World Cup Fever

The World Cup is here and don’t be surprised if the level of productivity in this land of ours goes down significantly in the next four weeks. 

Well, most of our civil servants have been slacking off for ages while getting their perks and salaries hiked every two years but now it’s the so-called corporate houses and other private offices that will also witness an increase in the slack-o-meter this month.

We can understand the Brazilians and the English slacking off during the World Cup but we seem to be more engrossed in World Cup action even though we are not playing. 

Our employers will now have to tolerate red-eyed employees dozing off in the afternoon. But our politicians and civil servants will get a break since most of us will be talking about football instead of politics for a month.

You can visit the local chiya pasals in the morning and there will probably be a fan of Argentina arguing with a fan of Brazil on why Messi is the best and Neymar comes nowhere close. 

A fan of England will be rooting for the team even though most of us know that they will probably crash out in the second round or the quarterfinals. And if it comes to the penalty shoot out then English fans will probably shut down the TV because they already know how it’s going to end up.

Everybody is under pressure. No, I am not taking about our netas who need to give us a constitution in less than a year but the teams that are playing in the World Cup. 

Brazil is the host country and if they don’t win then the protestors who are not happy with the billions of dollars being wasted to host the games will probably burn down the stadiums. 

If Argentina doesn’t win then Messi will never be the greatest football player on Earth and Diego Maradona will continue to be remembered as we remember Junga Bahadur instead of Juddha Shumsher. 

Yes, Jungey is long gone but he keeps staring at us from Bhadrakali and let’s thank Juddha for our national Zoo.

If Spain fails to defend their title then they should discard ‘tiki-taka’ and find some other formula to win the game. Instead of passing the ball around forever, maybe they can come up with a ‘Siesta’ where they doze off in the middle of the game, wake up with full energy and pass the ball to Iniesta so that he can score the winning goal again.

Germany will also be under the pressure to win because it’s been 24 years since they last lifted the Cup and although they have managed to reach one final and two-semifinals in the past three world cups, they still don’t have enough blitzkrieg to win the Cup. 

Our government wallahs have come up with various measures to make sure that our restaurant byaparis do no make any dough this World Cup. If you want to screen the games in your restaurant they you have to seek permission from the CDO Saheb. 

The police will then send a team for a field visit where they will try all the dishes and alcoholic drinks to make sure that the quality of the food and drinks are good enough for all patrons. 

And then you will have to have CCTV cameras, enough security guards and a generator for back-up and the final nail in the coffin would be , you can’t sell any booze after midnight. So, go for ice-lemon tea or if it rains like crazy, then soup momo at 3 in the morning could work as well.

I think our political cadres won’t have to shut down the country if we do play in the World Cup someday. The country will shut itself down for a month then. 

But if we really want to go to the World Cup then we must have a leader heading ANFA who will use the funds to develop the sport instead of pocketing Karods of Rupees as “note for vote” kharcha from some Qatari. 

Ganesh Thapa has done quite a lot to enrich himself and his cronies. Thapa has managed to throw a few crumbs to district associations to keep them happy but it’s not enough. 

And it’s not only Thapa but almost all those heading our sports associations in the country, are making money while our athletes don’t have even enough to buy a decent track suit. 

Let’s hope that Bimal Bhai and other young lads will be playing in the World Cup in 2022. That could be wishful thinking because we still don’t have the infrastructure and funds to develop the the talent that we have.  

Maybe, we will have a World Cup team when Bimal Bhai becomes a Dai and is the coach of the national team in 2034. 

I think we can pull it off in the next twenty years. By then, we will probably have 40,000 MW of electricity and our government will be rich enough to spend at least 20 billion dollars to host the tournament itself. 

And the host nation receives an automatic berth so that could be the only way we get to play in the World Cup in the future.