Football... A passionate game

Long back i had scribbled my thoughts on Cricket... Today will shed light on my passionate game.. FOOTBALL...

Played the role of a striker since school days.. But the passion picked up during my engineering after the exposure to English premier league.. Followed the league closely and the World Cup Football was an icing on the cake. We watched the finals between France and Brazil and Zidane's stunning performance made France lift the title effortlessly. We had kept the TV outside our house and 6 families, the old the young all sat to watch this finale midnight and celebrated the victory of our favorite France by bursting fire crackers.

Became a passionate supporter of Newcastle united football club. Watching Shearer was a pleasure and during the early part of this decade we were amongst the top 5 in EPl and regularly played Champions League and UEFA cup. But things started falling apart few years back with the exit of Sir Bobby Robson. Too many coaches and now the club is relegated this season and it will take a herculean effort to get back on track.

Used to play football regularly during my engineering days. I along with Karthi alias chendu as strikers posed great threat to our opposition though they may not agree completely. :-) :-) Our opposition led by Sudi were a good team. Sudi was an excellent dribbler and would run away towards the goal beating players but lacked support at the front :-) Mahendra hated to loose the game. Venki, Biliya, Vachan, Sharath, Bharath, Patel, Nagesh, Sudhanva, Gary, Sandy,and many more played the game passionately. There were many days where we went on playing till 8 PM to decide the winner.. There used to be many controversies but at the end of the day we all took it in the right spirit and post match discussions on many issues other than football was keenly awaited. Injuries were many but the game continued. Elders in the locality used to watch our game and any controversy their words were taken as final.


For most of us Argentine was the favorite team but they never managed to win the World cup since 1990s. We all dream of Argentine lifting the coveted World Cup one day and i feel the day is not far. Argentine are gelling well under the legend Diego Maradona and we have Messi and a bunch of good players.


I really miss those golden days of playing football. But the passion for the game continues and will never die.

Zoozoo: The new brand 'endorser' for Vodafone

IPL 2.0 is going great... more competitive than the previous edition...... But one thing which i eagerly wait during the telecast is the latest ad from Vodafone which does not feature any celebrities but characters called Zoozoos...:-) Creativity at its best... And my favorite one is GET STOCK ALERTS... It just made me burst into laughter considering the way worldwide stock markets are at present...... Read to find more about this sensational ad....

No, they aren’t animated characters. They are human beings who were made to wear body suits. “The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation,” shrugs Rao, which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. “In a sense, it is ‘live’ animation!” he quips, referring to the fact that it was all shot live.


Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films, has directed the commercials, and reveals that the Zoozoos were a big challenge to create. The practical aspects of how they will move, talk, gesticulate and emote were very important. Essentially, costume design and artwork were crucial elements.

“It took me three weeks of pre-production to understand how it will work,” says Varma. There were two fabrics that were considered for the body suits, and one was rejected for it had too many wrinkles and was shiny. The wrinkles would have shown when the characters moved, thereby shattering the illusion of animation. “So we chose the more practical, thicker fabric,” Varma explains.

The production team divided the outfit into two parts: the body and the head. The body part of the outfit was stuffed with foam in some places, while the head was attached separately. To make it look bigger than a human head, a harder material called Perspex was used, which in turn was stuffed with foam (with scope for ventilation).

If one wishes to understand the size of this head, here’s a fact: a human head would typically reach up to the mouth level of this giant Zoozoo head. “We kept the hands and legs thin, which is why we cast women – and occasionally children – wearing the costumes,” says Varma. The thin limbs, contrasted with big bellies and a bulbous head, all add to the illusion that these creatures are ‘smaller’ than humans. Sets were created to suit the size of the Zoozoos.

Cinematically, this ‘size’ was a trick: the creatures look smaller than they actually are on screen, to portray a different world of sorts. For this, the speed of shooting was altered: Nirvana shot it in a high-speed format to make them look the size that they do.

Furthermore, simple sets/backdrops were created and spray painted with neutral Greys – a colour of choice so that attention isn’t diverted from the main characters. For a supposedly ‘outdoor’ shot, even the shadow of a Zoozoo was kept ‘live’ and not done in post production: it was painted in a darker shade of grey on the ground. An even lighting was maintained throughout.

There was virtually no post production work done.

The films were shot by Nirvana in Cape Town, South Africa, with the help of a local production house there, called Platypus.