by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jun 11, 2014 | 2014, Brazil, Cultural Differences, Culture, Eye on Culture, India, Purnima, Sports, The Alchemist, World Interviews
Every four years, a large part of the world’s attention descends on one nation – for World Cup Football. Tomorrow, the FIFA World Cup actually starts, and as you all know, the first match is in Sao Paulo, where Brazil takes on Croatia. I was on the phone with fellow World Moms Blog editor, Jennifer Burden, and she asked me if India is excited for the World Cup.
My own family has World Cup fever, inspired by my recent trip to Brazil to report on world poverty and environmental issues, but when I think of the whole of India excited about something sport-related, it is really only cricket that comes to mind!
People in India will watch the World Cup games, but it won’t compare to our country’s level of excitement over cricket.
When it comes to sports, India is a cricket-crazy nation.
INDIA.IS.A.COMPLETE.CRICKET-CRAZY.NATION!
Men, women and kids all watch and/or play and/or have favorites and/or conduct mass prayers and/or do just crazy things for the sake of cricket. There is really no end to it!
Sachin Tendulkar, a cricket player, is like a God to everyone in India. And there is absolutely no limits to what people would do for cricket. It is not just a game. Cricket has a very special life and a very special relationship with this country. It cannot even be explained, however, living in India during the cricket season would say it all.
Let me entertain you with a few crazy things that go on in India around cricket…
People color themselves with the tricolor Indian flag. The tricolor theme is not just clothes and caps, but you can find it also in the school premises, in apartments (flats) — theentire nation in is the colors of the Indian flag for the cricket. The celebrations are as intense, if not more, (ok, I have to be honest- it is the most celebrated event) than even Diwali or the Independence Day.
Check out this picture of a school in Western India where the school children are rooting for the Indian cricket team.
And then people just form throngs everywhere during the actual time the game is telecast. Office-goers, housewives, school-children, get together wherever there is a TV and watch. Homeless people watch cricket on the TV sitting on the streets across an electronics shop (or TV shop). No, they aren’t driven away. Because it is cricket season.
Shopkeepers let the customers watch the match from the shop indefinitely
There are common TV viewing holes in villages like the local tea-stalls, community centers, even movie theaters at times, a common TV in the square of the slum. Oh, there is no end to this kind of thing. These pictures to do the job of explaining the craziness cricket causes for the people of India and the rest of sub-continent countries (Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh).
A tea stall hosting the TV viewing of the cricket match to a gathered crowd of the villagers
The slum dwellers watching the cricket match from a local TV-hole in the slums.
This is a mall in Kolkatta where the finals of the match between India and Sri Lanka is viewed.
This is a movies theater in Karachi, Pakistan where cricket is telecast during the cricket season.
So, now coming back to the FIFA World Cup to be held in Brazil, all that I would say is that, the temperature is slightly lukewarm in comparison to the fever of the cricket playing nation.
Yes, we do talk a lot about it. But I guess that is about it. And, perhaps, some real football fans would watch it because they are really that – football fans.
By the way, did you catch Brazilian World Mom, Eco Ziva’s, post on the World Cup this week?
So what happens in your country? Is it a football-crazy country too? Or does your country live for some other sport?
Photo credit to the author, The Daily Mail and The Atlantic.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog written by Purnima Ramakrishnan, our Senior Editor from India.
by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Jun 9, 2014 | 2014, Brazil, ONE, Spirituality, World Interviews, World Moms Blog Writer Interview
Even if you have heard very little about Brazil, you probably know soccer is a big thing here. In fact, for a long time Brazil was known mostly for its soccer, its Carnaval (its version of Mardi Gras), its beautiful women and, perhaps, its forests. Unfortunately, considering that Brazil is a huge and extremely diverse country in so many senses, that is a very limited view of the country. However, as we are a few days away of the World Cup, today I want to speak about soccer. The World Cup is something that has always brought about an overall sense of excitement, regardless of whether one is or not a soccer lover. It is the time people bring out their flags and most everyone shows a tad of patriotism. Of all of the World Cups I have witnessed in my lifetime, three come to mind. The first is also the first World Cup I remember, held in Mexico, in 1986. I lived in a small town in northeastern Brazil, and I recall being enthralled by the big, spontaneous party in the streets after Brazil won one of the games. There were firecrackers and people parading and dancing in the town plaza.
