routine?”-he asked impatiently.

“Nothing,nothing. We will inject you with one of my inventions which will prevent you from having any non veg items.

“Prevent? I hope this is safe. Mereko toh tere se dar lag raha hai sabji”- he blurted out to the Doctor.

“Tomato wohi keh raha hoon. Don’t worry”- assured the assistant.

The serum would change his system in a way that having meat would hurt his stomach. The enzymes secreted by your digestive tract would now be like a herbivore.

“But I will still crave for meat, wont I? I have known people who have had allergies from food, but still longed to eat it.”

“Ah.. But we will tweak your taste buds as well.  Your incisors will also be chiseled so your teeth are more refined to process your new food.”

“ Whoa! Wait a minute. Your experiment isn’t helping me to curb my eating habits, you are taking away my choice to eat meat. One is a lifestyle option but the other is a fundamental right.  These are two different things. Comparing Chalk to Cheese“

“ Tomato,Tomatar, Potato,Batato…I think you are just playing with semantics. La’sooner you stop making such arguments the better”-said the Doctor with a change of tone.

“ I have had enough. I don’t want to sign up for this. Where the hell is the security? ”

“ You have already signed up for this. My serum is odourless and is currently entering your body through the air”

He felt a sudden rush through his body which made him feel weaker. His pulses went higher. His eyes turned radish. He tried hitting the glass, but faltered at every blow.

“You are playing with Nature!!” he exhaled.

As he lost his consciousness, he faintly heard the words

“Let baingons be baingons, now Gobi yourself”

 Dhaniyawaad.

 

Horror Horror on the Ghoul, who is the darkest of them all?

Since everyone has watched The Conjuring( Kudos if you could watch it without the person sitting next to you screaming “ Arey kya kar rahi hai?, udhar andar mat jao!!!”), I thought this is a good time to put out a list of the horror movies to be checked out. The list isn’t exhaustive. Most of the ratings range from the ocassional “I told you so” to “Mummmyyyyy!!!!!!!”

1.       The Japanese Horror: No horror list can exist without mentioning the real masters to this genre. Though Hollywood has already remade these and showed them to a larger audience, it is  always great to lay your hands on the original.

The Ring Series

The Grudge Series

Dark Water

The Audition

2.       Khoon!! Khoon!! :

Just because someone is icky on the outside, doesn’t mean he is icky from the inside’- Bubbles (Powerpuff Girls)talking about Cockroaches

These guys are icky from the inside as well. These monsters just want to kill someone. End of Story. We used to have Alif Laila in the DD1 days where these monsters would sit across the other actors in the final minutes of the episodes to tell their dukh bhari kahanis. But these guys are a different league. However most of the time, the motive to actually commit the crime are laughable.

I Know what you did last summe

Scream Series

Nightmare of Elm Street

The Hills have Eyes

Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Vacancy

House of Wax

3.       Stitch ‘em up:

These movies are filled with villains, who didn’t know if they wanted to be Doctors or Carpenters- so ended up becoming both.

Saw Series

Hostel Series

4.       DSLR wala Horror Movies:

These movies are captured on hand held cameras to give a more “Real Life” feel to it. The original idea behind these movies was not to have any special sound effects, and let the viewers get the chill by looking from the corner of the lenses.

Paranormal Activity Series

Blairwitch Project

Ragini MMS

5.       The Game Changers:

Some people dream to succeed in life. Others dream to crush these dreams.

The following list will oil your creaking doors, tan up your zombies, stitch your torn dolls and subtly laugh at the genre in the face.  These movies are fun to watch as they take every cliché, every stereotype and make you guilty of ever getting scared of stuff like this.

Cabin in the Woods

ZombieLand

Shuan of the Dead

Warm Bodies

Go Goa Gone

6.       The Thrillers:

These movies are unique as the suspense sometimes kills you more than the ghost scares itself. You would watch it again not to show how brave you are, but just to get the references and hints that were staring at your face. But you chose to ignore them while you waited for the next scare to happen. Mr. Guillermo Del Toro is the best thing that has happened to this Genre.

