Stars: The big and small of it

The Wife was woken up in the train the other day by a lady. She'd fallen asleep and not been awakened by the shuddering of the train reaching the final stop. The lady told her that the rather muscular, fetching look ticket checker outside asked her to do this good deed. The Wife being the curious sort, automatically went to thank this person, a familiar face, I'm told at the station in question. As it turns out, he offered to buy her a Maaza, which she obviously turned down, but this isn't what you were thinking. This chap had checked her ticket before and had obviously seen her pass through before. More to the point, his name turns out to be Fayyaz Hussain (I'm not sure how Mr Hussain chooses to spell his name). And he, get this, is an medal-winning, India-representing weight lifter. Really. So what's he doing pacing a Mumbai suburban platform checking tickets? He says, 'One's gotta feed oneself, no? This is the sort of job being a national level athlete will get you. But I'm not complaining, it could be worse.'

A few days later, thrumming past SNDT, The Wife and I were rather pleased to see PT Usha on a billboard, advertising something I can no longer recall... er... Nice as it was to see old Usha getting some publicity and hopefully some dosh from all this, at some level, this makes me sick. How come your ability to stand around all day waiting for a rock hard red ball to come your way, or your natural talent to hit it outside the ground or you god given gift of being able to smash the bails into half are the only ways for sportsmen in India to make a decent living then? I think that sucks. I think I'll stop watching cricket in protest. I won't watch anymore cricket until Mid Day can no longer print stories of sportsmen being ill-treated while twelve other gentlemen are paid five figure sums for losing to the under-underdogs.

Oh I forgot, I don't watch cricket any way...