Others drove up and down the cobblestone streets honking their horns, the vehicles full of people half out of the windows or even on top of the cars, shouting “Brazil, Brazil!”, while waving their flags.
Unfortunately, Brazil did not win that cup, and the heavy silence that followed was a big contrast to that party, even to myself, who barely knew about soccer then and didn’t really understand what was going on. Fast forward to the 1990s. 1994 was a big mark, of course, because Brazil won the cup for the fourth time. I was a teenager and much of the excitement was because so-and-so players were cute. The mother of a friend got a couple of autographs of the team captain for me and a friend of mine, which I still have. The upside was that I was visiting family in the United States, where we watched the games together and where the cup was actually happening (although I didn’t go to any games live). On the other hand, I remember being somewhat bummed because I was still travelling when the players returned to Brazil and paraded in one of the main streets of my city to commemorate the victory. And, of course, there was a big party that I missed. The third cup that I recall with fondness happened in 2006. One of my best childhood friends, who is from India and presently lives in Singapore, came over to visit, and we watched some games together. The World Cup always brings special memories of our friendship as she was a soccer enthusiast (she’s the friend who got the other autograph!), and we always saw the games together as teenagers. Unfortunately, that cup in 2006 was the last time we saw each other in person.
This year, the World Cup will be in Brazil. In fact, one of the games will be in a town neighboring mine. When one of the World Moms Blog editors suggested I write a post about the pre-cup climate here in Brazil it made me realize two things: 1) how detached I have been from this whole World Cup thing lately and how little excitement anticipation of the games have brought me this time 2) a sense that I might not be the only one feeling this way.
The last time the World Cup was held in Brazil was in 1970. Had a World Cup occurred here during my adolescent years, it would have been a big happening for my friends and I! Yet ,now, we have three kids, a demanding job and very little spare time; and what I really have been looking forward to are the days I will have off because of the games and how much overdue work I will get done while others watch the games.
Yes, in case you don’t know, everything stops here during the games that involve Brazil – stores close, companies send their employees home early or TVs get turned on in the companies themselves, and so on. Basically everyone stops to watch the game, no matter what day of the week.
That takes me to the second point. As I said, I have been a little detached from this whole World Cup reality, so I don’t know how accurate the following words will be, but the feeling I get is that the excitement is not as big as it would have been a few years ago, and it probably is a good sign. When it was first decided that the cup would be here in 2014, there truly was a sense of excitement, not only for the championship itself, but because of possible job, business opportunities and the like.
Yet, the years went by and people witnessed millions (billions?) spent on stadiums and other cup-related costs, while so many other essential areas need investment, notably education and health care.
To illustrate, here is a joke that has been going around these days. The parents take their newborn baby to the notary to get his birth certificate. When the notary asks what they are going to name the baby, the mother says: “World Cup Stadium – that way the government will surely invest in him!” As I said, I don’t know how accurate this perception of lesser excitement is, or if I am an anomaly, but if it is true, I take it as a good sign. It means that the population is maturing and that at least part of it won’t fall for the bread and circus trick any longer. Not that the World Cup, soccer or any kind of entertaining is bad in itself – but, as a country, there must be priorities.
Are you a Brazilian mother? If so, do you share the same sentiment? And, for all the World Moms out there, who will you be supporting in the games?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by EcoZiva in Brazil.
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Meredith (USA) | Aug 9, 2013 | Childhood, Competition, Education, Exercise, Family, Health, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Music, Parenting, School, Sports, Stress, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children, Youth Programs
The air is slowly starting to get a bit cooler and the days a bit shorter (well, maybe not in Texas…but I know it is in some parts of the world), and I know it can only mean that fall will be soon approaching. Fall approaching in the Northern Hemisphere also means school starting, schedules to follow, and the onset of after school activities.
I don’t know how it is in your part of the globe, but here in Texas, some children start playing tackle football from the time they can walk (it seems). If they aren’t playing football, then they are playing year round baseball and look like mini major league players. A few months ago, I was talking to a mom of a girl in my son’s grade and she was telling me that both her girls are in ballet two times a week, gymnastics one day a week, one takes piano and the other takes violin lessons. And the same daughter who takes violin lessons, gymnastics and ballet also has to swim four days a week at 7:30 pm at night to be able to compete on the swim team. Her daughter is only going into second grade!!! (more…)
Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.
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