The Frog In The Well

I bet everyone of you has heard the folk tale of the frog who used to live in the well. If you haven't here's a Chinese version of it. Even in ancient Sanskrit texts, the example of a kupamanduka is well-known and widely used. For those who don't want to take the pain of researching this abstract metaphor I have brought up again, lemme put it down in a line if I can :- The well-frog does indeed have a world-view, but its view is confined to the world of the well. It must be quite apparent where Im heading now, so hang on!

Yes, you guessed it right. StrangeLand is the well. It hit me real hard, this fact, when I heard they called their baseball league the World Series, and that the New York Yankees are poised to become World Champions. Yeah, believe me, when all the teams in this World Series are from the same nation, you are guaranteed to have a World Champion every year from somewhere in StrangeLand. Who plays baseball anyway! Its not even as widely popular as cricket if you take note of the number of people watching the two sports. Well, guess who won the Baseball World Cup 2005? Cuba. Where was StrangeLand placed? 7th. I was surprised to see the World Champions so lowly placed. Of course, Im sure most of their top champion athletes didn't play, cos the world cup of course isn't the true world championship, is it?

"You know, I went to Europe for my holidays, and this car almost ran into me, cos I was walking on the road and these morons drive on the wrong side." Dude! Just because you drive on the right side of the road (as opposed to the left side as found in, well, almost everywhere), doesn't mean everyone is on the wrong side. "Do you watch football?" "Yeah, its my favourite sport!" "Cool, then you are gonna have lotsa fun here, cos we have football all over the TV on weekends" "You mean American football? The one where you wear helmets?" "Yeah, what did you think? Oh. you mean soccer." Soccer? Don't rename the game that is the real football just so you can snatch that name away for a sport that is not really even close to football. How often do I see these helmeted-gladiators actually kicking the damn thing called a football, which is not even round! (To be more mathematically correct, spherical) The ball is mostly found in the hands of a guy trying to run it to the far end of the field, so that he can finally get to kick it into the massive goal. They fight and dodge and tackle for eternity, to get that one elusive chance to actually kick the ball. Why don't you steal handball for a name. How many countries play handball anyway? Why go and pledge the name of the world's favourite sport for yourself. Maybe they were trying to hide the fact that American football was derived from rugby, an English sport. Just like baseball was derived from cricket, another British import. It does really seem that StrangeLand completely rejects whatever is extremely popular elsewhere. They have their own Formula 1 GP, but definitely dont deserve it; it is not even close to being a popular sport here. For those who are not aware, it is the most televised sport everywhere else.

I am being harsh again I guess. Why should I expect one bunch of folks in one corner of the earth to be like the rest? After all they are superhumans here, arent they? We are simple humans compared to them. You dunno what Im talking about? How many disaster movies have you seen? Where the earth is on the verge of extinction. Who saves the world? Yes, it is the StrangeLandian who comes to the rescue, the knight in shining armour, the whiteman on a black stallion. The quintessential American superhero. Man, they love them here. And you know what, this doesnt end here. It actually trickles over (more like floods into) their international politics (I should be calling it diplomacy to be politically correct, but I was more inclined toward using war-mongering and bullying actually) where the President of StrangeLand is a leader of the World and he (I dont need to be politically correct here, over 50 presidents and not a single lady yet, not a single black president either, but thats a whole different cupboard I dont wanna creak open now) gets to poke his nose in the affairs of other nations and decide to change the course of their future and get away with it without being called a war-mongerer. Do good for your own nation first dude; for once be the frog in the well when you should be, blind to the outside world. Believe me, it is widely appreciated. Just dont steal the name football though, its a cheap thing to do!