Floyd Landis.. I bow to you.

Floyd Landis?? Landis who?? This is the first question people ask when his name is mentioned. He was the second-in-command in Lance Armstrong's cycling team. And now that Lance is retired, he did some unimaginable in the Tour De France, a feat that will be discussed for time to come.

Here is an article from the website www.cyclingnews.com

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Without a shadow of a doubt, today will go down as one of the finest stages in modern Tour de France history. Today, a 28 year-old American by the name of Floyd Landis, written off by most after his collapse of yesterday, staged a comeback that defied logic. And in one fell swoop, he finds himself back in contention to win the 2006 Tour de France. His stage win was reminiscent of Charly Gaul's 100 km breakaway in the Alps in the 1958 Tour to put himself back into contention from a seemingly lost position, before Gaul went onto win the final time trial and the Tour de France.

"I don't expect to win the Tour at this point," said Landis after his ride yesterday. "It's not easy to get back eight minutes. But I'm gonna fight, because you never know what's going to happen next."

No, Floyd, we didn't expect you to win, either. No, Floyd, it's not easy to reverse an eight-minute time deficit four days from the finish of a Grand Tour. No, Floyd, we didn't know what would happen next...

... But Floyd, when did you know you were going to do what you did today?

"The plan was from the beginning," he replied. "I was very disappointed yesterday. For me to have a bad day was something I couldn't control. But today I thought, 'I could at least show them that I could keep fighting'.

"After that, all I could do was hope that behind me they were disorganised or not strong enough to catch me. I didn't have a whole lot of information. I only had the time differences every now and then. It's hard to tell what's going on behind."

Going alone
Photo ©: Sirotti

His solo move, on the first of the day's five climbs and 128.5 kilometres from the finish in Morzine, quite simply looked irrational by the very nature of what lay ahead. However, as the fiery-eyed Phonak leader continued to turn a massive gear kilometre after kilometre, downing bidon after bidon, and picking off and spitting out each of the eleven members of the early breakaway one by one, the numbers game began turning in Floyd's favour.

"When the time gaps didn't change for a long period of time, I was pretty sure that they were working as hard as they could, and that I was going to be okay," he said.

By the summit of the final ascent of the Col de Joux-Plane, Landis had turned the groupe maillot jaune inside out and upside down. Sastre was five minutes down. Moreau was six. And Schleck, Klöden, Sinkewitz, Evans, Zubeldia and maillot jaune Pereiro were almost seven minutes in arrears.

Carlos Sastre (CSC)
Photo ©: Sirotti

Crossing the line outside Morzine's Place de l'Office de Tourisme, the time gaps remained much the same. It took some time after crossing the line till Landis launched into his victory salute: a powerful, swinging right-hander, filled with fire and anger. Much the same treatment he gave to his rivals today, which left each and every one of them lying on the ground, winded, battered to a pulp.

"No matter what, whether I win or not, I'm going to prove to my team that I deserved to be a leader," said Landis. "But I didn't expect that I could do it quite so well."

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Trailing by about 30 seconds, and entering the 56 kms time-trials, which is Floyd's strongpoint, he stands a great chance of making it to the victory podium two days from now. If there is someone who has a chance, it is Floyd.

Floyd, I salute you, and I bow to you. You are awesome, and my wishes are with you. Go for it!

Sheshu's spicy lamb chops

One fine sunday noon, we took up Sheshu's offer for lunch at his place, and visited him at his S.Mary Ave residence, a two-bed,4-plex, decked with the Discovery Roomba, a few million DVD's, and terrabytes of mp3's. Sheshu was at his best, throwing some well marinated chicken and lamb chops into the oven, and offering us the 0-carb Michelob Ultra, and Port (thats a first for Sheshu)! With old hindi film music blaring in the background, we got a chance to see the photography skills of Seshu, the traveller. He has been hitting the road, near and far, for the past couple years, and his photo-coffee-table-books were a joy to see. Grand Canyon, Utah, Nevada, Maine, Washington, etc etc ec.

Food arrived, in big platters, lamb chops, chicken chops, and Mangalore style fish curry, with steamed rice. hmm.. one bite into the lamb, and we started sweating.. the spices were yummily mouthwatering, at the same time, it was spiiiiicy.. To mellow down the spices, we bathed the chops in buttermilk. About half an hour of non-stop eating later, we were done. We enjoyed some mangoes Amar had brought with him.

Kudos to Chef Sheshu!

Zizou - the Head-butter, or Soccer Exemplar

Zinadene Zidane, one of the most popular football players of the current generation, caused a sensational ending to the 2006 World Cup finals, by head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzi in a brief moment of uncontrolled rage, in his last game before retiring. Will Zidane, go into football history, as a angry man, or as the soccer genius?

He single-handedly won France the 1998 world cup, comprehensively beating defending champs Brasil by scoring 2 goals, in a 3-0 victory, and winning the Golden Boot award in the 2006 world cup. His magical footwork casts a spell on the defenders, and have won him many an accolade.

Give the guy a break. Yes, he did lose his temper; yes, he might've caused his team to lose; yes, this might be bad for the billion people watching the game live; but hey, it was due to him that France reached so far in the world cup. He is a human being, he can make mistakes, just like every Tom, Lee and Mohan. Does he deserve all the blame ? No, I dont think so. Does he deserve praise for his folly? No, I dont think so either. It was simply a case of a human being, losing his temper, in the heat of the moment, and reacting in a manner which I'm sure he regrets. Do not make him to be a villain. Do not trash him.

Just let him be!

Bomb blasts rock Mumbai ..

.. and it happens again. In the lively city, in the city which-never-sleeps, someone pokes a hole, and disturbs the state of equilibrium. Why is Mumbai such a high-profile target? And who is it that wants to awake a sleeping giant (the peaceful Indian populace)? And why do they keep repeating the same terrorist heinic acts repeatedly?

Today, the news media says, 190 people have been accounted for as dead. And many more are in a critical condition. Not many years ago (1992-93), about a 1000 people were murdered by people of different religions, in the name of God. Is this current mayhem in the same pretext? Have not the citizens experienced the numbing stupidity such violence acts beget? Are we living in such a generation that there is no value for human life and suffering?

The earlier communal mayhem led to the Muslims moving of areas where they were infact minorites, to areas where they consolidated. In the country of the Gandhi, where people are indeed peaceful, such acts are shameful.

In 1986, when I was in high school, I witnessed the first of the so-called communal riots caused by an article on the Deccan Herald, titled 'Mohammed the idiot' (the author refers to a boy called Mohammed). Crores of property was damaged, and many people lost their lives. But more than anything, this caused a serious change in the psyche of the Hindu and the Muslim population. A peaceful co-existing community was scarred, and incidents such as the demolition of the Masjid in RamajanmaBhoomi, the current Mumbai blasts, the riots in Gujarat, cause a bigger rift between the two communities.

Whether these are caused by people living outside India, or by local citizens, the suffering is caused the innocent majority. Blood will be shed, and many bystanders will be killed. Whenever progress is made, there is impedance. We can hope for India to make progress, and not live in fear.

A line from Shawshank Redemption: "Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free".