The Orphanage

Psycho

Pan’s Labrynth

Sleepy Hollow

Sixth Sense

7.       The Classics:

These are the real chilling ones. The blood and gore is usually substituted by unexplained phenomena and the surprise element. These movies actually make you get up in the middle of the night,drink water and run back to bed because you thought someone was following you.

Exorcist

Exorcism of Emily Rose

Mama

Insidious

Bhoot

The Omen

Shutter(Thai)

8.       So bad its good:

These are the movies to be seen in broad daylight with a gang of friends, once it releases on television. The directors usually make a good horror movie at first but end up cashing in on the same by making sequels or the like. And of course, they involve really bad acting. You know the drill for these ones.

Also, my personal  favorite still happens to be Pachadlela(Marathi). The movie is scary, Laxmikant Berde is amazing and somehow reminds us of our current state. An outside force controlling a puppet and annoying the innocent.

Rooney: Chapter 27: The Decision

A fictional chapter of a fictional novel about a fictional transfer move about to happen.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way at all. He looked on outside, as kids played and giggled together. The past week, he hadn’t been very good at doing either. The media had extrapolated the wrong sources. Everyone had forgotten what he had given for all these years. It didn’t matter. He had been dethroned. He wanted to come out and make a statement, but he knew it would just get worse. He was still trying to learn the rules of this new reality.

His mind reeled the Scotland game. 67 minutes looked too less. The touch from Lambert looked too many.  Could this be the same at Manchester United? Persie would walk into the starting XI, and Hernandes loved to do such 67 min cameos.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He still had it in him, didn’t he? Why else would Chelsea bid twice for him? He didn’t know if the Rooney or bust headline made him look good or bad.

He looked around his living room. The trophies oozed of satisfaction. Every season, he had added another concrete coating to Gary Neville’s statement about him. His bank balance was well above what he had expected.  His agent had done a good job. So did he need this? Did he deserve this? He had already tasted this around 10 years back. He didn’t want to do this all over again.

Just a year back, he had reasoned the pros and cons. Sir Alex and he had debated this long enough. The football pundits had debated this even more. He never thought such dilemmas and his receding hairline would ever come back. But both of them did.

Chelsea’s transfer targets always hogged most of the limelight. He had seen the Modric saga. If the club didn’t want to sell, he wouldn’t be going. He had also seen the treatment Chelsea had given to Malouda, Anelka and Alex. He didn’t want to be in either situation. 

He switched on the television. The sports channels were showing the Anzhi situation; Eto’o would be available. If Chelsea were ready for his wages, they surely would bare Eto’os. He changed the channel.

 “ Fear is the the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you." –Yoda spoke to young Anaken.

Rooney thought about his own demons. He was just like Anaken, hailed as the best. He had proved it too. But was he choosing the wrong path? Would he be Darth Vader? His hair transplant would go unnoticed underneath the mask. He giggled and shook his head at the childish analogy he had created.

Chelsea was a really good option. And Mourinho was a good leader. The World Cup was coming closer day by day. But could a new team help him better than Manchester United? Would a (god forbid!) pay cut be viable? Was all this…normal?

He didn’t fear the arm chair critics; nor the ridicule of the fans. He didn’t want his goals to dry up like Torres... Or Shevchenko… Or Anelka… Or Pizzaro. A young Padawan in Lukaku was waiting under the wings to conquer the Premier League. Would such a force be reckoned with?

“Aaarghh..stop it with the Star Wars references” he thought to himself

He wanted to end this tonight. The unsigned transfer request was lying in his drawer. While taking it out, he found a quotations book in the drawer too. Finally something that didn’t mean media quotes or quoting a price.

Distracted he was.

Rooney opened the first page.

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ – it read. Rooney strangely interpreted it as a question, would he sign it or tear it apart?