Vikram’s Talking Points

"We want to reiterate that it’s our constitutional right to enter the temple like others and pray. We want to do it in a peaceful way. If anyone tries to prevent us, it’s up to the administration to deal with them," said Rajkishore Muduli, Dalit Leader, Keredagarh.

With local groups politicising the issue, things have become complicated. A pro-Dalit body plans to hold a rally of around 20,000 people on Sunday.

But upper caste leaders from outside who have been camping in the village say they will not allow the Dalits to enter the temple.

"We are opposed to their entry. We want caste-based discrimination to go from our constitution, polity and education. Only then we will allow them entry. We have decided to block all routes and even sleep on the roads to ensure the rally doesn’t enter the village," said Seshdev Nanda, Leader, Uchcha Jaati Vikash Parishad.

Orissa Dalits hope to enter Jagannath temple

You know, I was going to write a tribute in honor of the Travancore temple entry proclamation, whose anniversary was November 12. But because of events like this, I cannot in good conscience do so.

Shame.

"The reason why lovers never tire of each other’s company is that the conversation is always about themselves."

 Let’s face it: most Americans don’t give a stale cereal flake about football, except, of course, when it’s World Cup time; that’s when the inveterate poseurs among them seek out the most "authentic" Guatemalan or Senegalese or Brazilian pub they can find in Brooklyn to claim that elusive moment of communal frisson unavailable to the network TV-watching rabble. It is the rare, self-aware one who knows he’s really an anthropologist stalking the natives, all the while claiming sympathy for them.

I happen to like football, particularly English football, which has a very bad reputation for hooliganism and racism, some of it deserved. Why? Well, I too wan’t to be a little different. I grew up galled at the ethnocentric nature of American sports- how everything (like baseball and American football) is really a variant of something else, usually British, modified to suit whatever it is that’s allegedly singular about this place.

This Sunday, the top two teams in the Premiership (that’s what they call the English league) - Manchester United and Chelsea - are playing for the first time this season; they are currently 1 and 2 in the standings. Chelsea, my team, is owned by a Russian oligarch named Roman Abramovich who has no compunction about spending all of his money on star players, such as Ukrainian international Andrei Shevchenko, pictured in the photograph above. He also plays the Russian national anthem at the start of every home match (home is London), and reputedly "finishes off" contentious business associates.

Besides Shevchenko, Chelsea also boasts German international Michael Ballack, English Captain John Terry and Sierra Leone striker Didier Drogba, who may be the best player in Europe at the moment. The most famous player on Manchester United is the punctilious Englishman Wayne Rooney, who has the unfortunate countenance of a frustrated bulldog, and Portuguese diva Christiano Ronaldo, whose corrupt, thespian antics at the World Cup invited international ridicule. (He even faked an injury to try to have his teammate Rooney ejected from the Portugal-England quarterfinal match!)

As excited as I am, I know these matches never live up to their hype. I predict an enervating defensive mashup, with many gratuitous fouls. Prediction: 1-1 tie.

Here’s to the ever alacritrous (and inebriated) fans of Chelsea:

Carefree wherever you may be,

We are the famous CFC.

And we don’t give a fuck,

Wherever you may be,

‘Cos we are the famous CFC.